I haven't gone to a doctor for an official diagnosis, mainly because I don't want the affirmation of a professional... or a prescription drug.
Instead, I set out on a life-long mission to learn how to live with, moderate, and ultimately overcome my anxiety.
Overtime, I learned to embrace anxiety as a constant.
Drawing inspiration from the poignant phrase, "Do one thing every day that scares you," in the song "Everybody is free (to wear sunscreen)," I decided the key to winning the battle with anxiety is to embrace it.
To reap the benefits of exercise, one has to get up, workout, suffer through the pain and sweat. The paths to fitness and less anxiety are similar. To improve, I spend part of the day scaring the bejeezus out of myself, fighting the desire to flee, and rediscovering that the thing causing my anxiety wasn't so bad after all.
The benefits are my world grows, everything seems possible, and the remaining part of my day is anxiety free.
However, some scary things are harder to battle than others, and some days even the simple task of stepping out the front door is a challenge.
Imagine a bubble around yourself. When you are within the bubble there is no anxiety, but once you step outside your insides become as trembly as a chihuahua on ice. The trembles can make you hot, or cold, or both at the same time. Your palms sweat, the mind races, and your stomach ties into knots threatening to eject everything you ate, possibly taking your stomach lining with it.
Some days you can travel far before you find the boundaries of the bubble, then there are times when it is waiting to smack you in the face as you wake up.
It's variable, and I don't always win. But, when I do, the victory is sweet.
Yesterday, I won.
I went scuba diving in the Pacific Ocean with a friend. I have been diving for almost ten years, but this was my second time in the ocean.
The ocean and I have been on a slow acquaintance period for the past two years I have lived on the coast. I spend days staring at it, sometimes go on it on a boat, but rarely jump into its midst.
My caution isn't from a fear of water or the ocean — actually, I am a water bug and love the ocean. The excess caution is my manifestation from knowing how unforgiving and dangerous those waters can be. I like to take it slow with scary, dangerous things.
During the paddle out to our dive location, an epic battle raged in my head between the scaredy-cat and the adventurer in me.
My mind regretfully reviewed all the things that frightened me from past dives — getting sea sick once, getting hypothermia (mild case, don't worry). Plus, with the added possibility of large great white sharks (very low possibility, in reality), the extra elements of 58 degree water, and getting tangled in kelp (I am not a fan of unidentified objects touching me) my vitals were going through the roof.
The scaredy-cat, unfortunately, is chattier of the two and rattled off phrases like:
"Nobody will hate you if you go in," "You should just cancel the trip, you put yourself at risk going out this nervous," "The water is too cold," "Quit kidding yourself, you're really not cut out for this,"
"Go back home, where it is safe and warm."
The voice grew louder, and my heart rate increased. If it wasn't for strong will and deep breaths I would have high-tailed it home. Instead, I took some advice from a wise cartoon fish and 'kept swimming.' Once on the bottom, my fretting faded away and I was rewarded with sea stars, sea cucumbers, and my favorite thing in life: Adventure.
 |
| Sea stars. ©Teresa Shumaker. |
 |
| 20-legged sea star. ©Teresa Shumaker. |
 |
| Sea cucumber. ©Teresa Shumaker. |
No comments:
Post a Comment