The Anxiety of Quiet
It’s hard to feel like I should be allowed to rest once the dust has settled and things are calm again. Whether that feeling arises after a frenzy of chores tackled, and the exhaustion and satisfaction that a good day’s work done brings or be it in the aftermath of having made a collective decision amongst loved ones to let another go, who’d really been gone since they’d been put on the machines that breathed life to their now inanimate body.
It’s difficult to relish the release that coming to the conclusion of something hard-wrought and stressful brings when you’re inured to chaos, not to fully discredit the ingenuity, resilience, and the good and bad repercussions of being forged in that whirlwind brings. Hypervigilance becomes your superpower. Caring for others, gauging their state of mind and well being, anticipating their needs, becomes essential. From getting them their anxiety meds before they go into a full-on panic attack, or being ready with the next beer before the last one runs out, to cleaning up the last beer given after it’s spilled on the floor, remembering to also clean the exploded beer bottle in the freezer, being sure to throw out the ice should any of the glass shards have fallen in the bag.
Hypervigilance is the best friend of a young one in the in the pack, and becomes nothing but a hinderance and a millstone around one’s neck once when ventures out on their own. Unfortunately, as I and perhaps you have seen, some people never experience this particular downside of chaos, as they never leave the tribe and instead stay involved in the cycle of co-dependency. But those of us who do choose to leave our ultimately unsustainable situation are left with the oftentimes unnecessarily intense awareness that knocks us down more times than we’d like to admit.
So long as things are frantic, we can survive, but those of us who ‘get out’ usually have an inkling that the co-dependent relationships we were fostered and reared in didn’t truly serve ourselves or the others involved. Yet we have a hard time distinguishing between friend and foe and good decision from bad. We know how to survive, adapt and observe. We know how to get things done, most of us being skilled autodidacts, learning what we needed to do as we went along and how and when to do it. Our superpower becomes a weapon used unintentionally against us by ourselves, and intentionally by those with a keen eye and a propensity for manipulation and charm.
I’m not the first one to speak to the perfectionism that often crops up in people with difficult backgrounds, and I won’t be the last to speak on or fall victim to it. As much as the quiet felt in the past year from so much time spent in my own company has been the catalyst for what I failed to see previously as intensely necessary change, the urge to claw, climb and achieve has been the most difficult to die. I am learning to let go and to enjoy the process. I slowly realize that I do not have to continually achieve and aspire in order to have innate value. I already have that.
It took an ulcer that gnawed my insides to see that grief comes up for me when I’m quiet, and that my ability to be cool when things are at their worst is why I go through intense emotional rollercoasters when I’m contemplative and silent. It makes a lot of sense, really.
So today, after I made the breakfast and took care of my husband while he recovers home on medical leave, while I feed not only him, but clean up after he and my niece and I’s dinner from the night before, preparing a brunch for us all, more coffee and more cleaning, more running around picking up dishes, making sure there isn’t anything left to pick up or clean, when all that’s done and I begin to ignore my urge to use the restroom, or get dressed, when my mind goes to only considering who needs what from me, where I start to panic that I’ve forgotten something to do at work, I stop. I pause. I get the computer out and I write out the title of this post and take a moment. I get myself a piece of cake, and I sit down to write. I’m glad again for that anxiety class I’m taking. I’m happy to stop running away from the feelings and just write them down. I’m glad I’ve been disciplined this past year, writing for hours every day. I don’t want to do it most days, but am happy when it’s done, and happy to get what’s in, out of my head. Maybe I’ll mediate today. I know I need to learn to sit with the quiet.