The golden "W" emblem adorns many things I own. It's often given to me, during special occasions. It's an incredible gesture to the folks that love me. It makes sense. I flood my social media with images of Frida Kahlo, Langston Hughes, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Wonderwoman. It would only be appropriate to purchase me something that resembles my heroes.
Want to know what they all have in common?
They are all on some pedestal. Everyone that adores them, while they were alive and now, has a perception of who they were. Most of these perceptions do not account for flaws, they do not leave room for flexibility, for mistakes.
This is how I feel every time someone gifts myself a WonderWoman item or calls me by her name. Although I purchase the items for myself and sometimes refer to myself as her, in jest, I understand that I am flawed, that I have much to work on, that I am sometimes defeated.
Some of the folks who gift these items or adorn my wall in her likeness, find me indestructible. Although they are friends and family, they lack empathy for my situation.
"You'll get through this."
"You always come out on top."
"I know you, and you'll be fine."
This is usually done with a pat on the shoulder, and their back turned to me. They haven't fathomed that I might need an ear, someone to sit alongside me, understanding.
Because WonderWoman isn't allowed to be broken.
She isn't allowed to regress.
She isn't allowed to find herself entangled in her lasso of truth.
She isn't allowed to cry.
She isn't allowed to find herself heartbroken.
She isn't allowed to be intimidated.
& most of all...
She is not allowed to succumb to any labels of the "average" or he "mere human."
WonderWoman is not allowed to have Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
I'm not sure the exact day it started.
I remember the year.
It was freshman year of college. I was dating a guy from back home and in the middle of our Christmas break he was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis. His condition declined rapidly. Every time my phone rang, I jumped for it. My breathing would change immediately, and I was preparing for the worst. Each time he called, he'd lost control of an important function, or a doctor's appointment hadn't gone exactly to plan. I took on all of his pain, although he pleaded with me not to. I ran home to NYC, from Virginia, whenever he was hospitalized. At nineteen years old, I was helping my boyfriend walk, shower, and get into bed. I was overwhelmed trying to keep up with my studies, social and performance life. I was having panic attacks all the time, and I noticed that my worry was way out of control. I'd never felt the amount of concern that seemed to flood my body.
I didn't recognize this as anxiety. I thought what was happening was a standard response to what was going on in my life. I knew it would go away when the stress was gone.
Here's the problem....it never left.
I had the feeling of an anchor on my chest, in the mornings. My mind would be flooded with analytical questions the moment I woke up. It would diminish as the day progressed, but it returned every evening as I went to sleep and rose with the sun.
I am twenty-eight, with a successful career, great friends, an amazing support system, and I still wake up every day with that feeling.
My overthinking sabotages relationships, makes me sometimes difficult to work with, and sometimes makes natural life functions tough.
Some mornings I wake up with all the energy in the world; other days I arise with the inability to move.
I am sometimes, destructible.
I am often, broken.
I went to therapy, after a horrendous breakup, in 2013. I spent six months sitting in a therapists' chair that pushed me to journal and unpack my thought process. After my tenure with her, I didn't feel any different. After all, if my writing was supposed to heal me...considering I was a writer...shouldn't I have been healed?
I left therapy and decided that I would write like crazy and focus on my career. My job became my coping mechanism. As long as I was immersed in my work, my anxiety seemed to go away.
Fridays were my dreaded days. After a long week of business meetings, co-workers, and rowdy students...I would have to come home to my quiet apartment. My anxiety would slowly creep in. Questions and negative thoughts seemed to write themselves on my yellow walls.
Why aren't you married yet?
Ain't you almost thirty?
Did you finish you task list?
You didn't? You're a failure.
Did you try hard enough this week?
How'd that date go?
Not so well, huh?
Are you beautiful?
Are you secure?
Does it radiate through your skin?
Can they see that you don't actually love yourself?
My anxiety did not go. It was buried under all the items I used to inundate myself.
I had not yet rectified it.
& it took God to humble me.
Enter someone that I potentially could have had a great relationship with. He had his things together, so did I. He seemed like a real person, courted me, and was adamant about making me a focus in his life.
I was ready. Or was I?
My anxiety started to manifest in ways I thought I'd suppressed.
His absence would trigger questions. His actions were overanalyzed. His pulling away tugged at my security.
When in reality, my anxiety pushed him away. He recognized the pressure being put on him and he tried, as gracefully as possible, to stay with me despite.
I broke up with him. My anxiety reared its ugly head and accused him of several things, some were true and some were not. In reality, the items should've been a discussion instead of an uproar and severance.
Or perhaps it needed to be...
Because anxiety disorder never goes away. It never heals. It's always there, and it's up to the person experiencing it to manage it. It's not up to the therapist, your significant other, your friends. They can help guide you to the right avenues. They can assist with advice.
They cannot heal you.
Only you can heal you.
This summer, I'm going to start healing.
I woke up this morning and walked straight to a therapists' office. I got the advice I needed to take myself to the next step towards managing my anxiety.
I will no longer use my career as a coping mechanism. I will longer assume that the people who love me are supposed to know how to deal with my episodes.
I've got to fight for me.
I need to be an eventual evolution.
Follow me on this journey with women who will be talking about their hopes, fears, tribulations, dreams, and so much more. We will document what it is to be a phoenix, we will show you what it is to rise, we will evolve.
Signing off,
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