i am
confused.
i'm always confused--
sometimes i feel like my default state
is existential questioning.
and i don't know if an uptick in existential questioning
warrants a poem, exactly,
or whether i ought to just leave the floodgates closed.
but there are thoughts in my head
to which i struggle to assign coherence
without the solidity of words.
i have been told,
almost my whole life,
that i am something.
that i process the world a certain way.
i have been told since i was six years old
that i have anxiety.
that my worldview is filtered through fear
that i am fairly intelligent and think a lot,
and an inevitable if unpleasant addition to that
is worry.
and i've never been very good at recognizing my emotions
so i believed what people told me.
after all, i think a lot
and with that thinking comes worrying
and self-questioning
and existential confusion.
and when my heart started to race,
to race all the time,
race for no reason but because it could,
to race in the most innocuous moments
and a cardiologist told me, after establishing that i was in possession of a healthy if overexcited system,
that it was a textbook symptom of anxiety--
once again, i believed him.
i have never been officially diagnosed.
the only time i have asked for help with managing the thoughts in my head
was for a seasonal depressive episode.
not for anxiety.
my therapist told me that because my anxiety wasn't really in my head,
and my coping mechanisms for the bits that were
were for all intents and purposes effective,
there was nothing she could do about it.
when i worry about something,
i really worry,
and i feel my heart shake and my stomach churn
and my head feels light and floaty
and my hands tremble.
that's...
not how the thing i have always been told is anxiety feels.
it feels only like a raised heart rate.
no emotional symptoms.
no other physical symptoms except the barest trace of nausea if i worry too much about my heart rate.
when i worry,
i have coping mechanisms.
there are things i tell myself to realize--
that fearing the outcome of a situation
does not give me control over it.
and i listen to myself.
i can breathe and lower my elevated state,
and i can distract myself.
my thoughts,
at least when they aren't in self-destruct mode,
i can manage.
i would call my level of daily anxiety
under control.
i fear stepping out of my comfort zone
but i do when it is necessary anyway.
i have achieved more things, maybe,
than a lot of people my age.
that same cardiologist told me that i shouldn't worry about anxiety
if it didn't get in my way
and it doesn't.
because i don't generally feel very anxious.
maybe i did once
and i've now learned coping mechanisms
maybe i only ever thought a lot
without much fear.
i don't know.
as i said, i don't understand my emotions.
but what i do know
is that my level of anxiety has no impact
on whatever is happening in my body.
my heart and blood have been tested extensively
for flaws, and found none.
once, a long time ago,
i was tested for anemia.
i hoped, desperately, to have anemia.
to have a simple medical problem
for which i could routinely take a pill
and it would go away.
i craved that kind of cut-and-dried simplicity.
i thought maybe after these years,
there could be a solution.
i didn't have anemia.
no one could understand why i was so upset
to be told that nothing was wrong with me
and i didn't know how to articulate, yet,
how invalidating it felt to know that something was wrong
but to be told that whatever it was was not something a doctor could treat.
so barring an awful medical condition doctors have not even thought to look for,
there is nothing wrong with my body either.
but i know something's not right
and i don't have the words to articulate it,
or even the emotional intelligence to know what to articulate.
and to suggest that it might not be anxiety seems--
well, it seems foolhardy given the amount of evidence given to me by others in favor of anxiety
but also seems like a betrayal of what i have always been told is true of me
of what has, in a way,
been expected of me.
can i just
decide
that something that has always been put forward as my truth is not true?
am i simply
trivializing the former brunt of my own emotions
after a few weeks of prozac has started kick in?
(i honestly don't feel a difference yet,
i think.)
i would tell people--
doctors, therapists, people who wanted to know why i was gasping and unable to sit still while still being engaged in what they had to offer--
i would tell all of them,
'i have anxiety.
i don't really feel anxious, but i have a lot of
like
subconscious anxiety
that kind of translates straight to my body.'
and who knows.
maybe that's true,
maybe others do know best what's going on with me.
i certainly don't.
but that explanation doesn't feel true to me.
it doesn't make sense
why i would sleep for only an hour on the night of my birthday,
a lovely day with no anxiety inducing characteristics
because my heart was galloping at 150 beats per minute
and ignoring any meditative techniques i sent out to calm it.
i don't really know myself.
i understand myself better than i did once.
i have a more concrete sense of my identity,
of my own voice in comparison to the many voices i have taken on
in an attempt to escape.
i have a sense of how i present to the world.
but i don't know myself well enough for certainty.
i don't know myself well enough to ask
whether i would have been aware of anxiety
if i had anxiety.
i don't have the patience or self-awareness to consider whether i'm just questioning everything
because i have to do that once in a while.
i don't know--
if the prozac helps,
then i suppose that's an end to it.
it's not as if i want it to be something other than anxiety.
anxiety is common,
it's treatable,
it's understandable,
and it has never (to my knowledge)
killed anyone.
i just have a lingering sense
that the pieces don't match.
i am a grounded person--
my thoughts spiral and i have to go away and make them be silent
sometimes,
but that's something i understand.
something i manage
and not something caused by fear.
my body does what it wishes and i see no connection to the level of anxiety that i feel
or don't feel.
so i just wonder
with such unnecessary drama,
whether i'm right to be so damn confused.
are we even allowed to call the things i write poetry anymore? i feel like they're just thoughts put loosely into poem format and in all lowercase so it seems artsy rather than disastrous. anyways, had a lot of thoughts in my head, wanted to maybe get some of them out, this is kind of personal and kind of a brain spill hence the marked no to publishing but... it's just where my head is. sorry.
