June 12, 2026
Day 3,386
I've been writing and erasing sentences for a bit now. Sometimes there is no easy way to say what I need to say. I'm struggling. I feel weak and wounded. I feel broken. I feel anxious and numb at the same time. Each breath feels hard. I can't breathe deep enough. The shaky feeling persists. And every single second of my day is plagued with intrusive thoughts that will. not. stop. It is so loud in my head right now. Sleep is hard. Work is hard. Tasks are hard. Thinking is hard. Remembering is hard. Moving is hard. It's all hard.
I find myself angry and jealous watching other people carelessly and joyfully go about their days doing normal human things. Things like walking the dog. Going out to eat. Exercising. Making food. I do these things too, but always the noise is there. These aren't "pondering" thoughts. These are intrusive thoughts. They are disturbing. They make me cringe. I don't want to think them. But they keep coming back to me. Like a barrage of arrows flying into my mind. One after another after another after another after another after another. They don't end. They keep on.
For example:
This is how others go out to eat:
-They get in their car. They drive to the restaurant. They sit down. They eat. They enjoy. They go home.
This is how I go out to eat:
-I get in the car. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: This is the night I will get food poisoning. It's not safe to eat tonight.
I drive to the restaurant. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: We might run off the road. We might drive off an overpass. A car might hit us. We're going too fast. The tire could blow up while we're driving. That used to happen to Ford Explorers. It could happen to my car.
I sit down at the table. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: Oh, wait. I cannot sit down. There are crumbs. Other people sat here. It's contaminated. Crumbs will touch me. They will get on my clothes. There is a crack in the restaurant booth. I cannot sit there. It's too tight. There's no space in this booth. I cannot breathe. Someone could stand up and shoot people right now in this restaurant. Where would I hide? The waiter hates me and thinks I'm stupid. They might do something to my food. I might get food poisoning. I might have an allergic reaction. It's hot in here. I feel like I can't breathe.
I eat. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: My throat might close while I'm eating. I might be allergic. My heart might stop. I might have a stroke. I might have cancer. I can't feel my lips. I can't feel my feet right now. My heart is beating fast. What does this mean? Drink some water. The water smells weird. The glass smells weird. It's contaminated.
I enjoy. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: Enjoy this night now because I won't have this forever. Soon, someone I love will be taken from me. Someone I love might die. It's loud in here. The lights are too bright. Everything is moving too fast.
I go home. INTRUSIVE THOUGHT: I wasted the night for me and everyone else being afraid. Everyone is mad at me for being annoying. We're driving too fast. We might crash. We might drive off this bridge. How would I get everyone out? My throat hurts. It might be cancer.
It. is. so. noisy. I cannot quiet it right now. It's roaring all the time. Every second. It does not cease.
I recently went to a dentist appointment. The dentist asked me if I was seeing anyone for my anxiety. She asked me if I was taking medication. She told me the next time I come to the dentist that I need to be medicated.
I'm still recovering from that appointment on Monday. Appointments are hard for me, but I think the hardest part for me was that dentist telling me, "This level of anxiety isn't normal."
It's normal for me. It's been normal for me. This is how I have always lived.
There are waves. There are stormy, high waves. And there are gentle, lapping waves. Right now, I'm in a high wave season. A stormy season. But it will not last forever.
The dentist frustrated me because she saw me on a high wave, stormy day and passed judgement on me. I can still see her and hear her saying that to me. "This level of anxiety isn't normal."
I've been angry about her words to me. I've been angry that she wanted me to leave my appointment and come back another day when I was medicated.
Here's my conclusion: I did it scared.
I did it. I did it scared, but I did it. I completed the entire appointment. I was panicked. I was uncomfortable. I was scared. But I did it.
I've been scared of a lot of things, and I've done them anyways. I've done it scared.
I was talking with a friend about anxiety a few nights ago. I told her that I thought people who deal with anxiety are the strongest people on earth because they have to do all the normal human being things that everyone has to do, but people with anxiety do it scared. It's hard to try to be strong for the hard things, the simple things, and all the things in between.
We, anxiety bearers, we do it scared all the time.
I hate anxiety. It's a heavy burden. A scratchy blanket of darkness forever covering the bright and jolly parts of life. I guess the only bright spot of anxiety is this: it creates the toughest, the strongest, and the most resilient people I've ever known. And if I have to be known for something, let it be that I am tough. I am strong. I am resilient. Let it be that I do things scared. Which is harder than doing things the way other people do them because I have to deal with all the fear and the intrusive thoughts and the sheer madness of all the fucking noise in my head while doing anything at all.
Tonight, I am thankful that in spite of it all, I do things scared. I continue to move forward. I continue to ride the high, stormy waves because I know that the gentle, low tide will come around again soon.
