The Weight of the Vest

I drank last night. Just one drink, but it was abnormally strong; a good strong. Is this how normal people feel? To not feel the worry of impending inevitable disaster. Am I willing to relinquish my morals for peace of mind?

When did it all start? A question that seemingly the only correct answer is birth. Of course that isn’t possible but then when? And how? And why isn’t my mind stronger antidote than alcohol?

The word floated around often but as a child, of course it wasn’t possible to have such a thing or so we thought. I didn’t live enough life to even have thoughts like that. I lived a good, safe, and simple life in a nuclear family in a small secluded town, with my older brother and our pets. Some could imagine it as the white picket fence American dream.

I was simply being dramatic, overthinking. During these times, no one was exposed to information they didn’t have to be. Social media was about posting homecoming pictures, not diagnosing myself. It was a phase.

Even a Bachelors in Psychology wasn’t a hard enough slap in the face. “I’m fine”, I would think often. Unfortunately, denial only creates delay. Years into realizing that I now have to parent myself through life, I know that I haven’t been fine and keep getting worse.

Maybe not worse, there was that one time when I barely slept for a week. Or that other time when, for a few years, I compulsively had to ask my mom, every single night, multiple times, if someone in the house was going to vomit, before bed so I could actually fall asleep.

I constantly wonder if my low intellect mother made the right or wrong choice by not getting me help, but clearly I had and still have a problem.

Age, however, changed the shape. Instead of compulsion it’s projection. Early on I found a solution, control everything. How laughable. The best solution is no solution at all.

Everything and everyone around me began to feel like individual pieces of dynamite piling up on the chest vest I seemed to always be wearing. Horrific news I would see daily on social media, natural disasters, the people I love the most in this world, traveling, anything new, approaching people, you name it. My vest became heavy.

I had no idea how to carry this on my own so I started to take the dynamite sticks off and throw them at the people closest to me. Naturally, people don’t want to deal with dynamite. I was self imploding and still in denial.

Finally, after pushing most people away, someone close to me sat me down and said, “You have really bad anxiety”.

Silence with unblinking eyes was my first reaction and then, “Me? Psshhhhhh. No the hell I don’t”, I thought. But I was getting nowhere. Within the same conversation, I stopped fighting. I stopped denying. I do have anxiety, I’ve had anxiety. Maybe I’ve had it my whole life. Can someone be a genetically anxious person?

Well, here I am, three years after that conversation strangely feeling more abnormal than ever. I’ve worked three long years to stop burdening others with my worries only to continue to suffer, only alone.

Sometimes it feels like self-harm, having to bear the physiological burden of anxiety quietly. When the zealous monster gets fuel from my external experiences, I can feel my heart pounding through my chest. I can almost sense the cortisol and epinephrine being released putting my body in a state of fight or flight. My overactive brain starts to throb as it keeps replaying a catastrophe that has yet to happen, over and over again.

There are plenty of paths to healing, I’m aware. In this age of time, there are well-to-do professionals, self education through the unfiltered amount of information we have access to, different communities I can join. I swear I understand, I don’t have to be this way. But what is being taught is how to cope with the worry, not how to not worry. What people fail to understand is that I don’t want to be someone who worries as much as I do. I want to be someone who’s easy-going and carefree.

What’s it like to be carefree? Is life easier? Do you feel more confident? Maybe more happy?

I can only imagine the feeling after a couple drinks. I want to feel that way all the time, less bothered by things that really don’t matter. I don’t want to be the mom of the group or the drag of the party. I want to be light and happy. Maybe I should just start drinking.