An unwelcome companion.

Anxiety.

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An unwelcome companion: 

Anxiety. 

Being perennially stuck in a house of horrors, that’s what it feels like. With danger lurking around every. fucking. corner. 

Your heartbeat becomes so fast that you feel like you would die just from the anticipation of thinking that something terrible is going to happen to you at any moment. 

A feeling of pure dread and terror so strong, it grips you so tight that you’re not able to think of anything besides it. 

It clouds your mind. It squeezes your heart. It parches your throat. It knots your stomach. It floods your eyes. 

Sometimes, you feel completely dissociated from your body. Almost like it’s doing its own thing and betraying you. 

Imagine this shit:

You’re all alone in a huge house, like the ones they show in the scary movies. 

Yeah, those ones — that don’t have a single splash of lively colour on their chipped walls, and are just grey and mouldy and dark. 

There’s a shitstorm of thunder and rain outside. And all the bloody doors are locked with a chain and a giant, rusty lock. 

You thump and push and bang on them, but there’s nothing you can do to open them and there’s no one around to help you.  

So you can’t leave. 

You have to keep roaming its corridors, turning every corner with a racing heart, in constant fear of something popping outta nowhere and killing you. 

You’re stuck in a seemingly never-ending loop. But you don’t have any strength to fight. So you just spend all day in bed and try to sleep to shut away the thoughts, even if temporarily. Or you desperately try to talk to someone, but no one can understand what the fuck you’re talking about. And it’s hard to explain such a complicated mix of emotions, especially when it makes you feel like you’re the one who’s going mad. So you turn to Google in an attempt to make sense of things, but instead, you fall down a rabbit hole of information that only validates your demons. “Yes they exist, and they’re even more evil and stronger than you could ever fathom”, it screams in your mind. 

All of this culminates into a shaky, breathless panic attack. 

You blow a fuse and go blank. Your mind is not functioning anymore. 

Your heart is going WILD. It’s pumping so damn fast that it feels like it’ll burst. 

Why is this happening to me? I am finally losing it, aren’t I? Yes. I am going mad. No lol, I was always mad. 

“But NO!”, a sensible voice in your head whisper-shouts, audible for the first time amidst all the rest of the chaotic mess. 

“This is not you! Get help! Get better! C’mon, love. We can pull through. Anxiety is a bitch, so we MUST tell her to fuck off!”, it shrieks a little louder this time. 

The voice sounds like it’s pleading, it’s a cry for help. 

You feel sorry for it. So you listen to it. 

__

“Describe how you’re feeling, please”, says the Psychiatrist, while locking eyes with you, a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. 

“I feel… scared”. 

“Would you mind elaborating on that for me?”. Her voice is soft and comforting, it feels like you’ve finally found someone who might understand what you’re going through. 

“I feel a weird fluttering sensation in my heart, I feel like my heart’s carrying a huge burden… and I feel like I could die because of it. It doesn’t feel… right. I don’t like this..”

Your voice trails off as you start to cry. 

She gives you an empathetic look and offers a handkerchief. 

She then asks a few more questions. 

“What you’re going through, it could be called Hypochondriacal Anxiety — it’s the effect of a neurochemical reaction, triggered by something or maybe even nothing in particular. Basically it has made your brain falsely think that you’re in some kind of danger, and so, your brain is stuck in a fight-flight-freeze response. This response is very natural and a rather primal human survival instinct, so there’s nothing wrong with it. What we need to do is get your brain to realise that all is well.”

“Why could it have happened though..?”

“There could be one, many or no reasons. Maybe something you saw or heard triggered it, maybe you chased a thought that led to the triggering of it. That’s not so important. Anxiety is something everyone feels for various different reasons. Let’s focus on how we can get you better, and then eventually, we’ll be focusing on how you can learn emotional regulation — so that if something like this happens again in the future, then no worries, now you would know how to take care of it”.

You still looked a bit unconvinced. 

So, she says, “Arya, there’s nothing wrong with you. And I promise you, I will do my best to get you better. Just give me 6 months. These things take time. And we want to root out the problem, not just bandage it, yeah?”. 

You finally let out an exhale, and a small smile shows on your face after many many days. 

She reciprocates the gesture. 

__ 

It’s been about 1.5 months. 

You’ve been on anxiety meds, while visiting a Counsellor every 10 days. She works with your Psychiatrist. She takes counselling sessions while your Psychiatrist overlooks the diagnosis and medicines. 

“The medicines are just to reach a proper neurochemical balance. They’re not addictive and they don’t have any side-effects. You need to trust me on that. I’ll be reducing your dosage every month, and eventually, I’ll withdraw them completely. That’s where my role will come to an end and the Counsellor will fully takeover”.

As you nod in agreement, she tells you one last thing: “And please stop using Google. if you ever need anything, you’re coming straight to me, got that? In a state of anxiety, all the information you consume is suggestible, so I don’t want you looking at stuff that won’t do you any good”. 

“I get that, I’ll stay the hell away from Google”. 

She laughs. 

__ 

It’s been 3 months. 

The meds are gone. The counselling sessions are going well, they help a lot.

You feel grateful to yourself for deciding to seek proper help, and you feel thankful for the people that provided it.

Your unwelcome companion, anxiety, has visited you less frequently. But she still hasn’t bid goodbye for good.

Maybe she never will. 

Maybe she’s not supposed to. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

As you walk out of your home in the morning, to head off to do whatever you do, you see her again. She’s standing in the distance and waving at you. 

You look up at the sky, the clouds have formed a mesmerising pattern. You take a picture of the view, you want to save it for later. 

Today looks like a nice day, I can feel it. 

And you strut along, brushing past your old companion. 

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