Laura the Imposter

Someone reminded me today that ‘Anxiety lies to you’.  That’s true, and convincingly too.

There’s a hollowness I can’t really explain that comes into me when I have an attack of Anxiety (not a panic attack, which is different).  I don’t feel like a whole person, it’s as if there’s something missing from me in the centre of my body between my stomach and lungs.  I’m not even sure what’s there in the physical body, probably not a gaping chasm though.

In the past I’ve let Anxiety tell me so many negative things about myself, the kind of person I am, about my relationships with family, friends and partners.  I’ve spun myself down into a deep well of self-pity that at times felt impossible to climb out of.

I’ve done the therapy sessions, I’ve learned and practiced the coping methods and I’ve been free of Anxiety’s suffocating presence for a long time so I thought I was in the clear.  Then I made a couple of mistakes this weekend that opened a gap in my defences and allowed a relatively uncontroversial update on a social media platform to send me into a spiral.

The mistakes

1. I didn’t make plans to spend time with or speak to anyone on Sunday, meaning I’d end up spending the whole day in my own company (and I’m not always my own best friend).
2. I spent too long scrolling on social media, comparing myself to strangers on the internet rather than do any of the tasks from my to-do list.
3. I didn’t go outside – experience has taught me that spending the whole day indoors is bad for my general sense of wellbeing, even if I’m not alone.

The trigger

Triggers are different for everyone, it could be a sound, a smell, a perceived slight or rebuke.  What it is is much less important than your reaction to it, unless you’re trying to discover what your triggers are – or actively avoid them.

In this instance, the trigger was something that caused me to question my interpretation of the previous day’s event and my role in it.

The impact

As an experienced ruminator, on contact with the Trigger I did not pass GO and collect £200, but went straight into panic mode replaying each of my interactions from the previous day and trying to work out where I could have made an inexorable faux pas. 

I wondered too how I could have misjudged the event so completely. At the time I thought it had been a wonderful adventure, but with Anxiety reframing the experience, my celebrations felt suddenly gauche and ridiculous.

"You are gauche and ridiculous.  What business do YOU have joining clubs and signing up to races with people who actually can do the things?  Imagine thinking you can do the things, you're a joke. And no one likes you anyway."

So you see how the spiral goes.

The cure

Just kidding, there’s no cure for Anxiety.  It’s like herpes – get it once and it stays with you forever, waiting to pop-up when you’re a little run down, or when there’s a really important event coming up. 

Still, it can be managed if you have the right tools – therapy will help you find out which ones work for you and how to use them.  I’ve always found writing down how I feel helps me get it out of my mind and away from me. Today I’m also posting it here, maybe so someone can read it and perhaps feel less weird and lonely about their own experience.

Then I’ll try to remind myself of how far I’ve already come.  Both in terms of the mental resilience I’ve built for myself since the dark swirling vortex of 2017, and in my physical ability to do hard things since I decided to run my first marathon just over two years ago.

Finally I’ll remember the words of the Buddha.

Pain is certain; suffering is optional.