jhn brssndn!

monkeytypist:

Someone on Twitter (reliable source, I know) said that today was National Anxiety Awareness Day.

That’s a good thing, I think.

One of the best things that has happened to our popular discourse over the last little while is that we’ve become a lot cooler with the idea of people suffering from depression as deserving support and recognition.  The outpouring of positivity that comes when some public figure announces they have had difficulties with depression is a huge change from just a few years ago.

But we *also* need to acknowledge the effect of anxiety, which hurts a lot of people as well, and in certain respects is even more insidious and invisible than depression.

The thing that gets me is how it manifests itself physically.  When you’re feeling anxious, it’s not so much what you’re doing as what you feel you can’t do.  It’s a form of paralysis.  It’s extremely exhausting.  It leaves you wanting to do nothing, feeling tired, feeling like you have to get away from everything, feeling inexpressive and inadequate and small.

I think - even more than depression - that a severe episode of anxiety can be baffling for someone who hasn’t experienced it.  From the outside it looks wildly irrational, unjustified, a bizzare focus on trivialities and an inability to do the most simple, straightforward things.  The intensity can be distressing for loved ones as well as the “flatness” - where you put up a brick wall around yourself where you can come across as inexpressive, physically inert and not “there”.  Of course the way a lot of people cope with it is to drink heavily and withdraw from those around them.

I remember reading as a description of some fictional characters that they needed a few drinks before they could relax enough to a state that most people have while they are sober.  I think it’s true for some people I know.

Beyondblue has some stuff on it that explains it all better than I can.

I’ve had to deal with it, on and off, for many years.  I strongly suspect that my anxiety played a key role in the collapse of my most recent relationship.  I’m going to try to make a more concerted effort to deal with it through regular counselling, and of course, healthy living (fingers crossed!)

Oh, and another thing, anxiety can also lead to depressive episodes, so the two things are interlinked.

Anyway, I just wanted to say - if you’re ever talking about depresison, and spreading awareness of depression, don’t forget anxiety too.  It’s a thing that affects a lot of people, who, I think quite unfairly, have it tough sometimes.

luminosa:

natface:

Let me just take a look at my calendar. Hey, look. Yeah, there it is! It’s December. Okay, guys, well, I’m about to just get my Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums out and play those straight through the New Year, all right? And maybe while we’re at it, we’ll also see lights strung up around our posters, feel the hardwood floor of three years ago under our feet, touch young love, and breathe in the smell of pine and fried meatballs? And if, for a second, we can push aside the immediate smells, maybe we can breathe in the whole year. Let’s start with the crackling wind of winter; let’s go onward to the coppery sense of nosebleeds and chicken soup of the winter/spring transition. Let’s smell the getting-ever-less-serious breezes and tentative barbecues of the spring; let’s move on to the virile and unavoidable array of summer’s waving heat.  The year is trying to breathe out, and so let’s all breathe in. I want to take it in before the raucous New Year that lets us contemplate nothing, I want to remember this year my way before I consign it to quick flashes, hard moments, moist eyes, heart twinges at the strains of a Sufjan Stevens song. So let’s grab this year to us, shitty or not, because there’s a lot to shout about, and it’s Christmas, so let’s be glad.

Just lovely.

Or if you’re british, let’s imagine rain at different temperatures.  Who is Shakin’ Stevens anyway?

mercurypdx:

tylercoates:

“nt-gy strs rnd hr r lwys s pr-gy bsd. “n ngry lsr”? Rlly? Dd sh cm t t bbs nd rp prschlrs n hr wy t Nz rlly? Wy t sty bjctv thr Wltr Crnkt. Y knw t sm “pthtc” ppl t’s mndtd by thr rlgn tht t hv sx wth th sm sx s bhrrnt t ntr nd gs gnst th dsgn f ll th rst f fnctnl crtn. Tht hs t b t lst s mprtnt s th blty t chs fshnbl prnt pttrns r nc dry ppltn.”

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The best comment I’ve ever read, on this post.

I LOVE trying to decode a good disemvoweling.

TL/DR