Overcoming fear
I’ve blogged a number of times in the past about the challenges of living with anxiety illness. It’s been with me for years, and has considerable impact on my functionality, and my quality of life. But I’m winning, and aware of having made some progress, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on how and why this has happened.
The biggest development is that I’m not waking up into panic attacks most mornings. I’d endured that for years, and it does not make for a positive start to the day or set you up to cope with anything else. Some days I wake up feeling apprehensive or worried, but this is now a much more manageable thing. This change is because both my circumstances and the way I understand them, have also changed.
During the darkest phases of fear, what underpinned my difficulty was a feeling that I could not win. A ‘you can’t get there from here’ scenario. Everything seemed to be stacked against me, and I had so much hostility and genuine difficulty to field in my life that I started to feel that was normal. That’s the dangerous bit. High levels of trauma are much more manageable if you think they were one-off problems. Smaller but ongoing distress where it becomes normal to be attacked, (verbally counts) normal to be barraged with criticism, to be humiliated, disbelieved, maligned and so forth, creates longer term psychological problems. It’s not always possible to step away from the source, either, although that’s probably the best solution if you can.
What I’ve been doing for some time now, is quite simply building a new reality. As far as is possible, I’ve stepped away from negative, hostile influences. It’s easy to let a few nasty, loud voices drown out the rest, but making that space for myself, a thing has become clear to me. Most of the people I know do not think I’m an awful waste of space. Most of the people I know do not feel the need to tell me off, put me down, nitpick my faults and tell me I am bound to fail.
What really brought this home to me was the weekend at Asylum in Lincoln. We had people coming to the table who had already seen the webcomic, already knew who we were. That was incredible. Lovely, wonderful, brilliant and talented people that weekend responded to me like I was okay to be around, often more. To be in the company of people I really look up to, and to find I pass muster… that means something. The warmth, kindness, encouragement and loveliness of everyone – it was like a huge, weekend long hug. Quite simply, it drove a lot of the fear away.
Yes, I do have a place to belong. Yes, there is a community where I fit in. Actually, more than one. Yes, there are people who value my work. I wrap those thoughts around me like a big, snugly comfort blanket.
Fear and self esteem turn out to be deeply interrelated things. The person who thinks they are worthless and unlovable, is isolated and exposed, at least in their own mind. The person who feels hated and denigrated can hardly ask for help or support. When the world seems cruel and hostile, being afraid is a very sane sort of response. But not everything is cruel, or hostile, and seeking out places to be and people to be with who reinforce my sense of self, who value me and uplift me, has been a big part of the healing process.
There’s only one bit of this I’m sure is relevant to everyone – what you do, counts. The small things, count. Those little acts of meanness, being snarky, point scoring – they really can destroy people by slow attrition. And on the other side, the smallest acts of warmth, community, kindness, inclusion and respect will heal wounds and trauma, will give back self esteem to people who have been trampled. It’s all about the details and the nuances of how we treat each other. There are a great many people whose small kindnesses, and large ones have contributed to me getting to the point of not waking into a panic attack every day. Thank you, all of you. The odds are, you have no idea what your ongoing expressions of human decency have achieved. Most of the time we don’t know how we impact on others, but we can all choose whether to take people apart, or help them hold together, and that choice makes very real differences.
