Anxiety can be such so insidious. You can feel fine and then you’re hijacked by these paralysing and overwhelming feelings.
You can start to feel like you’re separating from your body, detaching from reality. A veil seems to descend between you and the world. Your mind and heart no longer feel safe and grounded.
You might even feel like you’re going to have a heart attack, pass out or die.
You develop a whole system of checks and balances nuanced to your particular flavour of control, all to avoid being triggered.
You become afraid of your anxiety returning and this creates a type of cage that you comfortably inhabit, because however restrictive, you deem it better than that anxious feeling. And this can work – it does keep things manageable – but sometimes you get stuck there and think it’s a forever thing.
But how to open the door? How to step out of the cage? (more…)