Journal of an Anxiety Addict?

What worries you masters you -- Haddon W. Robinson

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic-- Susan Jeffers

I'm sure most of my small readership is aware of what I've been going through in the last few weeks, but I thought it might be best to give a bit of an account of my experiences, since they've reshaped my life in many ways, though surprisingly, only the minority of these changes are truly negative.

It's been about three weeks since it happened -- my 'first' real panic attack. However, as I look back into my childhood, I'm beginning to realize that many of those horrible times of fear and anxiety I often experienced when left alone, which were at the time labelled by myself and those around me as 'Leanne getting worked up', were actually panic attacks in their own way, and precursors to the anxiety which took me by storm on March 16.

It all began with a simple case of writer's block, something I've endured and overcome countless times, almost as many times as I've taken up a pen or turned on the computer to begin to write. At these times, my mind is always swirling with ideas faster than my brain can interpret, but on any usual occasion, the cyclone in my mind would eventually blow away the mental chaff, and blend the remainder into a coherent idea, finally breaking into a rainstorm of inspiration. This was the process in which art, whether academic or personal, would come into fruition. I must confess it's been a long and dry time since I felt the refreshing waters of inspiration flowing over me. I've been living an artistically arid life long before this storm hit -- a storm in every way different from all the others, but long overdue.

Sometime shortly after entering university, I felt myself drowning in a sea of demands and pressures. This was no refreshing and inspirational cloudburst. This was an ocean of tasks and papers and stressors, one in which I could barely keep my head above the waves. I quickly learned that I must keep up a continual output of work, writings, papers and whatnot if I was to keep myself from drowning. I found that my schooling crammed me with information, and required me to digest and regurgitate it again and again, all the while leaving me with no refreshment. School kept taking and taking, without leaving me any fodder for my forgotten artist's heart. Writing, once my joy, once my familiar realm in which I was extremely confident, became a chore, a source of dread, and even of sorrow. With all the weights of academic demands, I was forced to cast off any unnecessary weight. I forsook that creative spark, already dimmed and emaciated. Nearly extinguished already, it seemed pointless to carry around such a dead weight when I had so many pressing demands to meet. The previous post contains the very last creative endeavour I had time to record. The others that followed never reached any medium, and are lost in the recesses my memory.

After this point, papers became more than discouraging and tedious, they became absolutely terrifying. The starving artist within me still wanted to fill each assignment with inspiration, but without a spark, and without the time, my artist's expectations were always disappointed with my work. I had always doubted my own abilities, but never to such extremes as I then did. Any work I did was a failure in my mind, until it was returned to me marked with an 80%, 90%, 95%, or, rarely, 100%. Then it would magically transform into a wonderful piece of work in my eyes -- but only if the mark fit in to the range listed above. I was a slave driver to myself.

My friends could estimate how many papers made up my workload by the length of my fingernails. Long -- I had no papers. Short -- I had one paper in which I was somewhat confident. None, with gnawed and bleeding cuticles -- I had many papers, and I lacked any confidence in them whatsoever. They urged me to relax, to take things one step at a time, finally, to see a counsellor. I recognized the sense in what they were saying, but couldn't put it into practice. I had created a monster. Unrealistically high expectations without regard for extenuating circumstances had walled me in. I taken prisoner by a perfectionist. Let's call her Superleanne.

Superleanne's expectations were soon to be disappointed more than they would normally be, with her usual fare of 'slightly less than acceptable' 83's and such. No, she received a 67.5% on an essay, in her intended minor no less. She may as well have been shot in the chest for all the wailing she did over that grade. I say 'she', because even then I could hardly see myself in who I had become. This grade pushed Superleanne to new heights of woe and to new and higher demands to atone for such a shameful assignment. The next essay would make up for it -- a tall order.

And when the next essay came, I hardly needed the extra pressure to succeed. I still had nightmares about the previous essay, and in my mind (and sometimes even whispered, barely audible) I would apologize to my taskmaster again and again for it, begging Superleanne for forgiveness. It was under these stifling conditions that I attempted to write the essay that would bring on the inevitable.

I wish I could say that I at least began the assignment optimistically. But right from the start, I had convinced myself that I must face this 'realistically', by which I meant pessimistically. I had nearly failed once, and having established myself as an unsatisfactory student in my history course, it would take nothing short of pure genius to bring myself up through the ranks to my 'rightful' place at the top. I wouldn't recommend this strategy to anyone who doesn't want to end up hiding in the shower in the dark believing that the doors could shut the screaming voices of failure out. Because that is how I ended up, after the first violent storm of panic passed.

And yet no storm comes without rebirth and cleansing, especially in the desert. And no storm lasts a lifetime either, though I had 'realistically' (again, rather pessimistically) convinced myself that it would. The rain showers, thunderstorms and bursts of panic and despair eventually gave way, although the process was painstakingly slow. My first prescription medications convinced me that I was no longer myself, and as such that I had no responsibility to feed and clothe this stranger. How strange indeed, since I had been a stranger to myself ever since I cast off my creative heart in the name of academics, and had failed to truly realize and address this. However, my solution at this time, made during the night when I was alone, was (I kid you not) to rename myself, since I 'lied' when I called myself Leanne. Luckily, that medication was replaced, my name wasn't changed, the skies began to clear, and without the stresses of school, which I still was unready to face, Superleanne's hold on me began to weaken. I could see her for what she was, a hollow craven fool, who chased ceaselessly after a phantom named success.

I had been a desert, but as the clouds rolled back and the rainstorms ceased, my heart again began to bloom with the rapidity of an arid land that sees rain too seldom not to rejoice in instantaneous and frantic regrowth. I still struggle with feelings of fear regarding my schooling, but it's more of a fear of being caught in the midst of a storm I can't escape than one triggered only by fears of failure. Superleanne still isn't entirely vanquished, but help in the form of counselling, prayer and lots of loving support will, in time, convert that perfectionist spirit of mine into a more sympathetic one, and will, I believe, help me to overcome my anxiety.

It's true what I wrote. Even amid the storms of anxiety and those few moments of despair, hope is so hard to crush.