Almost Canadian

I was home sick the other day. Because I felt kinda garbagey but also wanted to be productive, I started sorting through the music I have downloaded on my phone. This consists of hundreds of songs that either I found on the family computer in the 2000s or which various siblings and friends shared later. I legitimately don’t know what all I have in there, but amongst all the weird stuff there’s a lot of nostalgia and music that makes me feel. This is particularly apparent now, as I am currently quite susceptible to feelings due to some changes in my life (and by changes, I mean weaning off of my happy meds and learning how to manage emotions again). Part of me wants to switch the music off and part of me needs it desperately.

Case in point: There’s one song, “Finding Nemo Nemo Egg 1 hour loop” that I listened to a lot during a very challenging time. Listening to it now makes me feel this poignant sadness. There’s fear and anxiety but also this homesickness for the place I was then and the people and the work. As I write this and try to describe it it’s resurfacing and I feel I can’t bear it,  yet at the same time it inspires me to create and to do things that matter, a heroine in my own story.

But back to the changes, back to the emotions. I am easier to anger, easier to cry, easier to feel the spirit and calm reassurance. I’m learning to address the things that make me angry and keep it from exploding, learning to communicate my needs and get them met, learning to be neither passive nor reactive, just assertive. There are more glimpses of inspiration and more times I am overwhelmed to the point of wanting to throw up. But this is only the beginning of being fully off the medication and the first week was taken by some rather awful withdrawal effects. I have new systems in place and other ways I am managing the anxiety and I am mostly optimistic it will get better. (To be clear, I have nothing against medication; I just have my own reasons for wanting to be off of it at this time.)

Sorting feelings also means trying to find “the real me” and figure out if it is in fact possible to have a life full of emotion and enthusiasm and without anxiety attacks. Can I be driven without anxiety? Can I create without feelings of darkness in the periphery? I won’t say anxiety has ruined my life, because my experiences have shaped me to be here now, but I wonder what I could have accomplished if I hadn’t been afraid.

I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder when I was twenty, and for a long time I thought I was being dramatic. Now I realize I’ve had it since at least age eleven. The thing is, I am highly functioning and always have been. Before weaning off of my medication I mentioned to a loved one that I was worried about getting off my meds. He said, lovingly, that I seemed to be doing just fine before the pandemic and I was stuck inside far from home.

That’s the problem: I seemed to be doing just fine.  Very rarely did the symptoms prevent me from doing what I needed to do. But just fine is not hating yourself. Just fine is not waking up every day with dread settled deep into your intestines because you can’t fathom being able to do what needs to be done. It’s not regular insomnia because you’re too stressed, or feeling physically blocked from opening your mouth. Turns out, I am quite the actor, and I think I’m not the only one.

Just fine is not always visible. Some of us are really good at hiding.

We need help too.