Sometimes my body sweats profusely but not in a way that’s relatable. I once had a friend describe “sweaty palms and feet, while feeling like I’m running from a giant ball that’s always behind me no matter where I go”. Accurate and relatable! Mine?

I feel anxiety all the time, and probably was born with that shit. I don’t have a thought that isn’t immediately followed by, “but [insert fake scenario here]”. When anxiety is a constant state of being your whole life, that ball looks easy. That ball can run me the fuck right over, because right behind the anxiety is the depression, and the pain, and the PTSD you sometimes like to think you’re adjusted to until you have a trauma response at 9:24 in the morning at work. If all those fail, I will immediately feel nausea that won’t dissipate for another 4 days.

I use my anxiety. I use my anxiety to put up boundaries nothing else can give me, I use my anxiety to stay alert, I use my anxiety to level myself out from overwhelming myself.

If I had to use a metaphor, I think it would be this: I am sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean. It hurts, because it has rock growth, and I’m bleeding from the cuts it gave me. The salt water burns, and that’s my chronic pain: I overworked myself on purpose, and am now seeing the consequences. The ocean isn’t my anxiety, it’s my depression. And I know it best, but what if there are sharks out there? Or this is the Pacific ocean, and there’s piranhas? There’s a wave coming and I have a choice now: do I leave the rock and let the wave take me and stop fighting anything I do not have the answer to yet, or the power or tools to fight? Or do I hold onto a rock that’s cutting me for fear of those answers? Or maybe there’s more options, and I’m seeing two options because it’s from only my own perception?

My constant state of being is anxiety. Of course I’d come up with an elaborate way of saying, “this is never going away :)” instead of just saying that, because I’m anxious about appearing stupid when I I’ve worked very hard not to be.