Dear Friends,
Here’s a post I made on another board. It occurred to me as I was writing it that it serves the purpose of the note that I said I might post here about the shift in focus of this blog. It’s also a way of reintroducing that foundational theme, since I’m sure I’ll have occasion to visit it again from time to time.
All the best to all of you,
M.
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Dear J,
Have any of us known paralyzing anxiety? I have. I do still, although it’s much more manageable once one learns to recognize it for what it is rather than for any of the many disguises it can take.
You are lucky – yes, that is a considered judgment – to recognize the anxiety, to know at least some of its sources, and to be working with a therapist you describe as “gifted” on furthering your recognition and management.
I have spoken twice of management because this is not, in my experience, something that goes away, is outgrown, or gets cured or fixed. I hasten to add that, paradoxically if you like, paying focused attention to it as appropriate frees one to go on living without being in thrall to it.
I’ve found it helpful lately to think of my anxiety (or neurosis, as it was known in my youth) as a given, like being male, American, Caucasian, or having been raised Catholic. There’s nothing I can do to change those facts, or in the case of the anxiety to change the facts that caused or precipitated it, but I can place those facts in a larger context and go on living my life without it being overdetermined by any of them (all of which create some tension in my life about who I am and want to be).
Realizing there was a new way of looking at my givens was part of my decision to abandon the first focus of the blog that I had begun as an adjunct to my current therapy – which is going well, thanks for asking. ;^) (The older, anxiety-specific posts run from February through May).
None of this is meant to minimize the reality of your childhood hardships, J, much less the bravery and underlying good heart and good judgment that kept you sane and functioning in a crazy-making situation. The task now – or the series of tasks – is to continue to honor and respect that courage and good heart, and even your childhood choices, as you come to terms with the fact of those choices and their consequences no longer being suited to the kind of life you want and need to live.
As always, you know how to reach me if you’d like to discuss these things further. I’m not sure it works, but I think I’ve enabled comments in my blog, so you’re welcome to try to respond there if you’re so moved.
Love,
M.
