Attack of the Nervous Tummy

Oh, you guys, I am not feeling so hot, mood-wise. It goes: I’m good, I’m good, and then *boom* not good. Just like that. I thought I’d tell you, because you always understand, and it helps, even though I have seventeen other things I need to be doing right this second. This is not a “falling into a deep pit of despair and doom” thing. This is “attack of nervous tummy” thing.

If you don’t suffer from depression or anxiety, let me tell you that Nervous Tummy is like that feeling you get when you’re scared to do a thing you need to do, like climb across a rope bridge over a 300 foot deep crevice. The rope bridge is strong and has tall sides and there’s someone guiding you across it, and no one has ever fallen in, but it swings. It swings when you walk. So your stomach swings when you walk.

That. That’s what I’m going through. I know, emotionally, physically, logically: everything is good! But then I look down and see the deep dark hole and whoosh. NERVOUS TUM.

Anyways, where was I going with this? Nowhere. I just wanted to let you know that even when things are bright and sunny, even when there’s nothing to complain about, sometimes these things creep in. Today what crept in was, If you were meant to be successful, you already would be. This is similar to, If you were meant to be successful, you wouldn’t have had such a fucked-up life. Nervous Tum is very, very self-centered, and I was being self-centered this morning. I was thinking a familiar thought about how, if I was Meant To Be [Insert Destiny Here], then I wouldn’t have had to struggle through sexual abuse. I wouldn’t have had that past.

I would never, ever think that of someone else’s destiny, no matter what had happened to them in the past. Just me. Because I was being self-centered, and a little bit of a Calvinist. God singled me out to be EXTRA mean! Because! That’s why!

But, no. I floated down, and now I’m here, telling you that if you’re having similarly self-destructive, self-centered thoughts, well, we should have coffee together one day. We’d understand each other.

I think that’s just what people like me  do. And so I also have to fight a little bit harder than other people, which is unfair.

But it’s unfair that I was born in the US in a time of prosperity to intelligent parents. It isn’t fair my body works almost exactly as it was intended, or that I met the love of my life when I was twenty and some of you are still waiting. That’s not fair. So, I get constant Nervous Tummy and the terrible childhood, and you get the great body or the blonde hair or the fantastic job or the better writing skills.

We’ll all be There one day, but for now, we’re here, and I have to remember that it’s not about things being even and fair. It’s about working out how to feel happy precisely because they’re not.

Comments are closed because I have Nervous Tummy. You can always send me an email at shalini at readingandchickens dot com.