Funk #4,999

The brain is a tricky beast. You don’t often think about the brain getting fatigue, much like say your calves or forearms after a strenuous workout. Or hell, maybe you do. I don’t, anyways. I’ve been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks for over 10 years now, so I’ve gotten used to what they feel like and how they affect me. I’ve figured out how to lasso that mental bucking bronco when it starts happening as well. But there are occasions where that wild, bucking horse is even too much for me and I’m left dragging behind it and hanging on for dear life. When it’s had its fun we slow down and I check for broken bones and bruises, then go about my day.

This week was a hell of a ride, let me tell you. Started Monday night after a couple beers. That feeling of dread that starts in your guts, that emanating fear like when you’ve made a wrong turn into some off-the-map place that looks like a mixture of Escape From New York and Texas Chainsaw Massacre combined. The panic that feels like a gut ache but quickly rises to settle in your chest like a unbirthed scream of horror. A bubble of terror you can’t get to leave your body. It just sits behind your ribs making each moment scarier and less controlled. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I brushed my teeth and laid down for bed. My wife went out with a friend to a jazz club for a couple cocktails and unwind after the month and a half we’d dealt with. I laid in bed in a kind of existential dread.

The next day I felt raw inside. The overall panic subsided but the dread remained. Like anxiety was a jack-in-the-box and I was slowly turning the crank. Each successive clock-wise turn was a moment closer to the world narrowing to a tiny black tunnel with seemingly no light at the end of it. Things stayed pretty much okay, but I still had the pinch in my guts. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop…or to kick me square in the chest. A steel toe shoe, with a giant monstrous foot inside of it.

Wednesday it was still there, hanging out. Wednesday night it came roaring back, though not as bad as Monday. It was just this feeling that something was waiting that I needed to deal with or it would consume me. I went to bed world-weary and filled with dread. And Thursday morning there it remained. Like an albatross hanging around my neck. As the morning went on the weight lifted a bit. I left work two hours early so I could attend my niece’s wedding. It was a nice, quiet little wedding at some nice, quiet little church which was run by my sister-in-law’s cousin. He married my niece and her husband.

There was a two hour break between the wedding and the reception which was held at an Italian restaurant in town. My wife and I went home and she did some more work while I just sat staring at my phone. That didn’t help the situation. Doom scrolling and anxiety go together like a grease fire and H2O. You only end up making that mental fire worse. We left and got to the restaurant the same time as my parents. You know what else makes panic and anxiety worse? Lots of people in a small space and noise! I kept it together, but man was I crawling out of my skin. I only knew a few people there, so there’s that awkwardness already. I’m not a schmoozer. I’m much more introverted than the average bear. Feeling very out of place, like an alien that just landed on planet Earth and with no clue how to “fit in”.

We ate our meal and I attempted to engage but it was hard. After about 45 minutes I told my wife quietly that I was ready to leave. We said our goodbyes and left. When we got home we started to load some things into a trash dumpster we rented to clear out a bunch of stuff that’s been long ready to disappear. I hadn’t been able to park in the garage for the last several days because of a deconstructed couch and other trash that we brought up last weekend. That felt good to get that stuff out, and to be able to park my car in relative protection of tree sap.

It also felt good to talk.

I told my wife how I had been feeling. That I think this days-long anxiety was my brain finally dealing with all the medical worries, money worries, and moving worries of the last month or so. When you’re in the thick of the emergency you sort of go on auto pilot and deal with the problem head on. And when you get a small break in the midst of it you don’t think about it, you just relax and decompress from the panic and worry. We’re nearly a month out from the last time our daughter was sick and things are looking good for her. She’ll be fully moved back home with us in the next two weeks. There have been a couple setbacks over the last couple weeks regarding water damage and surprise bills popping up, but nothing we can’t handle. I just feel like I was in fight or flight mode for so long that my brain was like “Hey, shouldn’t we be worrying about something? I’m not sure what, but I think we should be”. Which led to me heading into that mental downward spiral.

The other thing is exercise. Exercise for me is a way to burn out any excess worry or anxiety. It’s always helped to relieve it from my brain. Plus it just makes me feel better. I haven’t been able to do that for a month. There was always some thing that needed done or a trip to the hospital or moving things or etc, etc… I was feeling locked up, pent up, and stagnant.

So after we cleared the garage we loaded up an old desk and drove it over to my wife’s office. She’s hiring a new person at her work and they needed an extra desk. It was almost 6pm, but we had nothing to do and some pasta to work off. We got the desk loaded into her office space, then headed out into North Webster for a walk. It was warm but not terrible. It felt good to be out walking again after so many weeks of awful heat. I could literally feel the weight on my shoulders and in my core just melt away. Between talking about it and moving, I started feeling like myself again. We also ran into a couple people that my wife knows through work and had some nice chats, even toured a new home that they’d just built. In small crowds I’m good, and this couple was from Denmark originally. There’s a kind of calm indifference with the Scandinavians I can totally get onboard with. Wonderful folks. If my wife and I could pull it off I’d love to retire in Denmark. I just need to taste test some famous Danish dishes.

So all of this is to say that anxiety is a real asshole, and something you need to deal with instead of avoid or ignore. The best way is to just talk it out. Once I talked to my wife yesterday I felt a lot of that weight lift. Then walking yesterday took care of the rest. Today I feel like my old self, curmudgeonly but content. The pit in my stomach is merely hunger pangs, not unresolved anxiety. And that residual anxiety/panic? Man, that’s the worst. Don’t let it eat you from the inside out. Talk it out, dissect that shit and get to the core of it. And if you’re in the midst of it, put on your walking shoes and go walk some of that off. It works.

Happy Friday, folks.