It’s a river. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s a fairly non-descript river. A river that has, through nature and man, had its course changed – its quality eroded – its importance altered over time. But it is, for all intents and purposes – still, just a river. But as an idiom; it’s more than that. It is the point of no return. If you cross the river – metaphorically cross the Rubicon – the path of your life will have changed for good. For the good? I’m reminded of the Rubicon as I plan a trip to Rome next week. I am reminded of how Julius Caesar once crossed the river, defying tradition – by leading his legions in to Italy, thus committing an act
Anxiety Archive
Watch how I do it. Oh my god they’re huge. Try and do it a little harder. Just look at her eyes. Don’t look down there. Keep going. Another 50 seconds. Look at the clock. No. She might think that’s rude. 40. There’s an eye chart. Look at the eye chart. No wait. What if I can’t read it? 30. There’s a pamphlet on the wall. Try to read that pamphlet. Oh bollocks, it’s no good. 20. I can’t. Not. Look. Last 10 seconds. Keep going – as hard as you can. I’m laughing. I am laughing at breasts. Breasts I dare not look at. And stop. I knew the minute I walked through the door that this session was going to be difficult. From
A trigger is a strange thing. In terms of my anxiety, a trigger could be a simple thing that I would manage, deal with and move past for weeks on end. Then, out of nowhere; that simple thing would blow up. Become a hard to manage, impossible to pass situation – that I simply had no way to counter. The granddaddy of all triggers for me is failure. Of course you can easily throw in a soupcon of rejection, a dash of change, a mere morsel of overloading – but in the end it all comes back to one thing – the fear of failure. Episode one, as we will call it to keep things simple – was as much to do with overloading as
The next three connected posts – planned to run over the next three days – are about a subject that is, quite literally (Jamie), close to my heart; anxiety. The first, connected, will try to give an understanding of how I came to accept I had to deal with my anxiety. The second, disconnected, will give an insight in to the root causes of my anxiety. The final piece, reconnected, will shed some light on how – I hope – I’ve learnt to identify and manage the times when the feelings of anxiety begin to take a hold. It’s not something I find easy to write about. It’s not something I necessarily care for others to know about – but if this blog is about