Mica — “What’s wrong with me?” That’s always the inevitable question I come up with after dealing with an episode of anxiety. Not a helpful question and it just usually leads to my reflex response of “a lot.” I feel like Sisyphus relentlessly trying to shove up a boulder of all my feelings of confidence, years of therapy, positive self talk just to be knocked down by my demon brain. As if she does it for shits and giggles. “Oh you’re having an ok time?” Here is some crushing self doubt and loathing. It’s not like it’s always like this. There are ebbs and flows. Impermanence is a beautiful thing (more on that later). But it’s exhausting nonetheless. The end of the year into the New Year always freaks me out and kicks my demon into high gear. There’s Thanksgiving, there’s Christmas and oh there’s the New Year! And oh there are all your New Year resolutions! And oh there’s your New Year’s dread!  Oh there’s your birthday! And your friends birthdays! And back to Thanksgiving and Christmas and around and around we go. Existential dread super mode activated. This is it? This endless cycle? Until I die? There has to be somethingmore. This blog came out of a shared frustration with ourselves, our lives, the universe. Chels and I want somethingmore. So many of us humans want somethingmore. For some it’s easy to find that somethingmore. Will I ever find the more? I don’t feel remotely close to my more right now. Will I ever get there? Sometimes I feel like I am getting close to the more but this current ebb of anxiety has me feeling like I’ve rolled halfway down again. But I haven’t. Just in writing this post I’ve beat my demon who said I couldn’t even do this. And therein lies the goal. Right now, this is our somethingmore.

Chelsea — I think for a long time I didn’t know what anxiety looked like, or rather, all the forms anxiety could take. After years of seeing anxiety depicted on ads, or portrayed in shows, or even talked about by friends – “I’m so anxious right now” – the anxiety itself seemed so apparent. It looked and felt like stress coming off the affected person. But, anxiety as I’ve come to know it is a much more insidious thing. It often appears like nothing, like a normal string of actions. Yet, the feeling that accompanies these actions is one of seeking. You are looking for an action, anything, to provide relief from an overwhelming sense of discomfort. I did not label these moments of discomfort as anxiety for a long time. I did not know that is what I was feeling. I never thought of myself as an anxious person. It just felt like I needed something – that I was grasping for something to hold on to, or for something that could hold on to me. Something that could ground me in the physicality of the world and provide respite from the amorphous, intangible feeling of your body and mind entering a spiraling state of anxiety. This poem is something I wrote a long time ago, probably around the time when I was just starting to put the pieces together of what anxiety looks like on me.

This is what anxiety looks like… 

Take the dog for walk

Fill humidifier 

Should I pour a glass of wine?

Pour the glass of wine

Take a sip

Feel sick

Steady self on humidifier 

Look at old picture

Put it away 

Take it out 

Put it away 

Pet the dog 

Pet the dog 

Change pants 

Change shirt 

Take a sip 

Feel sick 

Breathe deep 

Make bed 

Sit on bed 

Look at hamper 

Look at massive pile in hamper 

Pick up a pair of underwear 

Remember when you wore them 

Remember how you felt 

Take sip 

Feel sick 

Look at phone 

Say no 

Feel sick 

Take a sip

Take a sip 

Take a sip 

Look at dog 

Wipe my chin 

Stand up 

Sit on ground 

Knees up 

Head in hands 

Relax relax 

Breathe in vapor 

Breathe it out 

Write this down 

Feeling calmer 

Close my eyes 

Cannot cry 

Slap my face 

Smile wide