Anxiety Illuminated
~ Survivors of the Silent Ages II ~
sometimes i'll be lying down and my
heart starts racing, running up and
away
and i have to convince myself that
it doesn't really matter whether
or not it's going to be okay---
my nails would get too long if
i didn't bite them every once in
a while.
i scream sometimes when i remember
i'm alive.
the moments people fill with their
cigarettes and text messages and
television shows are really the
times we should get to know,
alone and silent, tangled in the
bedclothes,
when your adrenaline rushes at
the idea that anything is happening
at all . . .
sink your teeth into reality.
taste it instead of being
fed.
FLASh C K E R
f l i
TW
i T
CH
My skull is
being wadded up
like a crisp paper
bag; I can feel every
crumple bending my brain.
Pops. Sometimes joints and
sometimes just for the shit of
it. My eyeballs have faces, edges
and vertices. Problem is, my eyelids
don't. So they don't quite fit in the
sockets like they should. Waves, from
my heart, heat pumping in my limbs, they
dizzy and distract and when they stop
it doesn't cease because I just notice I'm
cold again. I can't tell. I've stopped trying.
All the energy seeps out of my fingers and toes,
the tops of my ears and the bulb of my nose.
Sometimes I surrender, let myself sink, just...
forgo control and feel the black, stirring me
in a mixing bowl, consumed. I hum the tune that
puts the universe to sleep as the war inside me
rages. This body sure puts up a good fight.
But not me. I'm tired. I let it all swirl.
I'm so very, very afraid . . .
" Fear is an emotion induced by a perceived threat that causes animals to move quickly away from the location of a perceived threat and sometimes hide. It is the ability to recognize danger, leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it.
" Fear should be distinguished from the emotion anxiety, which typically occurs without any certain or immediate threat. Additionally, fear is frequently related to escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.
" Anxiety is a displeasing feeling of fear and concern. Considered a normal reaction to a stressor, it may help an individual to deal with a demanding situation by prompting them to cope with it.
" An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance as well as increaced tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. Anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents.
" Theologian Paul Tillich characterized existential anxiety as 'the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing.' When a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the 'trauma of nonbeing' as death is near.
" As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it. That is the law of my life. That is the working within me of Life's incessant aspiration to higher organization, wider, deeper, intenser self-consciousness, and greater understanding.
- G. B. Shaw from Man and Superman
