Anxiety

This week has been a little tougher than what I’ve been used to lately. But I know, and I keep repeating in my head, that there are ups and downs to everything in life―including anxiety. There’s been a lot of it recently, and it’s a huge black blot on my mind. When general anxiety comes on like this, it’s both surprising and familiar, like when someone hugs you from behind and you feel uncomfortable because you don’t know who it is. But I do know what it is. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. I now understand the power that anxiety wields in my life. I suppose this means I am no longer walking blind, just wondering why things are so hard.

I wish I didn’t think about anxiety so often. It seems to be the main thing flowing from my fingers right now though. It’s taking over, affecting my life, intercepting every other thought, occupying the muscles in my forehead and neck and shoulders, destroying my appetite, ruining my conversations. It can make me selfish and short-sighted. I close myself off from the world. I know it’s hard for other people to understand; sometimes even I can’t understand.

I know I can be better at controlling how much it affects me, but recently I’ve lost my grasp a little. I’ve let it take over more than I should have. And as always, life flows on without me, not stopping to let me catch up. Like all the times before, I just have to pick myself up and hope that the people around me and the world in general will not stop giving me a chance to do better. I have to hope that I will give myself a chance to do better. I wonder whether there will be a day when I no longer have to talk about it.