STRIPPED NAKED

Some of you are old enough to recall a TV show that ran from 1958-63 called "The Naked City", which was a black and white police procedural set in New York City.  It's famous episode-ending line was a solemn-voiced narrator intoning, "There are eight million stories in the naked city.  This has been one of them."  I don't recall ever watching the "grown-up" show -- I was 8 when it started and 13 with it ended and it was likely on past my bedtime.  But I remember that line vividly as it became part of the pop culture of the day. 

So, here's my tag line:  "There are 40 million anxiety sufferers in the United States of America.  I am one of them."

I wish I was like "The Bloggess", a blogger I love who writes with laugh-out-loud humor about her anxiety/depression and has gotten famous and sold books and has a gazillion followers and fans.  But I'm more the maudlin type, who tries to just tell the painful truth about this condition, hoping my story will resonate with others and we will become sisters/brothers of the heart; not famous, but still fighting for the Light in our own ways, in your own lives, whatever that looks like at your house.

At my house it looks like an almost constant low-level hum of "what if" and "be careful".  (Thanks, Mom, for those oft-repeated "words of wisdom" and the anxiety heredity factor.  I don't blame you anymore;  you are one of those sisters of the heart and I totally get it now -- you couldn't help it any more than I can and you had zero tools to mediate it.  So, actually, hats off to you; you fought and survived all on your own.)  

The hum becomes an audible persistent whisper when I am occasionally home alone for extended periods, like last week. I don't like nighttime.  I joke about being on 'lockdown' with every door and window secure, the direct-to-police department alarm system on at all times, and security cameras scanning.  It only helps a little bit.  (Is there a 'Rent-a-Rottweiler' place I can call?)

Let's add to that a horrific school shooting.  Every single time (there are so many that that phrase is not even weird), I go into "OMYGOD!" mode and project myself into that scene with pounding heart, lightheaded terror, overwhelming grief for those kids and their families.  It seems impossible to take a step back.  

I was sitting at Dairy Queen, enjoying a hot fudge sundae as a Valentine's Day treat to myself, when the report came over the TV (ubiquitous intrusions into public spaces these days.)  The sweetness turned sour in my mouth.  I watched for a few minutes as they reported one dead.  I drove home in dread, switched on my own TV and soon the reporting indicated there were "multiple" fatalities.  We now know there were seventeen.  I turned off the TV.  I meditated.  I did all my breathing exercises and positive self talk.  I started to calm down a wee bit.

Then, at dusk, the doorbell rang.  A stranger at my door is unusual.  I live up a steep driveway with a flight of stairs to the front door.  It's not an easy trek and it is very intentional for someone to come to our door.  Door-to-door salespeople often pass us by...not worth the physical effort.  Same with trick or treaters.  And some of our friends with bad knees.  But this guy made it a point to ring my doorbell.

He was fairly well groomed and not badly dressed, but seemed "off" somehow; darting eyes and kind of a slurry, sing-song-y voice.  He asked for "Lance" and since we've lived here for 35 years, the chances of him coming to Lance's old house seemed impossible.  I told him he had the wrong house and he left, muttering unintelligibly all the way down the front stairs.   

Our neighborhood listserve includes an ex-cop who has warned that often the bad guys will case a house by coming to the front door to see if anyone is home.  If so, they use the ruse that they are looking for someone, and leave.  But if no one answers the door, they go to the back, knock or ring again and if no answer, they break and enter.  This very thing happened to me in 1985 when I found myself alone in the house with a would-be thief who heard me call 911.  He fled, thankfully.  

So that's all it took for my already hair-trigger state of anxiety to tip into, let's call it, paralyzing fear.  Yep, fear cuz some yahoo rang my doorbell.  

I hear how crazy this sounds.  With all the of compassion and caring you can muster you will tell me all the rational ways to reframe this.  I AM NOT STUPID!  I tell myself the same rational story.  But Anxiety is a master teller of horror stories and your voice (and mine) don't stand a chance.

The next several days had me on high alert, where every sound, every shadow held menace; where every breath was hard fought when it feels like you can't breathe.  Still, I went about some semblance of "normalcy", seeing friends occasionally, going to Yoga class.   But I felt like an imposter and couldn't wait to get home to my sofa, and my house ... where I was scared again.  It was all so freaking exhausting.  And I knew it was TOTALLY irrational.  So next came Depression to seal the deal, with the constant berating, the constant judging, the constant nudging toward self-pity and self-loathing.  And that, my friends, is the aftermath of an Anxiety "episode".  

Depression comes in to tell you what an idiot fool you are and you deserve only to sit on the couch and hate yourself for another week or so -- or months or years.  But I think I can beat this thing off me in a few more days because I am now enlightened to its ways, even if I can't stay out of its way completely.  I know I'm coming out of it, actually, because I'm even writing this at all.  It's a step, revealing myself this way, to you who might be laughing at me.  Well, fuck you if you are.  

There are 40 million of us.  We are all struggling, suffering, and hopefully surviving.  I'm so grateful to have a supportive husband (pink roses, endless discussions, loving arms, lots of patience).  I'm so grateful to now understand this chronic condition and know it will never go completely away -- I liken it to a chronic physical ailment that is always there but can be managed, like arthritis or colitis, but still "flares" occasionally and needs a more aggressive intervention.  (Maybe I should call it "my anx-itis".)  

I'm so grateful to have found tools like breathing, yoga, meditation, and cognitive therapies to turn to in both the best and worst of times.  (I fought mightily to come off a terrible medication cocktail for anxiety and depression years ago that had me shaking with chills and head clanging brain fog, so not going back there.)

I'm sending love and compassion to those who share this condition, especially to those who don't have the support and resources I do to mitigate the "flares".  Nobody wants to be in this club.  Lucky you if you are not.  Mostly those of us who deal with this tend to sequester ourselves in a cocoon of isolation when we are at our worst.  But we love you for quietly holding us in your thoughts and being ready to welcome us back, without judgement, when we emerge -- raw, naked, and needing to know you are still there.

At least, that's the view from here...©

A short, easy article about anxiety, FYI:  https://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com/mental-health/8-facts-anxiety-anxiety-disorders/