Here I am showing up today, but yesterday was the hard day. Yesterday was the day that I retreated like a hermit crab into my shell. Someone is passing by...retreat. Hide. And the darkness of my lonely shell felt miserable. All day long I struggled with my anxious thoughts. My triggers were high and I was feeling like a girl caught in the rip current of the ocean, forgetting which way to swim out from the rip current (the signs always tell you at the entrance of the ocean...but who can remember when they're actually caught in a scary rip current!?!) So there I was struggling. Too embarrassed to post anything on my anxiety support group Facebook page...that I happened to create. Me...the one who talks about being vulnerable and real and showing up to your life. Yes, even me. I still struggle. Even after paying way too much for counseling (I'm too embarrassed to say how much I have estimated paying for counseling!) I still hide on a day like yesterday. I will say that I didn't stay in bed. I did my best to do what I have learned from all that expensive counseling despite feeling fearful, anxious, and caught in a hamster wheel of anxious thoughts.
Even though I knew that my brain was doing its addictive anxious thought patterns, I really didn't do much to divert it. I got on the internet and researched how to eat better, what supplements I should take...all those dangerous no-nos that I have already told myself I should NOT do on an anxiety day. But there I was...saying "no big deal, it's just a few clicks. I won't do this for a long time like last time..." slippery slope words... (yes, denial words...)
But somewhere in the midst of my early evening I looked out the window (which we have a lot of in our house, thankfully) and noticed the beauty. It triggered a healthy thought (oh, thank you counselor for embedding some healthy thought seeds into my brain!)...look outside, notice the beauty, distract my anxious fear brain, be thankful. Practice gratitude! Oh yeah, gratitude. All day long I was thinking about all that was miserable about my life. My itchy itchy neck from eating something the day before. Feeling despair that my neck will always be itchy. Thinking that maybe I can never eat again...stuck. Trapped. Despair. Fear. Anxiety. THEN, that beautiful thought of "oh, there is still so much beauty around me! Still so much to be thankful for. Lift your eyes up! See. Notice!" For a moment I breathed deeper. I noticed. I saw the beauty. And as I kept making myself do this each time the fear thoughts would say "no no, be worried. think about us. fix your problems!" I noticed that I was able to have a little more breathing room. To remember that this too will pass. There is still sunshine and beauty in this world. My fear is not the whole reality. I do not have to stay in the darkness. My fear is just fear. But look, there is light, and beauty still!!! Light is greater than darkness. Light a small candle in a dark cave and you will notice the light.
As I lay in bed my neck was still very itchy, reminding me of something I should be very very worried about. But I decided to turn my thoughts to beauty, and what I am thankful for. To remind myself that this will pass. I'm going to be ok. And God is still with me. And I felt a flicker of...hope, and maybe even joy (these are not familiar feelings...I'm still learning what they feel like!) And I fell asleep...
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