Forms My Anxiety and Depression Have Taken

Well would you look at that!  Two posts in only a matter of weeks? Maybe I'll keep this writing thing.

I've just gotten back from my shrink and have made  some interesting realizations that I feel like need to come out into the ether  less they dissipate and I forget they ever existed.  Also, keeping log of these images as possible reference for future work, and what better place than a  public forum! *side eye* But I digress, I hope some of my word help others who struggle with the battle inside their brains, and give comfort that you're definitely not alone in that struggle. 

If you read back in my posts, you notice I've made a couple of mentions to my struggle with my mental health, specifically with depression and anxiety. My outward symptoms  (for me) include moodiness,  isolation, pessimistic attitude,  agoraphobia (fear  of open spaces and crowds), lack of motivation and love for things that make me happy,  paranoia, hyperventilation and exhaustion. Generally whenever I've had an episode,  I hate everyone, I hate everything and leaving  the house takes some serious coaching.  My impulse is to hide in my bed and sleep hours at a time in the middle of the day. Routine tasks like taking public transit all of a sudden feel like a life or death experience  that are so incredibly overwhelming  that I can feel my heart beat faster in my throat if I even think about it; nevermind being out in large social settings. My senses tend to become hyper sensitive and too much movement or sound  makes me irritable and tense, and if I don't get some place calm asap, that's usually when a public display of panic comes out.  In my darkest moment, I feel hopeless.  Everything is futile and nothing I've done and nothing I am matters. Those times are the worst, and some pretty morbid thoughts appear in my head. 

What you don't see is how my mind reacts,  and some of the images that have come to me during  dark times or full blown episodes. Coming to a calmer period of my mental health in my life (through rigorous work with my shrink and some serious  self care and reflecction), I will attempt to share some of the feelings and images I've felt with the depression and anxiety through  about 20 years I have suffered at the hands of my own brain.  Keep in mind I'm leaving out some of the experiences that have acted as triggers for my depression and anxiety and am strictly talking about how it felt. (I feel like the numerous hard experiences I've had are an entirely other post I'm not ready to write about yet). I hope it brings clarity to just  how someone feels when  having an episode.

Aged 10: The Empty Room
My first real recollection of  these fun feelings was  when I was about 10 years old.  I was not a popular kid. In fact, I would argue that I was flat out disliked. I didn't have any friends, and the "friends" I did have would regularly make fun of me,  bully me, belittle me, and a couple of times it got to physically pushing me around.  The first time I remember  the empty room I think was my 10th, maybe 11th birthday. It was the first birthday I didn't throw a party, because some girl made a comment that even if I did, no one would show up. To avoid what I thought was inevitable, I told my mom I didn't want a party. Instead I made invitations, loot bags and games for me and my dolls and stuffed animals.  I ran away in my head to this imaginary party I was throwing for myself in my room, with my toys. That was how the  empty room began; this wide, vacant feeling in my head, with white walls, and echoed if you talked.  There were no windows, no doors. It felt safe, especially if I'd had a bad day with the bullying at school.  And then I'd stay in the room just a bit too long, and that feeling of safe would turn unsettling.  Safe would become quiet, would become lonely, and eventually it would make me feel forgotten.  It felt like I could scream bloody murder and no one would hear me. This wide, tall, vast white room would fill with the sounds of my own voice running through various emotions; fear, despair, desperation, sorrow.  If I kept my voice low, it was manageable. But the second I wanted to yell or scream to get out, the sound would bounce off the walls, echoing my cries mockingly back from the walls to remind me that  on one was ever going to come for me, and that  was unwanted and forgettable.  As I got older, it felt as if that room was shrinking. It still echoed as a  cavernous space, but the walls became closer, as if trying to keep me  still. The empty room, with it's echoing wailing walls would shrink until it bonded and bound to my skin.

Aged 14: Black Tar
Convinced  that high school would allow me to start with a clean slate, I was excited to leave my small town elementary school and go to a high school a 35 minute drive away that had an arts program, where I auditioned and was accepted to their dance department.  I made friends alright, was social, was liked, learned to socialize. But nothing ever felt right. Some days I would feel physically heavy, like I couldn't pick my feet up.  I'd have moment where friends wanted to be around me, but I found excuses to avoid them . I started feeling off and out of place in every situation. I'd be needlessly awkward and quiet. My mind would go into hyperactivity at the slightest off comment and create fantastical situations where I'd imagine  being told off and disowned by my friends. I would spiral in my own thoughts into this black tar pit that would gradually sink my body down, immobilizing me. I'd wish for the tar to just take me under, swallow me whole and just get it over with. I confided in a boy who had severe OCD who knew how to talk me down from those moments where I'd isolate myself.  He'd tell me I was pretty , that the world needed me, and give me little doodles and trinkets to show me I was important. He would describe the tar to me, as if he could see it too. It was nice to have someone who didn't think I was being dramatic or crazy. Our friendship ended during a  manipulative and controlling relationship I was in with another boy at 17.  The tar came back afterwords and I sat in it , but this time with pride and vindication, as if this is what I deserve and that how things were meant to be. 

