Anx(anax)iety

I’m supposed to wake up early tomorrow, you know, to catch the early worm and all that, yet here I am, not resting at all.

Earlier this evening, even with my (recently increased) dose of Tryptizol, the knots in my stomach and the racing pictures in my mind would not allow me to do much besides slip into a place of discontentment and pain. It’s an awful feeling, anxiety; I would probably rather be depressed. It comes at me in tsunami waves at random intervals throughout the day. You want to burst into tears, you can’t sit still for a second, you feel like your bones are made of gelatine, you can hear your heartbeat in your head and, worst of all, you can’t distract yourself for a minute.

Luckily for me, I have plenty of Xanax. All of the physically bothersome symptoms have subsided as I write this, but my thoughts are still racing, and I’m still struggling to think about anything besides the crippling uneasiness.

When you say that you feel anxious, the usual implication is that you are anticipating the results of something which you cannot predict with complete certainty; whether it’s an upcoming exam, or meeting your girlfriend’s parents, or a confrontation with a close friend after a fight. You just need to know where you stand. Not knowing means not being able to plan around it, and make the most of the situation.

My anxiety is slightly more complicated.

I’m anxious because the man I love, and have been with for the last 16 months, is married. I’m anxious because he might kiss her sometimes. I almost have a panic attack when I see pictures of them smiling together. I’m anxious because my two best friends are married to women who will never accept me into their little group, and so we've separated our social lives to an extent most friends would never have to. I'm anxious because I'm sick of being lonely. I’m anxious because a woman, who I thought would be a good friend to me, did me wrong, and has avoided me ever since. I’m anxious because I’m always on the outside. I’m anxious because I’m never “one of us”. I’m anxious because I don’t want the world to see me as an extra person. I want to be a crucial person. I’m anxious because I’m not sure if I like who I am.

None of these things may sound like reasons to be anxious.... unhappy, maybe, but not anxious. To me, it suddenly makes sense that these situations bring me close to panic attacks. I want to know where I stand. I want to know if my boyfriend loves me, and if he will eventually leave his wife. I want to know if he loves her. I want to know if I will ever fit in with a group of people and truly be one of them. I want to know why my friend did me wrong. I want to know why she won’t talk to me about it. I can’t decide whether I should show up to a social event and feel reminded that I don’t have a group of friends to stick with, or if I should skip the event all together and feel left out once the pictures have been uploaded.

I want to know where I stand.

It’s the anticipation of one day finding out that is killing me. With everything floating up in the air, I have little-to-no security, and no rock to hold on to. That’s what anxiety means to me; a lack of security. What I would give to find security. It’s an awfully difficult feeling to shake... but like I said, I have Xanax.

Lots and lots of Xanax.

Sunday 25th April 2010

Right now, I have everything I need.

A mood stabiliser to keep me relatively sane; Ritalin to keep me functioning; Tryptizol to put me to sleep at night; Xanax to shake the feeling that my stomach is about to implode; and Marlboro Lights... well, because I'm an addict.

I’ve been surprised to discover in recent times that, even with the right meds, life is utter shit- a secret I feel I should have been let in on. I may not be going into hysterics over trivial matters, or contemplating suicide every other day, but I’m starting to see that even when I’m not in a state of clinical depression, there are plenty of reasons to be unhappy. It wasn’t all in my head. I’m still not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

It was late January of this year that I first went to see a psychiatrist, more than a decade after I started fantasizing about suicide. As I write this I am twenty-two. She told me that it usually took more than one session to diagnose a patient, but that I was a textbook example of someone with Bipolar Disorder. By my second session she told me that I also seemed to fit the bill for Borderline Personality Disorder- a state of destructive, self-loathing neuroticism that borders on full-blown psychosis. By my third session she tried to figure out how my complex eating disorder could fit in nicely with the first two diagnoses, along with some obsessive-compulsive habits I felt inclined to mention. By my fourth session she unofficially diagnosed me as a Psychiatrists Worst Nightmare. I had all sorts of destructive behavioural patterns that she just couldn’t fit nicely under one umbrella. I could see the worry on her face. When she started me on an anti-psychotic, even though I’ve never experienced psychosis, I could tell she was just throwing pills at me and hoping for the best.

I stopped seeing her.

While it didn’t surprise me that even a mental health professional found me to be too complicated, the knowledge of my depression came as a huge shock to my parents, who quickly spiralled into shame and guilt for not having seen it. Suddenly, my behaviour throughout childhood started to make sense to them. The truth is, my parents could never have guessed it from the perfectly put-together way in which I have presented myself in the last five years. There are only two people in the world that know the full extent of it all, and besides these two people, everyone around me would describe me as a strong-minded, independent person, and (at least I hope) a classy woman. I only face the world on a day that I know I can handle it. If I’m depressed, I stay home. Staying home and wallowing in my sorrow has been something of a hobby of mine for many years. No one does it better.

I spent the last two days doing just that. I cried until my tear ducts failed me. I starved until bathroom trips posed a fainting hazard. I lined up all the pills, knifes and booze I could find and thought long and hard about which I should use. I placed a notebook on the bed beside me with the "I'm-sorry-I-just-couldn't-live-like-this-any-more" letter inside- for who am I to question tradition? Last, but not least, I sent my lover a goodbye text message- not very romantic, I know, but we are in the age of technology.

To keep a long story short, my night of suicide planning took a turn after a conversation over the phone with the aforementioned lover, and I figured I could hold on just a little longer. Mostly, I just couldn’t come up with a classy way to go. I may be mad, but I am still a lady.

I doubled up on the Tryptizol and went to sleep.