A few words on fighting anxiety and depression
Sometimes it feels like kicking things. Throwing things. Smashing things. Walls, fists, plates.
The release relief is temporary. It knows. I know. But it needs out.
Except out is also temporary.
That’s when it most needs holding, corralling into a pen of breath and space. It runs itself out eventually, thrashing, scaling invisible walls. Laughs twisted from the ceiling, a demon-possessed person in a horror movie.
I watch it. Observe. Try not to judge. Acknowledge. Don’t engage it in conversation. Listen.
It needles me with mistakes, tries to convince me I’m just made wrong. I give it more space, more breath. It moves on to the next thing. How could you have done-said-thought-eaten that? There is always a next thing.
I let it seethe when all I want to do is hurl it out just to be rid of it. But in the world it has more power. It hurts: grazed feelings, imperceptible wounds.
Sometimes when it’s done belittling and berating, I feel better. Accomplished. Other times I only feel spent.
I can’t outpace or outsmart it, but I can outlast it. We can coexist that way.
When it revs up, I give it room. I let it spit its bile, but don’t ingest. I let it talk, but don’t take its words for truth.
Its discourse is hot air, stale from years of repeating the same stifling patterns. I tell myself this when we aren’t in the throes of it. When I can see my progress and potential. When hope can have her say.
And then I remind myself when we do get into it. Not always; I forget, sometimes. But the more I do it, the better I remember. The more strength I get over time. Not power or control.
Finesse moves, subtle shifts.
