Pancake
TW: anxiety, panic, depression
Today was the second time in five weeks or so that I had to spend an entire day outside, without cats, with strangers or people I am not friendly with.
All the usual signs were there: restless REM sleep the previous night, a very long morning that seemed to drag while I rushed to stay ahead, packing so much food and hydration that I had to change bags, texting non-urgent people the minute it struck 10 because the work day had begun and I could, getting my make-up just wrong enough that it took away essential bits from my self-esteem that I would need the rest of the day...I could go on.
Living with anxiety is harder than living with H-F depression, for me personally. High-fuctioning depression makes me look like a powerhouse to the rest of the world, and when I'm alone, I can be sad and weepy and lonely and all the other negative things without anyone seeing me that way. It helps me preserve my dignity (read: ego). And while I strut around doing everything better than most, I can take comfort in the fact that when I'm better, I will not have missed many steps.
Anxiety, the chronic kind, is like sitting on a hot stove. I feel it coming from a mile away. A glance, a word, a gesture, someone sneezing too close to me, I don't ever know what triggers it, but in a few moments, I'm on the other side of darkness, panting, breathless, unable to speak and just bursting with a violent anger. My thumbs refuse to type correctly (in fact, they're starting to do that now, just from my thinking about how it feels, and someday I will show you a sample text), my face feels like lava and I want to scream so loudly and for so long that my throat would tear and veins would just start breaking and spewing blood all over the people causing me this hell.
After living through these emotional jerks all day long, when I come back home and get to my room, there is no telling when or where the weepies will come, only that they will. On good days, that would be it. On others, I'm in for the adult-sized storm.
This evening, I chose to take my meds preemptively, and held off long enough to realise that all I really needed right then were these golden, fluffy, butter-soaked and honey-drizzled pancakes (that I made) and some coffee. The first bite I took nearly brought me to tears, but I swallowed them with the first bite of hot, soul-warming food.
My wish for anyone living with this sort of mental health issue is that they have pancakes when they really need them, whatever their meaning for 'pancakes' may be.
