Afraid
But I don’t have the drugs to sortI don’t have the drugs to sort it outSort it out“Afraid of Everyone,” The National
For as long as I can remember, I have been at war with my own body. There have been dramatic battles—being diagnosed with scoliosis the summer before I started ninth grade in 1976, my collapse into debilitating panic attacks in October of 1999—but mostly that tension is pervasive, continuous—an anxiety cocktail of somewhat manageable OCD, ADHD, hypochondria, and depression.
The manageable has been orchestrated behind a dedicated stoic front that hides the main feature of anxiety, the relentless mind manufacturing and obsessing on an infinite list of what-ifs.
These self-imposed terrors are fruitless except for the drain and wear on my mind and body. Like the what-ifs on loop in my thoughts, the war with my body seems to insure that my body is always finding ways to let me down, especially a rotating list of chronic pain.
In South Carolina, where I live, we are shifting quicker than many states back toward some sort of normal after a couple of months of sheltering at home because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has been a paradox for me and my anxiety. Anxiety is mostly wrestling with unfounded threats, being afraid of everything for no rational reason.
Fearing a very real pandemic is rational, but in SC, I have been positioned as irrational for taking Covid-19 seriously since many in the state are following a CONTINUE READING: Afraid – radical eyes for equity