Hopeless, Copeless Anxiety (Journal Entry)

Aug 3, 2016
2 min read

I awaken each morning in the same fashion.

My eyes open, my thoughts are indistinct. I am conscious, and often mildly content. But there is a moment between haze and crisply articulated thoughts where I know that clarity of thought is coming, where I am aware that I am about to remember what insufferable agony I am in, or I have been in. A moment before it all sinks in, that I have experienced true pain, or that I have let someone down, once or a thousand times, in actuality or in the fictional thoughts that swim in my mind as tangibly as actual happenings.

And then it hits. My breath leaves me all at once, my chest is tight, panic rushes in. I can stave the moment off for a minute or ten, by falling back to sleep, by imagining outfits, or fantasising about passionate encounters. But the panic is inevitable, and debilitating. Still, I am an adult, I am a mother. I must function, I must ensure my child’s happiness and health and believe me, that is the only thing in the world that matters to me. There have been days on end where my offspring is the only reason I bothered to breathe, when I would have preferred to hold my breath and die. So when I am able, I force my legs over the edge of the bed, and make my way into the real world.

…barely.

Image Credit: https://poetryqueen20.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/tears-of-a-broken-girls-heart/ Link Content Trigger Warning: Poetry from a Rape Victim's Perspective.

I have tried medication, and it made this far worse. I will try again, because the darkness has come back with a bitter vengeance, and I cannot – with my usual methods of willpower and positive self-talk – seem to defeat it. PTSD, PNAD – so many potential contributing factors, each acronym allowing me a little wriggle-room of acceptance that I am sick, so sick, and it’s not just all “in my head,” as I spent my teenage years being entirely certain of. I WILL get better. But it WILL take time.