my body, my hair. Anxiety is feeling terrified about my lack of control over anything, and obsessing is my antidote. Writing is clawing the ground when I’m sinking too low, and obsessing is clawing the ground when I’m hovering too high.
I thought I’d been hiding my anxiety until my wife touched my arm and said, “I miss you. You’ve been gone for a while.” Of course, we’ve been by each other’s side virtually nonstop. It’s just that living with anxiety—living alarmed—makes it impossible to enter the moment, to land inside my body and be there. I cannot be in the moment because I am too afraid of what the next moment will bring. I have to be ready.
The other day a friend was describing getting a cavity filled at the dentist and she said, “It’s not even the pain I hate the most—it’s the anticipation of the pain. I’m sweating, panicking, waiting for it to hurt terribly bad. It never does, but it feels like it’s always about to.” I said, “Yes. That is how I feel all the time.”
When one lives in a state of constant vigilance, if something actually goes wrong: Forget about it. Full panic. Fifteen to a hundred in two seconds flat.
Kids two minutes late?
Everyone is dead.
Sister doesn’t text me back within thirty seconds?
Definitely dead.
Dog coughs?
Almost dead.
Abby’s plane delayed?
Yep, all this was too good to be true, life will never let me be happy, all the death.
The good news is that I’ve figured out many ways to outsmart the body snatchers. Proof of my expertise in this area? I am a clinically depressed inspirational speaker. I am a diagnosed anxious person whose main job is to convince people that everything’s okay. Please note that if I can be these things, anyone can be anything.
five pro tips for those who live too high and too low
1. TAKE YOUR DAMN MEDS
I am on Lexapro, and I believe it to be—along with all the personal growth shit—the reason I don’t have to self-medicate with boxes of wine and Oreos anymore.
My favorite song goes like this: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for he gave me Lexapro.”
Once, while playing a family game, Chase read this question to my then husband: “If you were going to be stranded on an island, who is the one person you’d bring with you?”
Craig said, “Your mom.”
Chase said, “Okay. What is the one item you would bring?”
Craig said, “Your mom’s meds.”
I do not believe that when we die, one of us will be presented with the She Who Suffered Most trophy. If this trophy does exist, I don’t want it. If there are people in your life—parents, siblings, friends, writers, spiritual “gurus”—who judge you for taking prescribed medicine, please ask to see their medical license. If they can show it to you and they happen to be your doctor, consider listening. If not, tell them sweetly to fuck all the way off. They are two-legged people who are calling prosthetics a crutch. They cannot go with you into the dark. Go about your business, which is to suffer less so you can live more.
2. KEEP TAKING YOUR DAMN MEDS
After you take your meds for a while, you will likely begin to feel better. You will wake up one morning, look at your pills, and think: What was I thinking? I am a perfectly normal human, after all! I don’t need those things anymore!
Going off meds because you feel better is like standing in a torrential rainstorm holding a trusty umbrella that is keeping you toasty and dry and thinking: Wow. I’m so dry. It’s probably time to get rid of this silly umbrella.
Stay dry and alive.
3. TAKE NOTES
This is what happens to us: We are in our homes, and we start sinking down, down, down or floating up, up, and away. We are fading and freaking out. We are in the bad part. So we make an appointment with our doctor for help. Our appointment is in a few days. We wait.
We start to feel a little bit better, day by day. The morning of our appointment, as we shower and get into the car, we can’t even remember who we were or what we felt like three days ago. So we look at the doctor and think: My down self is impossible to explain. I barely remember her. Was that even real? We end up saying something like “I don’t know. I get sad. I guess everyone does. I’m fine now, I