Today, the truth is that I’m fucking tired. Bear with me, because this is going to be a slew of unedited and unfiltered thoughts and complaints from the side of me who is completely fed up. Some days I wake up like this. Some days I don’t. I could feel it last night - attaching itself to the back of my neck. I put on a meditation audio. Shut my eyes tight. Progressive muscle relaxation - tense, release, tense, release, tense - trying to both allow the sensations while simultaneously chasing them away with positive vibes. Visualisation. My safe place. Even so, in the middle of the night I woke up terrified. Figures in the darkness, standing by the bed. I knew they were just shadows of the room, but its the jarring first reaction of my body to feel the most intense fear before all else. I dreamt about people standing in a row, in battle. Arms linked, holding steady against the enemy. I dreamt that the enemy came up and ripped all of their heads off, one by one.
The thing is, I wasn’t expecting this. I knew the side effects would be nasty. The swimming head, the slow line of sight, the electric feeling on my skin. I knew that I’d feel hopeless; that I’d question it all - is it worth this? Am I going to be able to do it? I’m so ready to throw in the towel.
But what I forgot to expect was that every emotion is going to be new. Like getting your eyesight corrected after years of wearing glasses: you are seeing the same things as always, but it’s as if you’ve never seen them this way before. It took me a while to catch on, that its been years since I’ve really felt. Years since I’ve had an emotion that arrived naked - not dulled by a pill.
It begins with the cramps - a clutching in my stomach. Before I even open my eyes, it’s as if the weight of it all has settled on my skin in the night, and my body is finally awake enough to react. Louise Hay said the cause of diarrhoea is ‘Fear. Rejection. A running away.’ My body is running away from my mind.
Or maybe it’s the other way around.
Either way, we are here - week three of tapering, each day getting worse than the one before. In the beginning, it was like a science experiment. What symptoms am I feeling today? I wonder, if I wake up at 5:30am to meditate each day, will it be enough to support my mental state? Now, it’s less of an experiment and more of an observation. A slipping away from myself. The me that stands by and wonders, at which point will she refuse to go any further?
Hello, and welcome.
My name is Lauren, and I am a thirty-something from Melbourne, Australia who happens to have an anxiety disorder. I am also a mother of one, a lover of cheesy old music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, an avid reader, a writer, and somebody who feels deeply and loves fiercely. I am glad you are here.
This weekend, we went camping on a whim. We booked on the friday night, left on the saturday morning. It was 3.5hours , or 200km away from home. A big ask for one night away, but I find it hard to ignore that little voice that tugs at my consciousness and asks for adventure.
Despite the longish drive, the trip there passed without much anxiety. I did things that I previously avoided - for example, I usually dont like to drink water before I go somewhere, because then I need to pee, and needing to pee makes me anxious. I also wasnt going to eat my lunch until we arrived, incase the sandwich somehow made me sick (less of a vote of confidence for my sandwich making skills and more about how far I'll go to avoid the slightest possibility of discomfort),