Aged 20: The Rhino
It's odd to say  that I liked the black tar. Yeah it was heavy sometimes, and sometimes it kept me from moving and doing what maybe I should have been doing in my late teens and entering my twenties, but I honestly didn't mind it. It was warm, it was safe, it felt stable.  I often mistook it for being solid and grounded. That is, until my tar changed form. In the second year of university, I was being berated by my ballet teacher in class in university  (which was a common occurrence in my program to anyone and everyone),  and a huge force entered my head. I tore around my brain, through thoughts and memories, through logic and emotion until I didn't  know which was which. I felt my chest clench , my eyes well up, I was holding my breath, I was trying not to cry.  I blamed being too sensitive, or being over worked, or being over tired for this hard rush. I ran to the bathroom and cried as hard as I could for about a minute, cleaned up my face, and went back to finish class. I thought that was just a  one time thing. Boy, was I wrong.   Sometimes it made sense, I'd be overtired, over worked, under stress and the rhino would barrel through the door, tear though the filing cabinets in my head where I had intricately placed my thoughts and ideas and make a clunky stomping scene.   Then when it was satisfied with the damage, it would simply walk out again, without any acknowledgement of me or what it had done. I'd be left to pick up the papers and files and resort my thoughts, ideas and feelings. But sometimes, the rhino would appear without warning. It would  overturn furniture, tear through the walls like paper,  leave carnage in its wake.  It would hit me sometimes in the process, knocking me down or leaving me bruised. Sometimes it would leave right away, but sometimes it would decide to plunk down  and sleep right in front of me. These times felt the scariest. The slightest rustle as I cleaned up the disaster the rhino made would wake it, and it would go tearing through my headspace again, leaving holes,  tearing papers. Sometimes it felt like the rhino was hunting me, staring me down daring me to run. I would be paralyzed, starting into the eyes of an angry beast ready to charge.  I've never felt so helpless.  At about 24  the rhino made an ultimate blow and I had very public emotional break down, prompting me to finally seek help. 

Age 24-25:  The Smoke Demon
I started seeing my shrink. I remember describing to her that my head felt like being in a dust storm and not being able to see an object that was right in front of me.  As I worked though how my thoughts and emotions worked,  my rhino became a smoke demon. You see, the fun thing about mental illness is that it grows and evolves with you. The more I worked, the older I got, the more  my mental illness evolved and got  smarter with me.  This smoke demon resembled the smoke demon in Fern Gully (you know, the one voiced by Tim Curry). Except mine didn't speak, it hissed. Sometimes soft and gentle, sometimes hard and aggressive . It had long boney fingers that would appear from any part of its cloud and beckon. It would wrap those fingers around me, sometimes it would caress me softly as it sighed in my ear. A couple of times it beckoned me into heavy traffic. More than once I was impulsed to follow. Other times it felt like it scratched and tore through my flesh  and laughed as it watched my struggle. Sometimes the smoke was so thick around me all I could do was sleep.  Sleep would keep the smoke quite and still at my feet.  If the smoke was awake, it would rise and swirl around me, blurring my vision, making me see things that were there and that weren't really happening. It would gaslight me.  The smoke made people believe I was crazy. Eventually I started to believe I was crazy too.  Gradually, through hard work and regular visits to my shrink, the smoke began to  change shape.  Days where the smoke felt so thick that my eyes burned became less and less frequent. I was beginning to have days where the smoke wasn't even there at all! Eventually, the smoke dissipated, and took a new form.

Now: The Hollywood Manager
He looks like a cross between Bruce Campbell and the 1990s cartoon Joker. He wears a royal blue power suit with a purple dress shirt and a red tie. He's muscularly built, clean shaven with a  strong jawline. His eyes flicker between false concern and mischief. His hair is jet black, and oiled back. He's got a smug, winning smile.  For the first time that I can recall, he can speak. He whispers in my ear. He doesn't tell me what to do but he plants seeds in my head, in hopes that I'll "come to my own conclusions" and "make the right decisions".  I know he's not looking out for me. He only looks out for himself.  I can often ignore his inane accusations and passive aggressive jabs, but every now and again I question myself and wonder if he's making some sense. I've learned that certain people and situations fuel his intentions, and he uses those people and situations as leverage against me, because he can. He knows  my past, all my fears and insecurities.  What's weird now is that I can actively talk to him.  And I know his game. He doesn't win nearly as many rounds as he used to, but I still have trouble tuning him out. Ever now and again he pokes the right nerve and I need to stay in bed and recover.  But he's manageable. I'm often winning arguments and making my own choices in spite of this con artist. I have more control, for now. Until he evolves and takes a new form.