Yesterday, I realized that the worst part about my anxiety and probably other people who suffer from anxiety isn’t the anxiety itself, but the anticipation of the anxiety. Yesterday, I was traveling, and I really have a difficult time with it. It isn’t that I am afraid of flying. I have never had the chance to be afraid of that. I have always been too scared of the rest of the situation. I freak out being in this enclosed tube surrounded by lots of different people pushing and shoving to get to their seats and then the same people push and shove to get off the plane when the flight is over. With my claustrophobia and feeling so out of control of the situation, my OCD just kicks into high gear, and I feel all kinds of anxiety symptoms. I never even think about flying because I am too scared of the rest of it.
The weird thing is that sitting in the airport waiting for the flight, knowing that this trial of my nervous system and calm is coming is really the worse part. Just thinking about what is to come can make my heart race and I feel like crying. Yesterday as I went to scan my boarding pass to just get on the plane, my hand was already shaking so bad that the flight attendant asked if I needed help.
When I was younger, just the thought of the night coming on was the very trigger for my panic attacks. I just couldn’t deal with being alone at night not knowing how to be alone. My mother didn’t want me to feel okay being alone ever so that I wouldn’t ever leave her. She not one didn’t teach me to feel okay being alone, but she also taught be to be afraid of it. That’s the mental abuse that I never really understood until years later.
She gaslighted me so bad and never let me be alone ever. When I finally had a chance to be in a space by myself, it felt wrong and alien to be. It took me years to get over that. There’s a scene in the movie “Castaway” where the character has been rescued from the deserted island. He is back in civilization, and he is in a luxury hotel. He tries to go to sleep on this beautiful fluffy bed with tons of white sheet and pillows, but he ends up sleeping on the floor. The point of the scene is that he has been sleeping on the ground for so long that the floor felt safe and comfortable to him. I totally understood that scene the first time I saw it. Because for the longest time, she lied, manipulated, and gaslighted me to where I couldn’t understand what mental and emotional abuse she had done and continued to do. When I finally found myself free, it just felt like too much. In the world away from her, I felt so lost and overwhelmed. My body couldn’t handle it, and I had panic attacks.
Yet as I gained myself and learned that I am not ever alone, I realize that the anxiety I felt was due to her manipulation and my OCD. I found that whenever I was lost, God would always provide light and help me through the darkness. When I face anxiety, if I just take it one moment at a time, it is always going to be struggle, but it isn’t so bad. I don’t want to work myself up into feeling scared out of my mind before I get on an airplane. I don’t want to anticipate all that is to come. What I really want to do is try to keep my mind in the present and remember that whatever going in the future God will be with me.
I tried to do that yesterday. I still struggled, but every time I started to worry about what was going to happen. I took a deep breath and I though about how God was with me instead. I keep my mind in the present knowing that God would take care of me in the future.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
