Anxiety

Anxiety:

there’s been a struggle for me with anxiety for sometime now, perhaps for much of my life it’s been an underlying presence, often intense and causing near panic, but mostly just a whisper that feeds my worst instincts through certain situations and conditions of my daily living. The past several years have been difficult and have finally brought me to the point where medication has been needed. Yet still I hesitate to call this a struggle, or say that I suffer due to anxiety. It’s just present, a manageable threat to certain moments of my internal equilibrium, and few people ever see its presence. Some might say that I hide it well, and yes, it’s seldom evident to others, but it’s not something that I try to keep from people. I don’t hide it, there’s not some internal fight going on, no struggle, really — it’s simply part of life, allowed as every aspect is, acknowledged for its harm if left unchecked, yet it’s nothing that I refuse to recognize as belonging.

if it’s present, it belongs.

even as I wish for something other.

and of course I do wish that some aspects of my life were easier, that anxiety wasn’t an issue that inhibits certain interactions with people and situations. I do the things that help and then continue with my daily living. There’s an equanimity here, peace, and not because of absence of any struggle, but simply of…