Know thyself. Love thyself.

I walked into 2019 beleaguered by panic attacks. Towards end of 2018, massive fear gripped me, weighing like a boulder on my chest, my heart was beating in my ears and I was engulfed in darkness. 

I entered 2019 with anxiety, fear, loneliness and huge void inside me.

When you are caught in these spaces, often, you are by yourself. That’s the nature of the beast.  You could see a doctor for the anxiety attacks or confide in a dear friend / spouse  about the trigger – but you are pretty much on your own.  It's like undertaking a journey to unchartered territory - blindfolded.  It's impossible to articulate exactly what you see / experience . So people around you can only help so much!

There are times (thankfully not often) something simple and beautiful, suddenly ties itself into knots – and you have no idea how to untangle it or turn the clock back.  You see yourself losing grip over the situation and this other person is constantly shifting your coordinates, allowing no time for you to acclimatise. You are confused and spinning out of control, on top of which you are made to believe, seeking to understand these rapid changes amounts to being demanding or a nag. The negative spiral is so vicious, it really turns you into a nag or so you begin to believe. And then, you set yourself on a path of  self doubt and self flagellation. This about sums up!

While the confusion and utter callousness of this other person threw me off, at the core of my angst was the realisation as to how little I understood myself at an emotional level. Or it could well be the fallout of the self-critical state I was in.  The more confused I grew, the more caged I felt and I was angry at the situation and the person who led me to it. I was frustrated, helpless and at wits’ end.  I felt powerless, desperate to be understood and made allowances for, given my vulnerability.  Could someone or something affect so deeply? It did, to me! The fact that I am highly sensitive and my emotions are almost always magnified, didn’t help either! To cut the long story short, I was having a breakdown.  My battered inner-self was becoming desperate and screaming for attention and help. It was no longer business as usual; it was a crisis. 

I am seeing a therapist now and on the path to self-discovery and hopefully recovery too.

Why am I making this struggle public? From talking to the therapist and reading up on human psychology, I find it a profound relief that I am not the only one. Hence I have reason to believe that my narrative will most likely help others see that too - we are not alone.  Besides, sharing this / writing it down is helping me overcome guilt and shame over my angry outbursts and poor grasp of my very own emotional makeup which led to temporary insanity.

I quote this from a book I read recently “without having any of the dramatic talent of a Sophocles or Shakespeare, we need to tell our own stories of loss and error with some of the same generosity that they employed, thereby holding on to what can often feel, especially at our lowest points, like a hugely improbable idea: that though we have failed, however stupid our mistakes, we remain deserving of that gracious and grand epithet, a gift from the Greeks to all humankind: a tragic failure“

I don’t know how I would ever have gotten well if I hadn’t fallen ill?!  Self is a mystery and self-discovery should be a constant endeavour  – and this is what I learnt in 2019. I am grateful for all the hits and misses and insanity of 2019 as I have emerged stronger to take on 2020s.

And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

For old times' sake be your own best friend and serve nothing but kindness to yourself? Just this year?