Broken Sails: An Ode to Accepting My Anxiety
It’s as if I can hear what my anxiety says: You’re not good enough. You’re not pretty enough. Don’t eat that. You shouldn’t drink this. They’re looking at you. Hurt yourself. You heard me.
It torments my brain and there are days that I wake and find myself immobilized by the internal escapist shouting rumors: A torrential outpour through the ringing of a woman’s voice. She cries and as I listen, I slowly begin to recognize the voice. In a moment of depersonalization melded with the subtle regard of my own ego, I hear her with clarity— I hear my own voice—and I am suddenly listening. My dear, I am here.
Having an anxiety disorder placard on my head as a fifteen year old seemed briefly explanatory for the shyness I felt in public settings. The rough remittance of mascara-stained T-shirts did not at the time register as a symptom to which I was battling severe episodes of anxiety, it remained only a mere inconvenience to my maladaptive temperament. You see, fifteen wasn’t necessarily a late age, nor was it an early age, but it was certainly a bad age.
At sixteen, I learned that it was generalized anxiety, and when the weight of this full encompassing spectrum fell onto my lap, I began to suffer. I was grabbed by the legs and dragged down a vaguely melancholic set of stairs, my head snapping back after every step until I was at the bottom and black was all around me. This suffering was at its worst when I was eighteen.
I’m twenty now, and still learning, but there are moments that feel like the world is caving in around me, and all I can do is block the rubble from landing on my neck and killing me. When it gets to this point, I become numb. I am cold, my fuse short, and agitation consumes me. I’m purple in the hands and my toes are blue. The voices only fall silent when my throat becomes sore from screaming.
Describing this to someone is terrifying. Instead, I nestle it into deep corners of myself so that the danger I feel does not begin to affect others. I shove it down further until my lungs are full of fluid and there is no more oxygen left to breathe. With my breath held and my lungs red, the anxiety feels most inclined to shout. I can picture tongues flicking as mouths settle their homes next to my ear, their echoes snickering deceit. They would be black and drip slimey liquid onto my shoulder, and I could do nothing in my tensed state of terror but nod my head and swallow my doubt. Soothing my fear with irrationality, they would sing seducing yet familiar songs of my own detriment and I would hum along.
I would watch my sense of self, the very thing that I once felt could save me, slowly drip into a puddle of self-loathing tendencies and tears. As the anxiety repeated itself, the words would begin to sound like reassurance, like affirmations —and I would begin to believe them. This is the worst of it all, when they start sounding right. It is my voice after all, wasn’t I taught to believe in myself?
But I was taught more than that. And I have learned more than that.
I learned that I change as the years do and that it is okay to be uncertain. It is okay to feel scared. I have learned to accept my anxiety.
I have grown and I have suffered, but through both I have learned. I have settled my peace with my anxiety. While I don’t believe it anymore, I do still listen to it. I affirm to myself that my anxiety is okay to experience, but that does not make it true.
It is a challenging process to navigate, but I have learned that the moment which means the most to me is the quiet after the storm. The period of stillness after a tumultuous rebirth of anxiety where processing and reflections can take shape, manifesting similarly to the way reds, greens and blues appear brighter after a morning downpour. I have learned that this moment of reflection is best experienced alone, and I have grown content in this quiet.
I become more observant as my years pass me by. I’ve become aware that in unsettling environments like highly competitive college classes, codependent familial relationships or staggering sexual relationships, the anxiety can flare up and things can get scary again. There are days that feel like my house is built with rusty nails and this ship I am on is masted with broken sails, but I have learned to work with the wind and continue on. If you are willing to dive into yourself and abruptly lean into the very vulnerable authenticities of your psyche, you can start to look at those broken sails in appreciation rather than condemnation.
I am almost twenty-one now, and the days become brighter with each sunrise. The blissful sound of morning surrounds me. I feel whole in the sunlight. The voices are gone, my mind is calm. Every year I witness myself reborn, and as I feel my skin shedding to reveal the smoothed pale skin I have come to embrace, a layer of my anxiety sheds, too.
I have grown to appreciate each part of myself, no matter how big nor how small. They have gotten me to the places I am today and I have only gratitude to express my love for this journey. I have learned and I continue to do so. And so will you.