Living with Anxiety in a World of Chaos

About this time last November I shared on Facebook an open letter about my battle with major depression. What I didn't also mention at the time were my related struggles with anxiety. For those who may be unaware, depression and anxiety are highly comorbid. While I wouldn't consider myself to have an anxiety disorder, my bouts of anxiety can be sufficiently disruptive to my mental health that I'd like to briefly discuss them. This is in light of previously vowing to myself to always be open about my experiences with my ill mental health, with an added motivation of helping myself and others in the same situation cope better.

In particular, though, the reason for this post stems from a train of thoughts that I've been having recently: that of living with anxiety in a world of chaos. What I mean by a world of chaos is a world or a reality that is inherently unpredictable. Or, one in which we cannot control future events. Control, or rather the lack thereof, is what I would consider to be one principal driver of anxiety. If we could have things our way, I believe we who suffer from anxiety would have our hand on every lever, our hand on every string that controls the chaos of the world. I think this is how we see it, how we wish we could steer things so that we would never have to feel again the second-guessing, the guilt, the pacing heart and the loss of ability to focus that we feel.

The world is replete with chaos. And I don't just mean the daily tragedy, catastrophe or cataclysm. I also mean the events, however small, that blindside us. You know, the ones that really hit us when we least expect. And really, it's those kinds of instances of chaos that fuel most of the anxiety we feel on a continual basis. But I want to emphasise this concept of chaos, because I think it's important to grasp and (eventually) accept if gripped by anxiety.

When it comes to external input or stimuli, the mind is by and large designed to respond in a particular fashion or default to a particular state. That is, it is built to process things based on a predefined set of expectations. And if the input it receives doesn't adhere to these expectations, the mind attempts to correct (either itself or the input) using certain heuristics. There are multitudes of empirical tomes providing evidence for this. The special problem with anxiety is the way in which these heuristics overwhelm or disrupt our well-being. In a logical and rational world we would react to what are sometimes just inconveniences, misunderstandings or failures in communication in a logical and rational manner. Or if we lived in a world where we could predict and control events we would never have to feel the dread and loss of certainty of outcomes. But this is not our reality. We exist on a plane dominated by chaos. And that leads to ongoing discord in those prone to anxiety.

Finally, for introverts like myself, I think anxiety has a uniquely strong effect. A key feature of our personalities is that we do a lot of thinking; we live in our heads. Add to that mix a propensity to worry about and perseverate on the most illogical and intrinsically meaningless of thoughts or events and you have yourself opportune conditions for anxiety to thrive. Our mode of being is so inwardly oriented that we are especially sensitive to the chaos that originates from the external world. And if you are an introvert who values above all else control over your own life, then it seems only natural, given the laws of entropy that govern reality, that we succumb to anxiety.

M.M. — 24-Jul-2016

Your Golden Call

Another piece of me falls for you
Another part of my soul falls in you
My paper heart set to flight by an autumn wind
At the behest of your golden call

Waiting for the best part of half a lifetime
Keeping lit the flame in the old lantern
And watching the night-shrouded wood
Listening nightly for your golden call

I do not know where I belong
I do not know what to do with this love in me
This gift of embers and summer's seeds
A paltry patchwork of a story longing to be told

I would sound the horns of war for you
Or infuse wintering peace in inflamed men
Rewrite the tomes of victors' histories
Just to have your sword buried in me

This light in me, this convection deep in me
Desires a world unto itself, realised by your love
For the ever-winter night to fade at long last
And I unleashed by your golden call

M.M. — 17-Jul-2016

Living Storms

Kings and queens of our time
Princes of the universe
And princesses as regal as stars
We were all of these and more

And we were nothing
Specks and dust wiped aside
At a whim of a mercurial child

We were halves, short of a whole
And yet everything we ever wanted to be

Because when the sun kissed our cheeks
And the moon lit up our eyes
We were chosen
Chosen to live this way
Either in pain, or in joy
But chosen to live nonetheless

What are we if not storms
Turbulent and ever-changing
Destined for some unknown end
But alive! Alive!

We are nothing
And yet we are everything

M.M. — 15-Jul-2016

The Child and the Star

The child sought to climb the oldest oak
To scale the first sprout of the earth
Enwrap himself with its deep roots

Then when she fell from the sky
In a sphere of celestial making
He felt the pulse beat in his chest

But all is ever lost in the din of the world

Years of creating a cartograph of the stars
To construct a bridge from one realm to another
To find, once again, the pulse
The oscillation within the cosmic noise

She was it all, this star from the start of time
Who came down from much higher than the earth's oak

A sphere and a gift—the only thing he knew to be true
Lost forever in the din of a stunted world

M.M. — 10-Jul-2016

Depression (Iteration 4)

You've paid every cent of hell
While laid down in a wretched cell

Given all of yourself to nothingness
To a nameless face in darkness

Trust me when I say there's another way
That dawn brings salvation with every new day

Just pick yourself up and rise like the sun
Burning bright, in the night, and take what comes

Staring into the mirror and see a face in pain
But showing nothing of the blood long stained

Peel at the cracks, straighten your back
And steel yourself for the coming attack

There's a heat deep in your torn heart
Something just begging for a start

A chance to live, a chance to fight
A chance to do yourself right

Year upon year, you count all your wrongs
But how many times have you proved yourself strong?

This blood, your blood, streams through
Will keep you filled, keep you alive, and make you new

And when all is dead and all is done
And when you find the darkness gone

You will see that you were always free
Just like you've always meant to be

M.M.  — 04-Jul-2016