ANXIETY 1

I have anxiety.

There! I admitted it.

It has taken some courage to not only admit this aloud but to write it.

I am a baby boomer therefore born of the generation where a stigma was attached to mental illness. (Well, at least in my circles.) You just didn't talk about these things decades ago.

When I suffered from depression back then, it was my dis-ease. Not one to share with the extended family, friends or colleagues. I could say that I was ashamed and needed to keep it a secret.

Decades later, I still have not accepted ownership. This time for anxiety. I am struggling with it in the 21st century. I fight to take my daily meds. I did not want this illness and to be a slave to medication. My husband, bless his soul, used to allay my fears and comfort me by saying that if I were a diabetic I would need to take my insulin shots daily. Or if I were an asthmatic, a daily puff of Ventolin would be a requirement. Yet I could never see mental illness as "real". I saw it as a weakness. And for a weakness I shouldn't have to take medication. Sometimes I wonder if I sabotage my cure by daily struggling with these thoughts?

How different my daughters' y gen is! They are young and freely talk about things. Perhaps it is because Social Media has made their lives public for friends to see. I envy them their honesty. So I decided to try it.

This is my fourth Blog entry and when I drafted my entry on Anxiety, it was written in the third person. I wavered. Do I? Don't I want to associate myself with anxiety?

I succumbed to my changing personality and rewrote it in the first person, owned it, and shelved it for another time and proceeded to write this preamble.

Anxiety made itself an unwelcomed guest just this year. It followed a year of grief and life changes: both daughters moved out in that year. One to live on her own, one to get married. The empty nest was too difficult to handle in this year of loss. Then there was our new business. (What? at this time of our lives?!)

Now -  2014. The Year of the Horse. My year. And it became the Year of Anxiety. The Year of Turning 60. The Year of Moving House. Too many stresses. I was reeling. The feelings were all to overwhelming to say the least. It was as if I became an invalid. Work and daily chores were impossible. It was a struggle to just get through one day managing myself let alone anything or anyone else.

Five months on, I still have anxiety but I am learning to handle it. Some days better than others.

Anxiety.

There. It is done! I shared my story.

Published By: Valdone's Leaf