When I was in high school, my teachers praised my academic potential. Many of them expected I would enjoy a tremendous amount of success in my life. The praise was bittersweet for me because I recognized my severe anxiety would preclude all attempts at self actualization.
I spent all off today in an opiate induced blissful state. The juxtaposition of my normal hellish state yesterday with the heavenly state today only served to increase my depression. The opiate high is the epitome of my fantasies during the emotional torment of daily living. As it turns out, life can be easy, fun and exciting. The experience is amazing with all the social opportunities and the unveiling of so many of life's pleasures. Unfortunately, the opiate levels in my blood fall rapidly and I regress into my normal state.
It's hard to convey how unpleasant and difficult it is just to make through a normal day with my baseline emotions. Anxiety is the supreme ruler of my mind. It's a cruel unconquerable dictator that governs all behavior and all thought patterns. It seeks to exterminate all positive emotion.
It's very lonely living with severe anxiety. I spend my life dwelling in a social isolation room in the innermost part of a maximum security prison. My captor is my own neurochemistry. Attempts to communicate are repelled by an assortment of unpleasant symptoms:stuttering, shaky voice, inability to concentrate, low self esteem, and fear of the other person among many others. I don't have a life because of the anxiety so what would I talk about anyway.
Viewing the reactions of other people is distinctly painful. I can't live up to the society cherished masculine ideal of unwavering confidence. Many people just overlook you, I guess they figure it's not worth the effort. Some see an opportunity, this person will be very easy to walk all over. At the bank I work at, impatience is common as I struggle to complete transactions with shaky hands. The worst is amusement. My mind perceives this to be inconceivably sadistic to react to my suffering with amusement. I tell myself that they don't understand. How could they? For the average person, anxiety is a fleeting weak discomfort. Just another feeling in the vast human emotional experience. For those with severe anxiety, it's a strong voracious monster. It feeds on positive emotion such as love and happiness, it doesn't stop until you feel empty inside. After awhile, all you feel is anxiety and the depression it excretes.
I experience an extremely distorted view of reality. The world is terrifying. Body image changes and you feel small, insignificant, helpless and ugly. People faces seem to be contorted into unpleasant grimaces, I see anger and unhappiness. Joyful expressions are hard to locate. Noises are louder and I become dizzy from the overwhelming sensory input. The only way to describe it is feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed and that's just from walking outside.
The physical symptoms are as unpleasant as the mental ones. My muscles are tense and they ache and ache. I find it hard to even move my neck side to side or hold up my head. Muscles throughout my body shake. All movement becomes jerky and and fine movement becomes almost impossible. My heart pounds and my breathing is changed in an unpleasant way. The worst isn't the palpable physical sensations, it's that they easily betray my emotional turmoil to everyone around me.
The loss of my intelligence is the most debilitating aspect of anxiety. I can barely function in my job. Small molehill intellectual challenges become unassailable mountains in the animalistic thinking patterns of anxiety. Fight or flight thats all that matters. Life could be a cinch if I always had my full cognitive capabilities.
At the end of the day, I feel so depressed. My potential means nothing when I can barely function. I can't have fun. I tried going to a baseball game and I couldn't focus on the game, just on all the things going on around me. I felt awful. Why can't life always be easy like when I'm high on opiates? Why is my brain set up to make life as difficult as possible? It doesn't make sense. The opiate high can't be sustained which makes it worthless except to temporarily cover the pain and discomfort of living. I can't think of it being as anything but a terrible genetic defect. I've been this way since I was a little kid.
Sorry for the poor quality of my writing, that was always my weakest ability in school. I tried to explain the way I'm feeling the best I could. I excelled more in math and science.
I spent all off today in an opiate induced blissful state. The juxtaposition of my normal hellish state yesterday with the heavenly state today only served to increase my depression. The opiate high is the epitome of my fantasies during the emotional torment of daily living. As it turns out, life can be easy, fun and exciting. The experience is amazing with all the social opportunities and the unveiling of so many of life's pleasures. Unfortunately, the opiate levels in my blood fall rapidly and I regress into my normal state.
It's hard to convey how unpleasant and difficult it is just to make through a normal day with my baseline emotions. Anxiety is the supreme ruler of my mind. It's a cruel unconquerable dictator that governs all behavior and all thought patterns. It seeks to exterminate all positive emotion.
It's very lonely living with severe anxiety. I spend my life dwelling in a social isolation room in the innermost part of a maximum security prison. My captor is my own neurochemistry. Attempts to communicate are repelled by an assortment of unpleasant symptoms:stuttering, shaky voice, inability to concentrate, low self esteem, and fear of the other person among many others. I don't have a life because of the anxiety so what would I talk about anyway.
Viewing the reactions of other people is distinctly painful. I can't live up to the society cherished masculine ideal of unwavering confidence. Many people just overlook you, I guess they figure it's not worth the effort. Some see an opportunity, this person will be very easy to walk all over. At the bank I work at, impatience is common as I struggle to complete transactions with shaky hands. The worst is amusement. My mind perceives this to be inconceivably sadistic to react to my suffering with amusement. I tell myself that they don't understand. How could they? For the average person, anxiety is a fleeting weak discomfort. Just another feeling in the vast human emotional experience. For those with severe anxiety, it's a strong voracious monster. It feeds on positive emotion such as love and happiness, it doesn't stop until you feel empty inside. After awhile, all you feel is anxiety and the depression it excretes.
I experience an extremely distorted view of reality. The world is terrifying. Body image changes and you feel small, insignificant, helpless and ugly. People faces seem to be contorted into unpleasant grimaces, I see anger and unhappiness. Joyful expressions are hard to locate. Noises are louder and I become dizzy from the overwhelming sensory input. The only way to describe it is feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed and that's just from walking outside.
The physical symptoms are as unpleasant as the mental ones. My muscles are tense and they ache and ache. I find it hard to even move my neck side to side or hold up my head. Muscles throughout my body shake. All movement becomes jerky and and fine movement becomes almost impossible. My heart pounds and my breathing is changed in an unpleasant way. The worst isn't the palpable physical sensations, it's that they easily betray my emotional turmoil to everyone around me.
The loss of my intelligence is the most debilitating aspect of anxiety. I can barely function in my job. Small molehill intellectual challenges become unassailable mountains in the animalistic thinking patterns of anxiety. Fight or flight thats all that matters. Life could be a cinch if I always had my full cognitive capabilities.
At the end of the day, I feel so depressed. My potential means nothing when I can barely function. I can't have fun. I tried going to a baseball game and I couldn't focus on the game, just on all the things going on around me. I felt awful. Why can't life always be easy like when I'm high on opiates? Why is my brain set up to make life as difficult as possible? It doesn't make sense. The opiate high can't be sustained which makes it worthless except to temporarily cover the pain and discomfort of living. I can't think of it being as anything but a terrible genetic defect. I've been this way since I was a little kid.
Sorry for the poor quality of my writing, that was always my weakest ability in school. I tried to explain the way I'm feeling the best I could. I excelled more in math and science.
