I guess I’m a bit of an expert on the subject seeing as I’ve
got a long history with the big A. Two anxious parents raised me; one was more
of your garden-variety lovable worrywart and the other a closet security freak.
Both were tending towards the OCD side of the scales when it came to hygiene
issues too. So I guess you could say that it’s in my blood.
As a child, I avoided every crack in the footpath so Mum
wouldn’t end up in a wheelchair. I would never under any circumstances walk
under a ladder or cross the path of a black cat. Umbrellas, when inside, would
never be fully flexed. As I grew older, and I was given a key to the front
door, I would run back and check it was locked, even though I knew it was.
Then as I teen, I began surreptitiously touching wood,
whenever a bad thought came into my head that a loved one might come to harm.
Many a tree trunk or fence paling would be touched nonchalantly as I walked
down the street. I don’t think anyone cottoned on to these habits until one
day, when I was nineteen and sitting in the bath, I asked my boyfriend to pass
me an empty toilet roll. Of course, he asked why and when I answered back, ‘cos
I just need to touch it’ and he looked at me like I was crazy, I suddenly
realised that maybe I was.
A few years ago, it got to the point where every night,
before I fell asleep, I would hold my palm to the bedhead and would ‘touch
wood’ for all of my friends and family. One by one. Then all my enemies too. As
you might imagine, this was a time consuming process and I am very grateful
it’s something I’ve been able to shake.
These days, I seem to be less focused on repetitive anxiety
prevention measures like OCD and more in cahoots with GAD (Generalised Anxiety
Disorder). I’m on medication, which has helped a lot, but with anxiety, it’s
kind of all or nothing. Some days I’m totally fine, not a care in the world,
I’m feeling good, alive, excited and life is good. I forget that I even have a
mental health condition.
Then other days, like today, in fact like most of this week,
I feel like I can’t even put one foot in front of the other, because that
requires a decision. It requires my brain to tell my foot to move and repeat,
left in front of right and to keep heading in one direction and who knows if
that direction is right? Maybe it’s better to stay still but even that is a
decision in itself. Maybe it’s better to climb into bed and pull the doona over
my head but that’s a decision too and doing that would prove that I’m lazy and
I’ll never amount to anything and why am I even trying to write a novel anyway
and if I can’t cope right now, how am I ever gonna be a good mother one day and
a good wife and why do I have such an aversion to cooking and cleaning and maintaining
myself and my home and…
You can see what my brain is like on these days. I guess
it’s a bit like being depressed, the feeling of wanting to shut down and the
inability to do anything but unlike depression, I actually have the desire to
do things, I just feel like I can’t. It’s a feeling of being frozen.
This is really hard to write about, especially when I
inhabit this space right now.
And one of the hardest parts of this illness is avoiding
alcohol. Because alcohol is an extremely seductive mistress to anxiety.
Although anxiety may know that clean living is the best partner for them, let’s
face it, clean living is not attractive. Clean living is the mousy, shy, boring
girl next door. The reliable, diligent, wholesome friend who doesn’t like loud
music or sangria because it’s too sweet on the tongue. But alcohol, is another
thing altogether. Alcohol wears fishnets and tight miniskirts and a push up
bra. Alcohol has sweet intoxicating breath that whispers in your ear, you know you want me.
So I succumb. On and off. Looking for that high, that moment
when I can shrug off my cloak of anxiety and sprint around the yard naked and
carefree. When I can feel safe in a social situation, when I can feel normal on
a night out with my boyfriend, when I can have a lively conversation and
impress my friends with my wit and intellect.
But it never feels the way it used to when I was younger. I
don’t feel a freedom when I drink anymore. If anything, since I have truly recognised
that alcohol and me just don’t mix, drinking can heighten my anxiety. I’m on
alert, trying to walk the tightrope of the fine balance between feeling relaxed
and not being a douchebag. Because a few drinks on an empty stomach and I’m not
ok. I’m a liability and it’s up to my loved ones to look after me. So these
days, I take a step back from the precipice. I don’t look over the cliff and
tumble off anymore. I’m not free.
So now, the biggest challenge is to finally, for once and for
all, realise that I’m much better off with the boring beige-stockinged, plain-faced girl next door.
