I hug and kiss my family goodbye and see them to the door.
I tell them to have fun, be safe, don’t forget to reapply sunscreen and definitely don’t forget to call me once you get there and when you leave.
I head over to the kitchen table to move their breakfast dishes to the dishwasher.
My stomach does not want food this morning.
The tears start to come and the dance begins.
The dance starts off like a slow waltz and eventually picks up the pace to somewhat of a foxtrot.
My thoughts are interrupted as I hear the front door open.
I blink away tears and look over my shoulder to see my nephew standing there with arms wide open.
He forgot to hug me goodbye so he came back in.
He tells me he loves me and as he turns to run down the front lawn he calls over his shoulder, “enjoy the quiet Auntie.”
He has a younger sister…he appreciates the quiet.
I shut the front door and turn around to take a deep breath.
It is indeed quiet.
I often crave peace and quiet, but then when it arrives so do the thoughts.
Irrational thoughts.
Thoughts that I am very well aware of just how irrational they are and yet I can’t prevent them or make them stop once they start knocking.
I have, however, learned to manage them.
I’m often asked what does it feel like? Can you describe the thoughts or how you get to that place?
I’ve been asked these questions by professionals, but more often by people who love me and are simply trying to understand where I’m coming from in these moments.
So here is my usual response:
I know that the things that cause my anxiety are usually irrational thoughts.
It’s like there are two Ambers.
One on each shoulder.
And they battle each other.
One Amber has these awful horrible thoughts swirling through her head and they send her into a very overwhelmingly dark place.
The other Amber knows very well that the things she worries about happening are highly unlikely.
Possible? Yes. But highly unlikely to happen.
What does it feel like?
Well, it feels like I’m drowning.
I feel like I am in the middle of some vast beautiful lake and suddenly something pulls me under.
I begin to flail, but no one is around to hear me, to help me.
I get my head above the water only to be yanked back under again as though something has a hold of my feet.
I begin to swallow big gulps of water, gasping for air.
I rise above the water, take a breath, go back under.
Eventually I make it to the shore, but once I arrive I’m exhausted.
All of my energy has been exerted and there’s nothing left.
So, yeah, I feel like I’m drowning and I am fully aware that my thought process is not “normal”.
What the hell IS normal anyway?!?!
I used to have full blown panic attacks.
Over the years I developed tools that I can access before I get to that point and the attacks haven’t happened in over 10 years.
What did those feel like?
Like I was going to die.
Hyperventilating with my heart pounding in my ears.
Unable to catch my breath and feeling like my heart was either going to rip its way clear through my chest or suddenly decide it couldn’t do it anymore and stop.
I used to watch the news every evening. After all, I needed to know what was going on in the world around me, right?
When Brea was an infant I sat watching the news one evening. I will never forget it…
An older veteran nearly beaten to death by three teenage boys, a man found driving nails into his dog’s head and a mentally ill mother drowned her 3 babies in a tub while her husband was at work.
I sat staring at the tv in horror and felt mySelf losing faith in humanity.
How can such cruel things go on in a world where there is so much beauty and love?
That day I made a decision to be the beauty and the love in the world.
I turned off the news and I have never once watched the news since then.
Does this mean that I live in a bubble and have no idea what is going on in the world?
Absolutely not.
I am well aware of what goes on in the world.
I just can no longer bear to allow the media to influence my thoughts.
To twist things to instill fear.
When you’re on social media you can’t help but see and hear things you wish you hadn’t.
I can only imagine how hard it is for someone who doesn’t have to manage anxiety to understand what it feels like when the thoughts come.
I once believed I was hard to love. I’ve come to realize that the parts of me that are more complicated and difficult to understand are also the parts of me that bring so much beauty and light into the world.
My heightened awareness and sensitivity to everything around me is what allows me to pick up on the most subtle signs that someone is not ok.
They are what keep me tuned in to mySelf, my whole Self, those around me and the Universe at large.
I am an empath and
I. Feel. Everything. So. Very. Deeply.
Everything.
The truth is I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If my suffering from anxiety, and I was suffering, and learning to manage it is a tradeoff for being tuned in, then I will take that because my alternative would be to allow mySelf to become numb, desensitized.
My choice to believe in humanity and love and the fact that there is SO much more good in the world than the media would like us to believe is a conscious choice that I make each day.
I choose to be the love and the beauty in the world because the truth is my world can grow dark very quickly if I don’t keep a good handle on it.
I know mySelf. MySelf and I…we are pretty intimate and I know my limits.
I've had to work pretty hard to get my people to respect my limits.
To help them get to a place of knowing that they don’t have to understand my thought process, but they do need to respect it.
The struggle is real.
When my thoughts take over it is very real.
When someone I love hops on a plane to go on a trip and I envision a horrible plane crash on the news…
The struggle is real.
When someone I care about says I need to talk to you about something and I start to weave all these horrible stories in my head, usually where I have done something terribly wrong…
The struggle is real.
When someone who knows and loves me slips and tells me some horrible news story and I can’t sleep for days…
The struggle is real.
When my family walks out the door to go to a water park and I immediately start to worry about a horrible car crash on the highway or, god forbid, a water park fatality…
The struggle is real.
But what is also very real is my faith in humanity, my belief that there is more love and good in the world than what we get to hear about and my ability to not only have empathy for you, but also for mySelf.
I have moved mountains as far as my anxiety goes.
Anxiety that was caused by trauma.
Trauma that I have chosen to turn into grace.
And yes, there are still moments when it feels like I am trying to roll a giant boulder up one of those mountains, but more often there are days when it feels like I am standing atop that mountain, wind blowing my hair, sun shining on my face and arms wide open to receive.