Anxiety.
What a passive-aggressive feeling that is. I’ve been trying to make up words to describe anxiety, or even just talk about it in general, but even that I am scared of.
I am scared of anxiety, hell, I am terrified of it.
Ask me about anything, and I can describe it. Depression? It’s a crippling crumbling wall in my chest saying; “I think the pain will last forever.”
But anxiety? No. The idea that I am actually trying to write about it is bringing tears to my eyes. A monster that keeps stepping on my head, and everything in me. Anxiety? It is a dagger dipped in every negative feeling in the world that stabs my heart every second of every day.
There is no distraction. There is no escape. Anxious at work? Wait until you get home and get to reminisce on the emptiness. Want to go out with friends? Awesome, the humiliation and the failure begin. Being alone? What a lovely opportunity to let me burn your flesh alive.
It is more than a feeling of “I’m not good enough” or “people are judging me” or “there is only darkness in the world.” It is more than overthinking and stressing; it is more than fear itself (even though the closest thing to anxiety is fear).
I cannot even talk about it to my therapist. I feel so mundane by only saying that word; “anxiety” as if it mocks me. “Are you snitching on me? You think that’ll help you? You think he cares? You think he believes you? You think you can ever describe the way I make you feel?”
“I can make your legs tremble with weakness, and your morning bleak with vomit, and your nights drown in tears. I can make your dreams a living hell, and your days an abyss. I can make you not only fear of tomorrow but also fear of yesterday, of today, of right damn now. Because you, Nour, is a beast. You, Nour, do not deserve to live. You, Nour, when everyone is starving and everything is breaking, are most ungrateful. Because you, Nour, are selfish and ugly and inhumane”.
I’ll admit, the monster is not always as awakened. But lately, it’s been kicking my guts at least twice a week, sometimes even five days in a row. Am I scared? No, being just ‘scared’ is a complete underestimation of the fire it makes me feel. I am losing my head from the unsafety of all of this, I am terrified of leaving this chair right now, at this moment, I am afraid to breathe.
Anxiety cannot be God-made, it simply cannot. He cannot have created something so evil. It can make the smartest feel stupid, the richest feel poorest, the most athletic feel crippled, the strongest feel weakest.
Sometimes the monster allows me to show it to my therapist, and it is that moment that I feel grateful. My therapist helps a lot, but I laugh when he tells me; “remember, Nour, it is all in your head.”
I know that. You don’t see me holding anxiety’s hands, do you? I obviously know that it is only in my head and that most of it is not real, but knowing is different that feeling. I wish I can stop myself from feeling.
I wish I could shut it all out.
Everything.
All of it.