confused.
i'm always confused--
sometimes i feel like my default state
is existential questioning.
and i don't know if an uptick in existential questioning
warrants a poem, exactly,
or whether i ought to just leave the floodgates closed.
but there are thoughts in my head
to which i struggle to assign coherence
without the solidity of words.
i have been told,
almost my whole life,
that i am something.
that i process the world a certain way.
i have been told since i was six years old
that i have anxiety.
that my worldview is filtered through fear
that i am fairly intelligent and think a lot,
and an inevitable if unpleasant addition to that
is worry.
and i've never been very good at recognizing my emotions
so i believed what people told me.
after all, i think a lot
and with that thinking comes worrying
and self-questioning
and existential confusion.
and when my heart started to race,
to race all the time,
race for no reason but because it could,
to race in the most innocuous moments
and a cardiologist told me, after establishing that i was in possession of a healthy if overexcited system,
that it was a textbook symptom of anxiety--
once again, i believed him.
i have never been officially diagnosed.
the only time i have asked for help with managing the thoughts in my head
was for a seasonal depressive episode.
not for anxiety.
my therapist told me that because my anxiety wasn't really in my head,
and my coping mechanisms for the bits that were
were for all intents and purposes effective,
there was nothing she could do about it.
when i worry about something,
i really worry,
and i feel my heart shake and my stomach churn
and my head feels light and floaty
and my hands tremble.
that's...
not how the thing i have always been told is anxiety feels.
it feels only like a raised heart rate.
no emotional symptoms.
no other physical symptoms except the barest trace of nausea if i worry too much about my heart rate.
when i worry,
i have coping mechanisms.
there are things i tell myself to realize--
that fearing the outcome of a situation
does not give me control over it.
and i listen to myself.
i can breathe and lower my elevated state,
and i can distract myself.
my thoughts,
at least when they aren't in self-destruct mode,
i can manage.
i would call my level of daily anxiety
under control.
i fear stepping out of my comfort zone
but i do when it is necessary anyway.
i have achieved more things, maybe,
than a lot of people my age.
that same cardiologist told me that i shouldn't worry about anxiety
if it didn't get in my way
and it doesn't.
because i don't generally feel very anxious.
maybe i did once
and i've now learned coping mechanisms
maybe i only ever thought a lot
without much fear.
i don't know.
as i said, i don't understand my emotions.
but what i do know
is that my level of anxiety has no impact
on whatever is happening in my body.
my heart and blood have been tested extensively
for flaws, and found none.
once, a long time ago,
i was tested for anemia.
i hoped, desperately, to have anemia.
to have a simple medical problem
for which i could routinely take a pill
and it would go away.
i craved that kind of cut-and-dried simplicity.
i thought maybe after these years,
there could be a solution.
i didn't have anemia.
no one could understand why i was so upset
to be told that nothing was wrong with me
and i didn't know how to articulate, yet,
how invalidating it felt to know that something was wrong
but to be told that whatever it was was not something a doctor could treat.
so barring an awful medical condition doctors have not even thought to look for,
there is nothing wrong with my body either.
but i know something's not right
and i don't have the words to articulate it,
or even the emotional intelligence to know what to articulate.
and to suggest that it might not be anxiety seems--
well, it seems foolhardy given the amount of evidence given to me by others in favor of anxiety
but also seems like a betrayal of what i have always been told is true of me
of what has, in a way,
been expected of me.
can i just
decide
that something that has always been put forward as my truth is not true?
am i simply
trivializing the former brunt of my own emotions
after a few weeks of prozac has started kick in?
(i honestly don't feel a difference yet,
i think.)
i would tell people--
doctors, therapists, people who wanted to know why i was gasping and unable to sit still while still being engaged in what they had to offer--
i would tell all of them,
'i have anxiety.
i don't really feel anxious, but i have a lot of
like
subconscious anxiety
that kind of translates straight to my body.'
and who knows.
maybe that's true,
maybe others do know best what's going on with me.
i certainly don't.
but that explanation doesn't feel true to me.
it doesn't make sense
why i would sleep for only an hour on the night of my birthday,
a lovely day with no anxiety inducing characteristics
because my heart was galloping at 150 beats per minute
and ignoring any meditative techniques i sent out to calm it.
i don't really know myself.
i understand myself better than i did once.
i have a more concrete sense of my identity,
of my own voice in comparison to the many voices i have taken on
in an attempt to escape.
i have a sense of how i present to the world.
but i don't know myself well enough for certainty.
i don't know myself well enough to ask
whether i would have been aware of anxiety
if i had anxiety.
i don't have the patience or self-awareness to consider whether i'm just questioning everything
because i have to do that once in a while.
i don't know--
if the prozac helps,
then i suppose that's an end to it.
it's not as if i want it to be something other than anxiety.
anxiety is common,
it's treatable,
it's understandable,
and it has never (to my knowledge)
killed anyone.
i just have a lingering sense
that the pieces don't match.
i am a grounded person--
my thoughts spiral and i have to go away and make them be silent
sometimes,
but that's something i understand.
something i manage
and not something caused by fear.
my body does what it wishes and i see no connection to the level of anxiety that i feel
or don't feel.
so i just wonder
with such unnecessary drama,
whether i'm right to be so damn confused.
are we even allowed to call the things i write poetry anymore? i feel like they're just thoughts put loosely into poem format and in all lowercase so it seems artsy rather than disastrous. anyways, had a lot of thoughts in my head, wanted to maybe get some of them out, this is kind of personal and kind of a brain spill hence the marked no to publishing but... it's just where my head is. sorry.
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