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Anxiolytic Isn’t Even in the DictionaryI grit my jaw. I bite the skin around my nails. I pull at my hair. I bunch my fists. My breaths are shallow. I twitch and clench erratically.
I tell myself not to grit, bite, pull, bunch, twitch and clench. I tell myself to intake more air. Those instructions are followed. For moments. And then they’re not. While I wasn’t looking I started gritting, biting, pulling, bunching, twitching, and clenching all over again.
These are tiny, little words. The barely seem to warrant entries in dictionaries bloated with words like crunk (a type of hip-hop or rap music) and yogilates (a combination of Pilates and yoga), and yet somehow they have achieved great significance in my life.
Anxiety and depression always come in pairs. The each cover half a sphere. How much you feel of each of them depends on your point of view of the sphere.
I was never an anxious person before. Or at least, I was never inordinately anxious, I think. But then came the psych meds and so the anxiety. Anxiety – the side effect that’s it’s own mental illness.
And now I worry. And I’m overwhelmed. Frozen with the fear of things not getting done . . . leading to the very obvious result of things not getting done.
Natasha Tracy is an award-winning writer, speaker, advocate, and consultant from the Pacific Northwest. She has been living with bipolar disorder for 26 years and has written more than 2000 articles on the subject.
Find more of Natasha’s work in her acclaimed book: "Lost Marbles: Insights into My Life with Depression & Bipolar" on Amazon.
Connect with Natasha at the social media links below.
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BlackEyedDog:
Don't hate yourself for being anxious. It's the anxiety that's causing the hate.
Give yourself a break. Take a deep breath. It's OK to feel the anxiety. It's just your brain misfiring.
Yes, I know it's difficult or painful to look at how life used to be before illness and medication. I feel trapped too. A lot of us do. Try to remember the small victories. Did you take a shower today? Did you get the mail? Did you do the dishes? Did you feed your cat? Did you make your bed? These are the small victories you can celebrate while you work on making even bigger ones :)
my nails look like shit too-.- Sometimes I really HATE myself for being anxious…I'd been independent before all this started and now I'm at home, forced to sit around like a nursing case…I'm trapped in my own damn body.
Annoying, isn't it? Makes my fingers look like crap.
I bite the skin around my nails, too.