Anxiety Free with One Condition
About four weeks ago on a Friday night, I finally really understood that the anxiety I had been experiencing for decades of my life was entirely in my head and not at all due to any of the carefully constructed medical explanations that I had so diligently built and so faithfully believed in over the years. Although the final piece so perfectly falling into place caught me by surprise, this really was no sudden thing, but the result of years of ego breaking effort. The weeks following the discovery were a rollercoaster of revelations as all the seemingly unpenetratable barriers my unchecked fear had built in my life, seemed smaller and scalable in the new light. Even if the epiphany didn't immediately vanish my fears, it did point to a path through them. I mean right through them. So now I must do all the things that I am terrified of. Which is of course, terrifying. But a terror with a purpose.
The Incredible Lightness of Being
Please save any sympathy for actual victims. My nightmares were of my own making. Although the driving factors of my life, my fiercely independent temperament and a equally fierce cognition, were destined to be a challenge, the path would have been significantly different if I had not allowed my ego to run unchecked and my fears unaddressed for so long. Even worse is the careless way in which I treated my own existence, taking it and everything else for granted like a spoiled child.
But also save your sympathies for actual tragedies. My life is not a tragedy. I think nothing less then an epic struggle could break through my Titanic ego. But break through it did, and now the world and the rest of my life seem ripe with possibilities. Even the personal characteristics which contributed greatly to my suffering, were transformed by the new understanding into promising, powerful tools with which to change the world around me. Provided I am clever and brave. Which I am.
Although I have always appeared open to my friends, I'm really not. My history, experiences and opinions have mostly been kept carefully hidden away. The gulf between my own life and most of those I interact with has always seemed too great to span. Not anymore. The principle effect of my anxiety has been primarily social, isolating and muting me. Now I have not just the courage to say what I need to, but also the openness to express myself in the loving terms that can actually meaningfully connect with others.
Understanding my anxiety has allowed me to understand myself and my abilities with a new clarity. I was my mother's gifted child and I spent the first decades of my life rejecting my gift and it's attendant expectations, drowning it in alcohol until I thought it was gone. But it wasn't gone. It was just hidden and dimmed by the anxiety. It wasn't even diminished. Programming and designing provided some refuge from the fear, so I have consequently spent decades engaged in Olympic level training regiment of problem solving. Now the fear is gone and I can finally communicate. It's like I suddenly have use of both arms. I really want to see what I can do now. I feel like I can finally live up to my gift. I'm going to use it to change the society around me. A society that in large part I vehemently disagree with, from a dominant religion/political party reveling in their grievances, ignorance and anger, calling mine and other's children abominations along the way, to a business culture bereft of human virtue and honesty, glorifying greed and placing money above all else to a populace self absorbed and uncaring and detached. I was quiet before. I am not now. I was weak before. I am not now. I also know that the only thing that defeates hate is love. Knowing this I am is determined to engage in bloodless, loving, laughing revolution for the rest of my life.
