Today is the point in my anxiety cycle when I get to relax.<\/p>\n
I’m a hyper sort of person. \u00a0I’ve suffered from fairly intense anxiety and depression on and off for the last ten years. \u00a0It tends to take its most severe form when I’m faced with any sort of public confrontation. \u00a0My husband calls it “the rabbit hole” with worried precision. \u00a0I tend to call it “going tharn.” \u00a0However you put it, I seize on one particular small worry and magnify it into an insurmountable obstacle.<\/p>\n
Case in point: \u00a0last week, our neighbors’ trash bins disappeared. \u00a0They piled up trash. \u00a0A tiny pile, a pile that was Not My Problem, but our buildings abut each other and I had to see<\/em> it. \u00a0Yesterday (the day before trash day), some animal got into their trash pile and scattered it. \u00a0I was horrified. \u00a0Not just “ew gross” horrified, but sweaty palms, can’t-sleep, control-freak horrified. \u00a0When I saw a man down there later cleaning stuff up, I ran down with a trashbag to offer to help, because neighborly! \u00a0Well, really because control. \u00a0But at the time I said, because neighborly!<\/p>\n The guy turned out to just be rifling through their trash for sellables, but he managed to convince me that one of my building-mates said we’d help with the neighbor’s stuff. \u00a0Cue me actually making our usually locked-up cans accessible for a few minutes. \u00a0He mostly filled them. \u00a0My husband let me know via Skype that I was being scammed, and if I wanted to, I could call the cops. \u00a0I went tharn, took our cans back, and went upstairs to stare fixedly at a point in the middle distance. \u00a0Two other apartments in our building use those cans. \u00a0By midnight, one of the three had a towering (my opinion) stack of stuff. \u00a0…and I couldn’t sleep. \u00a0I couldn’t. \u00a0I could barely say hi to Bryant when he came home. \u00a0It was a neat day for us; he bought me a new computer, and it’s beautiful. \u00a0 But I could barely think<\/em> about it because I was so paralyzed by Trashgate.<\/p>\n Today, it’s gone. \u00a0I made sure the trash guy took it all away. \u00a0I put the cans back in the garage. \u00a0Two weeks ago, I was paralyzed thinking of juggling parking in our little driveway\/garage setup. \u00a0This week, trash. \u00a0Next week: TBD. \u00a0But holy cats, it’d be nice to just not give a damn<\/em> about little things like that. \u00a0Like normal people.<\/p>\n A friend and I were talking about how on reality TV, people flip tables and break up marriages and have public tantrums and act like absolute fools, and they’re paid for being entertaining. \u00a0Me, I jostle someone’s table in a crowded restaurant with my hip, and my adrenal gland ramps up like a race car.<\/p>\n By the way, we live two blocks from the Pacific, our apartment is serene and light-filled, my husband’s job goes well, my family is healthy, and the first poem I ever sent to a professional market was just purchased. \u00a0And I flip out over trashcans<\/em>? \u00a0I’m recording this for reference in a week, when my anxiety gloms onto the next insurmountable (ridiculous) obstacle. \u00a0Read this in a week, Susan. \u00a0It’s all going to be okay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today is the point in my anxiety cycle when I get to relax. I’m a hyper sort of person. \u00a0I’ve suffered from fairly intense anxiety and depression on and off for the last ten years. \u00a0It tends to take its most severe form when I’m faced with any sort of public confrontation. \u00a0My husband calls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}