The Anxiety Tiger Is A Thing
To suffer from an anxiety disorder is to walk through your own personal hell each and every day. There are no days off. No vacations to a nice tropical locale. If you're lucky, and having a good day, sometimes the scenery in your hell might be a bit less forbidding to look at, and maybe the terrain is a bit less like an obstacle course. And a bad day? Just picture being blindfolded on a tightrope over an active volcano. In a hurricane. And maybe throw an EF5 tornado in there for good measure. And this is not an overly dramatic rendering of my disorder. How else would you feel when your own brain turns on you and hijacks your emotions? Your. Own. Brain.
It does no good, and much harm, to rail against your own self. So like many people who battle long-term or chronic diseases, I visualize a foe to fight against. Thus, the Anxiety Tiger was born. And it is always hungry.
The Anxiety Tiger is a mischief making asshole.
Picture this: you are walking through a beautiful meadow. The grass is greener than green and the sky is bluer than blue. The flowers explode with color and their scent is almost hypnotizing. You feel calm and peaceful and all is right with your world when suddenly, out of nowhere, a feeling of dread abruptly overtakes your body and mind. Prickling sweat erupts from your pores. Your body zings with energy so that you feel as if you are vibrating. Instinct kicks in. Fight or flight, which should you choose?
The Anxiety Tiger is making its presence known. It sees you. It knows you. From now on it will always be there. Waiting. Watching. Ready to strike.
And it will strike. From out of a grove of trees or a patch of tall grass, its massive leap looking like flight, it latches itself around your neck. On the ground, with sharp tiger canines pressed to your throat and sharp tiger breath making you gag, you are helpless. The Anxiety Tiger is stronger than you and meaner than you, and you feel powerless to stop it from trying to drag you out of your meadow.
What's a person to do? Why, punch that stupid tiger in the face!
It cares not for you; it only wants to pee on your flowers.
That meadow is your meadow. Defend your ground with all your strength. You did not invite the Anxiety Tiger into your space, so don't let it take an inch more than it can comfortably claim. It is an invader, an unwanted intruder, and it deserves no quarter from you.
When it pounces, you fight. Kick, punch, scream, claw, do whatever you can do in that moment. Throw sand in its eyes, punch it in the balls (if your tiger is a boy-tiger), and grab a handy rock and wallop over the head a time or two. Drive it away. Make it drop you and retreat. Devise a plan for when it comes back, because it will. It wants to live in your meadow and eat your fat and sassy unicorns and pee on your flowers. Assholes who invade and forget to ask permission are trespassers who don't deserve kindness and consideration from you.
Everything written here is true. The meadow is my brain, and the Anxiety Tiger is my anxiety disorder. I wake up every day with already sweating palms. I live all day with "active underarms." At night, my socks are cold and damp from anxiety-induced perspiration. This is the tiger stalking me. This is what it feels like on a normal day, every day. How well would you cope if your body and parts of your mind felt that at any minute a real tiger would leap out of nowhere and rip off your head and feast on your bones? It's a wee bit difficult, let me tell you.
And when it attacks? That's when you have a meltdown, a breakdown, more commonly known as panic attacks. You are no longer in control of your body or your mind. You are being shook by the scruff of your neck from something far larger and far stronger than yourself. You are helpless. All you can do is ride it out, fighting your tired little heart out, knowing it can't last forever. Even though it feels like it will last an eternity.
Invaders will not be tolerated.
So fight for your meadow. Fight for your flowers. Fight for your fat and sassy unicorns. The Anxiety Tiger wants them, but then I want a gazillion dollars. Wanting and having are two entirely different ponies. Make the tiger understand that on a fundamental level. It never gives up, so neither can you. Show it the definition of unrelenting.
And don't forget to hold your head high. You are fighting off a damned tiger! You are not weak, or a freak, so don't apologize for your disorder. Ever.
