my little ghost under the bed

I’ve actually been sick for the past couple of days – no doubt brought on the extreme amounts of pressure I put on myself. I feel like I need a vacation – which is a sad thing seeing as that’s what this is supposed to be. I’ve made this stint in Paris have to be about something – it has to have an end result and so instead of making it just fun and light and seeing what amazing results come of it – I’ve made it a mission. A mission to write a book, a mission to fall in love (that one I thought was just a joke in my head until I realized that yeah, I actually had built up that expectation and as the month past I realized I was growing depressed and desperate about it). It’s turned into this heavy, dark, full of anxiety, self doubt and pressure trip – and so, my little body – said, ‘F You tyrant bitch, I’m taking a T.O. and you can just lie in bed for the next few days and think about what you’ve done.’

So that’s where I’ve been, cooped up in my apartment, tumbling down a stairwell of anxiety – so much so, that I’ve more then flirted with the idea of leaving. Packing up and going home a failure. None of my missions have been accomplished and now I’m wasting even more time lying in bed being sick and I should just be home where things are easier and where I have work to do that can get done and I can feel better about myself because I will be achieving goals – knocking things of the list and above all – distracting myself from feeling lonely and alone. But then my mind quickly races to the fact that I can’t leave. I have something to prove to myself. To cut my trip short is weak and pathetic and so more anxiety got piled on. Anxiety that I will be seen as a failure (mostly to myself), anxiety that I might be missing out on something here or that if I had only held out I would have found it. All of this out of control head spinning left me feeling like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and just sitting for two minutes without scrabbling for a distraction was literally – impossible.

My problem is, when I’m like this, I can make a descion, nothing seems appealing and everything seems meaningless my inner dialogue goes something like this – ‘I’ll go get something to eat, ok, good, but then I’d have to get dressed, ok, I’ll eat something here, no, I’ll read a book, it’s more engaging, ok, I hate all the books I brought, ok, I’ll watch a DVD, no, I can’t watch a DVD in Paris, I should go out, not that means dressing again, ok, here I’ll meditate, ahhh, meditation means sitting still and I will surly trip out, am I tripping out right now?!? oh shit, go get a pill, no wait I can’t, I can handle this, the pills might not work anyway and then you’ll have no safety net, better wait till it gets really bad, ok, I’ll call a friend, no it’s 4am in Canada, fuck, ok, I should eat something….’

Trust me, it’s torture. And that’s just goes on in a two minute span – try dealing with it for a few days. Nut case.

However, I am vowing not to live with this forever and up until yesterday, when I was talking to a friend of mine, it never occurred to me that I didn’t have to. That anxiety is something that can actually go away, like for good, and not just something that I have to grit my teeth, clamp my eyes shut and bare! Hooray! I think this trip (even though it’s not supposed to have a point to it) is about that. It’s about finally facing up to this awful dark little part of me that I’m terrified of and that just the terror of it getting me and enveloping my mind is terrifying.

Instead of running away from it or trying to burry it under achievements or relationships or distractions, I’ve got to embrace it. See that there is a part of me that is absolutely stricken with fear of being alone, that she’s little and lost and hurt and feels so unloved and that’s it – she’s not some aweful monster with the power to make me miserable, all she wants is some help and a friend – sort of like the dead people in the sixth sense are. But, just like when the dead people appear in the movie, it’s at first scary. The temperature in the room drops in an instant, the hairs on your body stand on end and an erie tripping, panic feeling overtakes you – but it’s not meant to hurt you, that’s just how you know they are present.

I now see my anxiety as that little girl ghost that Haley Joel Osment finally befriends (you know that one that had barf spurting out of her mouth because she was poisoned by her step-mom). I have to see that the ghost of the little girl under the bed isn’t there to terrorize me and hunt my life she’s just petrified and lost and looking for help. And so instead of seeing that little girl and having every hair on my body stand on edge out of fear of her and trying to escape her being in the same room as me, I need to be the bigger person, the adult and try to make her feel better, I need to crawl under the bed with her and in a clam and loving voice, say ‘hey, there, I’m not going to hurt you and I’m not afraid of you. Can I come under here with you? You look really afraid and I want to help you. First off, let’s clean that puke off your chin because it’s kind of hard for me to look at, then come here so I can give you a hug and let’s work out why you are feeling so afraid right now’.

I am finally getting that she pops up and scares the living shit out of me for a reason – she has something to tell me, something important to say about us. That we are not where we are supposed to be – that whatever situation I’ve gotten myself into isn’t working – whether that be a relationship I’m in, or a state of mind I’ve gotten myself into (ie: like this one of I’ve got to write this book damn it, I’ve got to fall in love, damn it).

I’ve someway abandoned myself (and her) and she is showing up to get recognized so we can get back on track again and stop with the distractions and the fillers. It’s funny looking back on my two years in my toxic relationship and noticing that there were so many mornings where I’d wake up covered in sweat, my heart racing, stomach cramping, vision tunneled and sure enough, if I’d only been able to see her, I’d noticed all these symptoms as her being present – that if I rolled over, I’d see she’d be lying right beside me. If I’d been able to hear her, she would have whispered in my ear ‘we deserve better then this, how come you don’t love me enough to make us stop hurting?’.

So that’s who “Anxiety” is, my little ghost. I think I’ll call her ‘Anix’ for short. Sounds cute. And I want to learn to love her. To understand and get that she is here for a reason and the reason is to help me, and in order to help me, she needs me to help her first. We are a little team. Gooooooooo Anxiety!