the fight with anxiety, i thought was almost (long) over. it's in parenthesis cuz when therapy was ongoing & when i gradually grew to share with others my journey, each time i shared felt like I had anxiety over/under me, felt i had it under control (or what felt like an overcoming feeling), that empowering sensational yet surreal feeling that... this is smth i might have overcome having struggled with it for..ever, and for the most part, i was in this bubble of anxiety which was my reality, it wasn't until therapy that i was able to detach myself from the-caught-up-in-a-anxious-bubble-me and look at myself objectively from above. i must say, that perspective is very liberating... it's a position filled with hope - the relief of (just) being able to see from that vantage point (cuz how often are we incapable of finding perspective right); hope - cuz I can then sit in a safe space to charter my steps forward to get myself out of that bubble; more hope - cuz I can then aspire to live into a better future, a happier one... *deep breaths
for the most of the latter part of my sessions, i'd always be able to say that "i think im doing better at work.. i havent felt like that in a while.. perhaps not since the first few times i saw you. i no longer face urges to hurt myself to cope..." whilst thinking, cuz i know i can come see you to cope..
[and that being a full on meltdown, panic attack, inability to bring myself to finish my intended task for a day, forcefully read my devotion in hope of finding comfort & healing & peace yet to only feel like nth's changed and to abandon my course of the night tho i've already arrived at the destination so i can climb back to bed and just... cry....]
the irony is when my therapist first suggested of discharging me (or rather 'wrapping up our sessions') during our 2nd last session, i felt mild anxiety creeping up on me freaking out about what'd happened without therapy! she's always been my fallback, my process mechanism, my crutch... what if i regress / revert / go crazy! im still the same person - need to process a million things a hundredfold - but with therapy, i can spare my close friends from my insane need to process which i thought has improved my chemistry with my friends too. without that, who do i process with? what if my friends get too burdene dby me?! what if i cant make sense... :( the list goes on. the above (which is just a foretaste) was a threat by lil Ms A, but wasn't enough to scare me cuz we hadn't planned abt out discharging in concrete ways.
in reflection, towards the later few sessions, esp the last, i myself did concur that there is probably no more need to come in so frequently. in fact soemtimes i get nervous (not the bad kind) before sessions where i find myself lying awake at night wondering what do i share with my therapist tomorrow.... plus since the last time i assured her that my episodes were less / no longer forthcoming, i've shared abt my joruney with a couple more ppl over a continuous 2 weeks (with my sister and brother) which has given me this confidence boost, that hmm maybe anxiety is after under me.. ya know? thsi was right before the last session.
when the last session came, i was in this state of peace, comfort of being in my own skin having shared wat i shared with my siblings (which was a huge step) and inadvertently added to my confidence along the way. Despite my initial desire to maintain therapy as a part of my life forever (like how one views exercise), I resigned to teh thought that therapy was probably not intended as a crutch but rather to help us develop emotional independence, develop skills to build emotional resilience and to teach us manage ourselves better.
Ok, fine..
then this past week came - and i've been feeling so meh, demotivated.... I was still outweighed by my independent-i've got this emotion thiknming it's probably exacerbated by the moon, until my boss' statement of "are you still behind?" pulled the trigger and i went complete downhill from there. I got super emo, depressive, just distant from the world, emotionally so burdened & choked up. I become unprodcutive at work, just dreading to end work, go home, sleep it off, wake up dreading work, praying/wishing i was sick so i can escape work) go to work, hoping my boss wont jump on me that i still have some grace merits to fall back on, wait for the weekend (which ever passes by so swfitly & nth really gets done where my emotional repose is conerned) and the cycle continues.....
ytd i was so stubborn that i decided i just wanna do what i wanna do so i read a novel for 3hrs + and just fell asleep. this morning i wokr up thinking, enough is enough. i gotta get my shit tgt.
in teh midst of getting my shit tgt, my hands were tremebling here n there, my voice stuttered over the phone with government officers, my actions wer unfocused, mind going chaotic while trying to remind myself "the worst is that your boss will just question you" in hopes of claming whatever it is that needs calming...
the portion i read ytd on " My Name is Hope" attributes anxiety to many possible reasons, one of which is to please people / to seek teh approval of others. The night before I had given some money away which i think aligns to my conviction & which i think objectively God will not be displeased with. Yet i freaked out cuz ppl thought i was so silly and naive to have given such a big amount. The terms used in the book was "constantly second-guessing your conversations" (decisions - in my case) and is it that "the fear of man is what drives you. You are more concerned with what people think of you, then with what God thinks of you". In that moment, i decided to let go - cuz I know for a fact (i'd like to think/say) that God will think well of me, and so i should just abandon what the world will think of my very same decision.
in the midst of my quivering abt, my fear was disappointing my boss. but i told myself to just speak to her anyway. true enough (which is almost 99% of the time), i come back to my room more relaxed (though still burdened in heart), but quivers have taken a break, and here i am writing away...
