Dear laptop Diary,
You are henceforth appointed my “anxiety Journal”. I know
that sounds sort of depressing and you may be rather disinclined to take up the
position but like me, you too have run out of options now.
I feel as if I have become a dark, brooding person, slowly
losing all the qualities which I were once proud of.
This is what I am today
1.
Quiet
2.
Subdued
3.
Lazy ‘o extreme
4.
Scared—shit scared actually
5.
Disinterested
6.
Fat and probably ugly too
7.
Shirking away from responsibility
And this is what I fantasize to be-
1.
Charming
2.
Humorous
3.
Popular
4.
Kind
5.
Smart- really smart
6.
Stylish
7.
Active
At various points in my life albeit for brief periods I have
been called Smart, charming and perhaps popular as well. But it seems to me
that those days are far far away. My therapist tells me that I have an
anankastic personality. I searched up anankastic in the dictionary and
apparently it implies that I am a “perfectionist”.
Now, Is it really plausible that a woman who is perfect at
probably nothing has a soul that desires perfection all the time. Apparently it
is...or so I discovered.
Various events in my life have made me figure that
everything in life cannot be under my
sole control. Things have happened and will continue to happen no matter how
much I pre plan and prepare myself for them.
I have known for some time that anxiety is an issue that I battle with on a daily basis. Would you believe if I told you that I did not know which doctor to go to for this problem? Ah yes...it took me three years and some more to finally book an appointment with a psychiatrist. The day of my appointment I was at my nervous peak, searching for inane reasons to skip the appointment. Its like...I wanted to go but wanted to disappear as well.
The lady doctor was kind yet firm. The first thing that helped was that I finally had an important sounding name" generalized anxiety disorder" to address my malaise. Was it a malaise or was it just me? Almost 4 months down the treatment line I still wonder to myself" Do I really have this disorder or am I just making it up? " I remember noting down carefully all my symptoms on my iPhone before going inside the doctor's room. I was afraid I would sound and look completely normal and like many other times, this doctor also would declare that there seems to be nothing particularly wrong with me. There are very few times in life when we actually want a positive diagnosis and perhaps this was one such moment for me. for years prior to this I had tried and failed in describing how I would feel for those few minutes when anxiety would tighten its claws around my throat.
The splitting headache, overpowering nausea, dizziness, that rumble in my stomach, the butterflies in my heart and the feeling of a impending catastrophe had become a regular feature of my life. I searched aimlessly on the internet for a "propah" name for my disease.I figured that almost all symptoms can be traced to some type of cancer. As I struggled to find which type of cancer I have and how many more days I would survive, it slowly dawned upon me that I would have to have multiple types of cancers , all simultaneously to account for my numerous symptoms. Disheartened , I moved on to search for other deadly diseases which could possible be ready to adopt me.
It gave me some sort of vicarious pleasure as I sprinkled all conversations with talks about the disease I had acquired. For a soul usually parched for attention, the few moments of "oh really" " Take care of yourself" were calming. The Leo inside me craved the attention and felt proud of finally having done something(however unintentionally) that could become a starting point of dinner table conversations.
