Category Archives: Anxiety

Day 6. Trust.

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I’m having trouble today coming up with things to say. However, keeping with the “one post per day” challenge I shall say this. Trust is important in any relationship. Even enemies trust each other to behave in a foe-like manner. But I digress. In climbing, trust is paramount. We trust each other with our lives and continued well-being so that we can feel the freedom to explore. If that trust is shaken, it is hard to get things back to the way they were. There cannot be any hidden agendas and all things must be clear and transparent, which in its turn creates an implicit feeling of a close bond. Those feelings of bonding are multiplied exponentially when the climbing relationship goes beyond catching and belaying.

One day, I will find a way to finish this post. And I still love her.

Day 5. Fear.

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I have been thinking about fear and the nature of that emotion. It has occurred to me that when it comes to human relationships and life in general, fear is not so much us hiding from things but rather hiding things from ourselves. This gives us an illusion of having control over our lives because we make the choices and call the shots. The sad reality however is that we are sometimes ruled by the things we are afraid to face so we pretend they aren’t there or that they are something else.

Unwittingly, I have become a master at that technique during the last 15-20 years of my life. That realisation has sent me into yet another panic attack. How could I have been so blind??? And then anger sets in: why didn’t anybody else see this and help me??? But the answer, of course, is because I have been putting on a façade for most of my life. Dealing with having a learning disability in a society that praised and deified uniformity and conformity required it. So no one then could see what was going on. I have walled myself off from everyone and thus made myself alone. I used to joke that I had developed my ability of being alone in a roomful of people into an art form. Only now I realise how detrimental that was. So even though I had eventually learned to overcome the loner mode, I have not simultaneously developed a way of dealing with the world. So something had to give and I began putting scary things into their own walls so that I wouldn’t have to deal or look at them.

There’s a terrifying aspect to this whole thing: when it comes to relationships, we see what we want to see because often enough we are unable to cope with the idea that the other person might not be that into us. And then, you get to break down and hopefully ask for help.

Maybe even start a blog…

It had not occurred to me to do this before. A place that is so anonymous if it needs to be where I can scream the most inner things to the universe and still maintain my privacy? A comedian friend of mine, while pulling me out of what was fixing up to be a marathon drinking session in a dive bar, has told me to write what I’m feeling and write it out all the time. There’s no shame in this and no one, except a few people will ever read this. There’s a tremendous freedom in this. Eventually though, I will have to re move a cloak of anonymity either off of this blog and my true inner state. It will be me vanquishing another stage of fear by removing walls from myself and opening up myself to the world.

In the meantime, the minutia of writing this blog and being part of the WordPress community is helping but GODDAMN I am in so much pain every moment of every day! And I still dream of her.

Day 4. Forlorn Hope. (Letter #2).

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As I sit on a bench on Duluth looking at people passing me by, it is impossible not to notice all the happy couples. Undoubtedly, there are other people as well but they are mere background noise, deemed unworthy of notice by my lovesick mind. The worst thing of all, though, is that you appear everywhere. We have not spoken since that dreadful night right before you left on your trip what was happening. Since then, it has become impossible not to think about you. Someone’s fleeting smile, a look over a shoulder… You are everywhere. Even though I know you are hundreds of miles away, every time my first thought is that you have come back. The forlorn hope, but that is what my existence has been reduced to. Like a soldier of old, I am throwing self unto the breach, hoping against all reason, that the prize will wait for me at the end. But all that I have is an empty burning pit in my stomach, and an image of you everywhere and in everything. In the all too short time we were together, you have become the one thing that made my world wonderful. You were the shining bright star in my dark cold the night and now that you are gone, I feel more lost than ever before. So now I must find myself and do it for real this time. Will you still be there? Will you be waiting for me at the other end of the tunnel? You won’t. You wouldn’t. This is the most important journey of my life and I must make it alone. A longing feeling: your gentle touch reaching out for me in the dark; just breeze ruffling the hairs on my hand. I wonder if you’ll ever see these writings? Will you understand? Becoming someone you could love and be proud of will take a lot of work. But will it have been for nought for you won’t be there in the end?

A damned fool! I fell so deeply for you and you didn’t even realise it. I would give everything for your kiss; to taste the sweetness of your lips, their gentle caress on my skin. I shall remember that feeling for as long as I live.

Alone. Lost. Adrift. I take the shallow breath and tread the water. Barely able to breathe, I amble toward a direction that I hope will lead to a wait out hoping that memory of you won’t weigh me down and take me under.

Day 3. My heart beats for you and so it beats for nought.

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No time of the day provides a respite. As I wake up my thoughts are of you and the panic sets in. I know you are probably in your tent now, waking up in the arms of another. The ball of pressure in the pit of my stomach starts to burn and the tears well up in my eyes. I am powerless against this wave and it overtakes me. Unable (or unwilling, perhaps?) to break free and it pulls me under. A feeling of drowning punches through my gut and thoughts of you fill my mind and my aching heart. I long for you, my sweetheart. Oh, how I long for you!

Day 2. A Cut Too Deep. (Letter #1).

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After some heavy thinking I have done in the past week or so, I have come to realisation that I have no choice but to cut you out of my life. I’m sorry it has come to that but just being friends and hanging out with was never going to be enough for me. I care for you too much to be around you without being with you both because it would be too painful for me and because I would not want to poison you with my misery.
I wish things could have turned out differently. I wish hadn’t pushed you towards the arms of another. (Definitely wish I had’t arranged for the circumstances where you two met.) I wish I could have been what you wanted me to be. I am not. Perhaps with time I could have changed, likely would have, but it is too late now and you could not wait. I wish you could have given me more of a chance; I wish you would be willing to wait… You are like an untameable mustang, a force of your own. Unwilling to settle for anything less than you deserve, you cannot be with one who isn’t what you want. There’s no blame for you in this; but the end result is all the same: we must part ways for I cannot bear for it to be otherwise. I would never presume to tell you whom you can or cannot date. But if I cannot be with you than I cannot be around you knowing that you are with someone else, seeing you with someone else, someone better.
All I ever wanted was to hold you close, to be able to say I’m yours and to call you mine. Alas, that is not to be.
I realise now that I should have been more open with you about my emotional health issues and more truthful about the cause of my idiosyncrasies. Not to mention that I should have sought professional help a long time ago. But it was easier to fool myself that I’m stronger than the depression that has been slowly suffocating me for the 20+ years. I would start new hobbies and get obsessed with them and they gave me great outlets for relief of anxiety and depression but whenever I would be forced to be by myself they would spring back up. Things became harder and harder to deal with over time. Even cleaning my room became a task of Herculean proportions. I finally have reached he point where I realise that I cannot deal with it by myself. I will seek the help. “I’ll drop the cross of self-denial,” so to speak. Regretfully for us, it is all too late. Perhaps, once I’m better we may see if there’s still something there but I will not ask you to wait. I will not be this unfair to you.
I care oh so deeply for you, my dearest, dearest girl. ‘Til better times, perhaps.

Day 1. A New Beginning.

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This blog is to help me document my recovery from deep depression and a host of other issues as well as to help me pick up pieces of my broken heart and try to make sense of life and events.

I have been sliding down the depression cliff for some time, rationalising not seeking professional help by pretending that it was my “normal,” that it was a cultural thing. But a breakup turn my slow slide into an uncontrollable tumble. And I finally came to realise how screwed up my life really is. I made a first step: contacted a mental health clinic that came recommended by a trusted friend. I am yet to have my first appointment but decided to use this medium as a way to arrange my thoughts and feelings.

So here goes…