my anxious mind

One of the things I’ve noticed when it comes to treating mental health disorders is that, save for medication, there seems to be a reluctance to prescribe anything.

It’s always, you could try deep breathing or yoga or meditation or stretching or eating fermented foods.

It’s never, you should go for a walk every morning at 8am, eat 1 clove of garlic and a handful of greens for lunch, do 20 minutes of yoga after work.

I’ve even asked therapists directly, “Can you prescribe me…” and they say no, that isn’t our role.

But for my brain, I need the prescription, not just the ideas of what I can try, so I created my own via a custom iPhone app that I spun up and put on my phone.

So far. So good.

I fly to LA on Thursday. The airport is one of the scariest places for me. The noise, the sounds, the hugeness of it. It overwhelms my senses. I feel off, really off, like I’m walking on the deck of a ship. My head spins but I’m not spinning. My hands sweat. I feel like I need to run. Get out of there. Usually, the anticipation of going to the airport builds weeks in advance, I’m a wreck, I’m sick, I can’t sleep. The anxiety just grows and grows. This time, I’m anxious, really anxious, but I’m trying to just let it be.

Seventeen years since I started writing here. The anxiety never left. But I stopped talking about it. Starting again feels like standing at the edge of something — not sure if it’s a cliff or a doorway. Guess I’ll find out.