It’s nights like this where I can feel it slipping away. The anxiety creeps in, the anger takes over in its fucked up attempt at protecting me, and I’m losing the ability to reason with it using logic, my best defense against it all.
The anxiety has taken over.
Anxiety has ruined a lot of my days and nights. It’s been fucking things up for me for as long as I can remember. It looks different now these days, it feels scarier. More drastic.
More life and death. And more trying to convince me that those that I need, those that I love, aren’t here to stay.
That I am alone.
My anxiety has convinced my brain and my body to live in a constant state of fight or flight. Or freeze.
And when that mode is turned on, there’s little room for anything else.
I don’t know any other way of fixing this problem when it shows up loud and clear at night without alcohol. Or love. An abundance of love from someone else convincing me that I am safe. And lately, convincing me that they aren’t going anywhere.
Besides that, I haven’t figured out any other ways to successfully (or unsuccessfully) get through it.
In the absence of the kind of love and safety and security that I need in those moments, it feels like alcohol is the only thing I have left. And I’ll be honest, sometimes it works. At least, in those first few moments. But ultimately, it just makes it worse. Every time.
Tonight, the anxiety is too much. The healthy outlets are too few. And the (ultimately unhealthy/unhelpful) methods my brain has come up with to protect me are too strong.
Tonight, I feel alone. And angry, because that’s how anxiety likes to show its face. But I know it’s fake. It’s anxiety in its finest form. And I feel afraid.
It’s stolen so many days and nights and hours from me. It’s stolen joy and hope from me.
And tonight, it wants to steal my life from me.
🫂
🩵😞