You should meditate more

At night I would dream of organisation. I dreamt like it was a job and I had to get shit done. I frowned the whole way through my dreams. Dreams where I was always one step behind. Dreams where I was trying to make phone calls, but I could not quite get the number right. Dreams where I was late, dreams where I lost things, dreams where it depended on me to get the thing done and no matter how hard I tried, the thing eluded me. I would dream about wanting the night to hurry up and be over so I could stop feeling so uncomfortable in my sleep. 

Every morning I would wake up with a jolt, my heart thumping in my chest. You know how people wake up leisurely in the movies? Not me.

I was A-W-A-K-E.

My whole body would be tensed, ready for action. Fight or flight, baby. It was a permanent state that I was stuck in. A perpetual cycle of body rigidity. My jaw would be sore, and I would have clenched my teeth so hard throughout the night that my teeth felt loose in my gums. Cuts on the inside of my mouth from my teeth grinding, often resulting in ulcers. I did not just start my day – I bloody well STARTED MY DAY. 

It is just anxiety, I would tell myself, as I lay stiff as a board in the bed, trying desperately to listen to a spoken meditation to calm me down. Be present, I would whisper, as I would wade through the 487,000 thoughts rushing through my head. Round and round and round. I could have several simultaneous imaginary conversations running through my head, a song on repeat and still manage to be berating myself for something I had said or done the day before. My chest would be tight, and a hard ball would sit in my stomach. 

But everyone has anxiety, right? I see everyone sharing memes and making jokes about their anxiety. So, it is normal, and I should just get on with my day. Everyone felt like this. At least, I thought they did. 

I would get up, knowing I had to get myself ready and prompt the kids to get their butts in to gear too. Making my way out of the bedroom I would survey the house in despair. Stuff everywhere, which I found overwhelming. I would decide to have a family meeting about cleaning up after ourselves, and then I would realise with horror that 90% of the mess was mine. How could that even be? I swear I do nothing BUT tidy up.

It would hit me that I had not washed the kid’s lunchboxes from the day before. In fact, one of the covers was wet, so I would need to find a spare. Looking through the cupboards, I would find something else – like a screen protector for my phone I thought I had lost. I would stop to put that on, and while I was doing that, I would remember that I was supposed to buy another charger cord. I had forgotten so many times that I would decide I better hop on eBay now and order it while I thought of it.

On eBay I would see something in my cart already. It is the fidget toy I was going to buy my son for his birthday. I better order that now otherwise it will not arrive in time. Thinking of his birthday – where were those candles, I bought? A quick search would unearth them from the drawer, and I would then notice that the front of the cupboards were grubby. I should wipe them down. That would remind me – I meant to vacuum last night. I would drag the vacuum out and give the floor a quick once over. Shit – it is 7:30am and we need to leave at 8:00am. The kids are undressed, watching tv. One of them would helpfully remind me that I have not made their lunches yet.

I would be rushing around the house, trying to find lost items. And therefore, activating something I have called “lost item blindness”.  Not only was the item lost, while actively looking for it my brain becomes so foggy and confused that I feel like I have a block over my eyes. At times like this I know that the item could be right in front of me, and I will be unable to see it. In the back of my mind is the feeling that even beyond these lost items, I was missing some vital thing. 

Finally ready (far past 8:00am) we would finally get out the door. We would be in the car on the way to school when I would realise that I had not packed my laptop. We would zoom back to the house, then back off on our way to school. Which thankfully is only 200m from our house because it turns out that I would have also forgotten my lunch. My dogs no longer react to me returning to the house multiple times before I finally set off for the day. 

I would FINALLY be on my way, and maybe I would just about get to work on time when a sudden thought would strike me. Did I turn the stove off? Did I unplug my straightener? I would envisage the house burning down with my dogs inside. I would have no choice but to turn back and check. And almost always, they were off – but I had no memory of turning them off. 

Before I went in to work, I would attempt some deep breathing. Mindfulness. That was what was wrong with me. I just needed to meditate more. So, I would quickly chuck on a guided meditation from YouTube with my eyes squeezed tight while sitting in my carpark. With my tight chest, the knot in my stomach and the lingering feeling I had forgotten something. Head swirling, I would struggle desperately to stay on task, dragging my mind back from the swirling thoughts through my head.  

I knew I was struggling. But I couldn’t exactly figure out why or what. I would flounder through my day with a fog over my eyes, anxiety humming through my body relentlessly.

Getting to the end of the day I was stretched taut, like a rubber band ready to snap. Driving home from work was when I felt the tension hit me. I started associating being in the car on the way home as a negative experience. I had finished work – the pressure was off. So why were my shoulders up around my ears? 

I felt untethered and lost. I felt vulnerable, scared and angry. 

Sometimes on the weekends I would trot off to the nail salon and get my nails done. The nail lady would slap my hand and tell me to “Relax dahling”, because I would be holding my body so tight that I was either twisting my hand in complete rebellion against where she wanted it to go, or I was squeezing hers so hard I left marks. My whole body was a ball of tension. Laying on a massage table for a very rare massage, I would feel as though I was levitating one inch off of the table, stiff as a board and completely unmalleable. 

Of course, from the outside, I was none of these things.  

No one knew. Some people were aware that I suffered from anxiety. But I never let on to what extent. The ridiculous juxtaposition here was that I was a very open person. If I thought something, generally I would say it. I would gladly share my daily troubles and challenges. I knew that my openness paved the way for other women to share their own issues. I didn’t mind telling people about almost anything that happened to me. Most things could be discussed with my Mum, or a trusted friend, and they could be worked through and overcome. 

However, despite my open appearances, there was a line. And I couldn’t step over it. I didn’t want to acknowledge the hidden things because they never went away.  

I held myself in such an unrealistic standard that I felt like admitting I needed help was akin with failing. So, I pretended. I pretended I knew what I was doing, and that I was ok. I laughed and spent time with people.  

This is such a difficult thing to explain. It wasn’t that I wasn’t enjoying myself. I had wonderful, heartwarming, belly laugh, intimate and beautiful times. I had a beautiful partner who loved me unconditionally. I was smart, creative, optimistic and fun. But there was this pervasive tension behind everything. I think I had gotten so good at not acknowledging how I was feeling that I didn’t even know that what I was feeling wasn’t normal. I didn’t know that there was another way to feel. 

I had reached breaking point. And I knew enough now to know that it was time to face facts. Something had to change. 

And so began the process….