To my audience of one, I’m writing today because I’m tired and uncertain. It’s been almost two months since the relapse now, and I can’t tell if my anxiety is improving or flatlining. For a while I didn’t take any benzos at all. I think I wanted to see if I could survive my own body when my anxiety was at its most raw. A couple of counselors asked, “Are you trying to make yourself miserable?” Probably, but I think I was trying to prove something to myself. That I was strong without sedatives. I think anxiety is becoming more livable, but I don’t know if it’s getting better.
Saw a shrink today that I was skeptical about. Mostly on account of him being a massive Trumplodyte, somewhat on account of my stinginess in detailing my problems to male strangers. He made a pornography joke within the first five minutes, then quizzed me, fairly irrelevantly, about my sex drive. I cancelled the rest of my appointments with said shrink.
I feel like I’m floating in a tub of molasses. Sometimes the anxiety makes me feel like someone took a melon-baller and scooped out the cavity of my chest. Like a hollowed out pumpkin at Halloween, scalping the meaty insides. More often than not, I can’t breathe and it feels like a horse kicked me square in the chest. I guess I don’t know when or if this will get better.
I’m beholden to the landmines of my own mind. Any errant and unsurveilled thought can trigger a physical reaction. I don’t know how to predict any of these tripwires, or how to even map what they’d look like.
I still have to graduate and find a job. Both of these things seem like distant, murky outlines somewhere far off in the fog while I’m lost at sea. Right now I’m so entangled in watching my step, eyes glued to my feet; gaze bent inward.
I’m idling down some proverbial lazy river. My breath feels choked. I’m drowning in pill bottles; I have to label the lids in Sharpie to keep them straight. I feel light years away from some of my friends. Enfolded in some chrysalis that won’t metamorphize. Won’t grow, won’t move on. Mired between different transitory periods.
Anyway, I’m directionless. Without a north star. I could really use some spiritual guidance.
microcosmic 