What am I doing?

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are
the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about
that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other
scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after
that.”

~R. P. Feynman

What am I doing? I’m writing a blog about my crippling anxiety disorder. Why? Because I have fooled myself about it. I have failed in almost every way with regards to living with this disorder and I feel my failure regarding this disorder is due to me not totally being real with myself and with everyone in my life about it. I can’t do what I need to do (“unfool” myself) without being open and public and real about it. So that’s what I’m doing, and that’s why I’m doing it. In a strange and selfish way, I suppose, I need you, and so I’m leaning on you. But in a more realistic manner, I need the feeling of reality that being open with someone (everyone?) about something provides; I need that solidity in my life, and I need to remove all of the smoke and mirrors I have subconsciously used to tell myself I’m making progress when, in fact, I’m not.

However, there’s another (perhaps) more altruistic reason I’m doing what I’m doing: because I honestly believe being public and open and real about this disorder can help others. There are some I know, personally, who suffer from the same or similar ailment, and there are many whom I’ve never met that *I know* also suffer. There are large walks for AIDS, and walks for cancer, and walks for Diabetes, but there are no walks (at least that I have seen) for anxiety disorders (probably because we’d all be too nervous to do it, ahem – I had to say that before you did). But honestly, our culture sees any disorder of the mind as a weakness of character, as something not as dangerous or real or harmful to someone as a physical disorder; and that’s sad because, let me tell you, it is. Heart disease, diabetes, cancer – the whole lot - can often be caused, or at least greatly pushed along, by uncontrolled anxiety and depression. If you want proof of this claim let me know, and I’ll dump onto you a truck load of research indicating how unbelievably costly – in terms of both money and health – anxiety can be to our culture, and how it can be a “gateway” to these other “physical” disorders. However, if you’re still not convinced, then that’s fine, just don’t read my blog.

I’m going to write about my experiences, I’m going to rate my days, and I’m going to focus – intensely – on the things I need to be real about. My hypochondria is through the roof and it, alongside my (yes, clinically diagnosed) obsessive compulsive disorder, intermix to create a great deal of self-checking and monitoring (blood pressure, pulse – the whole range). For example, sometimes I need to check the doors in my house four or five times (when I’m not on or miss my Lexapro, it can be fifteen or twenty times) before I go to bed. All of this has also handed me a pretty nasty case of agoraphobia (which is actually a condition where one fears being away from a “safe zone” out of fear of having a panic attack in a public or inescapable location). So, yes, I have the whole gambit, the whole range, and the whole shooting match, as it were.

But in the end, I’m going to try to focus most intensely on those things which work, on the successes and breakthroughs, and the “wins” against this thing. Believe it or not, but I have made tremendous progress already, but all of that progress is for not if I cannot actually live the life I want to live because I still cannot get past the fundamental elements of this disorder. Over the past year I have explored my spiritual (though still very secular) side through my outward practice and study of Buddhism, and that has also gained for me a great deal of inner peace and tranquility and – to be honest – openness about my anxiety.

I fear that I have rambled enough, but I had to be open about this thing (as that’s the whole point), and reveal myself as clearly as I could from the get-go. And I hope I did that. We’ll see where this thing takes me, this unhindered exposure and “welcoming” of my disorder, and if you’d like to join me on the ride, I welcome it.