My son is growing up and growing older. He is becoming more independent. He heads out now, hanging with his friends, riding scooters around neighborhoods. Crossing busy streets, going to Starbucks and the grocery store.
All fantastic things. All wonderful parts of growing up. Being social; having positive interpersonal interactions, having friends, growing in his independence.
But my damn, stupid head.
I sit here, journaling, trying to put this anxiety somewhere, anywhere. This feeling, anxiety; I believe, is the one feeling I truly hate the most. It’s also the toughest feeling to try to submit to, at least for me at this moment.
I feel:
Fearful – Scared – Helpless/Frightened
Fearful – Scared – Overwhelmed/Worried
All those lovely “feels” swirling in my head. And in the pit of my stomach.
Logically, I know he knows how to handle himself. Logically, I know he will have a great time. But while he is out, on his own, I sit in self-inflicted emotional turmoil. All this anxiety does, is hurt me. For no logical reason. Because this negative energy will not have any effect on him, his day, or any outcomes that may come from hanging out with his friends. Yet, I cannot intellectually override these feelings. They overtake me.
It no longer relates to even the negative thought patterns, the dwelling, obsessing, leading to compulsively checking the location of his phone through our family phone app.
All it takes to trigger anxiety now; is the process I have to perpetually go through as a father to consistently let go of my son.
I don’t believe I am alone feeling this way as a parent. But I also wonder, are these feelings more extreme within me. I don’t believe I am normal, for whatever “normal” might be. The over-reactive emotional responses I experience are not based on any real-life event, or situation. It’s entirely self-inflicted onto myself, by myself, through completely illogical thought patterns.
Yet I can’t override them. Forty-five years of this shit.
I’ve come to terms that I cannot even trust my own thoughts, my own head.
Is this insanity? Not being able to trust your own brain?
60 mg of Prozac daily, forty-five years of running, hiding, burying; yet separation anxiety not only continues to win, but it also seems to be getting stronger.
So today I tried to submit and soak in the feeling.
It sucks.
Like bathing in a sea of Lightning Hornets, from a nest dropped from my brain into my gut. Then from my gut, electric waves of shock course through me, reaching all the way out to my finger-tips-and-toes. My leg will not stop bouncing.
But I refuse to search for a distraction. I refuse to be compulsive, or to numb out. I have not checked his phone’s location. I have not texted him. I have not reached for a glass of bourbon.
Instead, I grab a pen and try to bleed it out all over the page. Maybe the only way out is through. Inky-bloodletting.
To become physically stronger, you must be prepared to get uncomfortable.
To become mentally smarter, you must face being challenged, being frustrated, as you learn more.
Forty-five fucking years alive on this planet, and I’ve never worked on my emotional fortitude. Instinctually, I look to place blame elsewhere for why I haven’t.
It’s time to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
But this is all on me. I’ve been a coward. Not being able to face an unpleasant emotion – seems so weak to me now. I’m embarrassed. I’ve been letting emotion win all my life. Run, hide, and bury. Not today. I’m sick of it.
The Lightning Hornets sting my fingertips, but I just write faster and faster. My handwriting, which is atrocious to begin with, becomes sloppier and sloppier. But I start to become calm. Anxiety bleeds out through the pen onto the page.
Inky-bloodletting.
Relief.
I let out a big sigh of relief. The exhale is surprising because I was not aware how shallow my breathing had been.
My son’s new favorite song comes to my head. “Yes, I’m a Mess,” by AJR.
For so long, my perfectionism prevented me from truly feeling calm in my own skin.
Something was always wrong.
Something always needed improving.
Fixing.
Obsessively-obsessing in trying to become something that, quite frankly, is abhorrent.
There is a quote in business I have heard. “In God we trust, in all other’s we audit.”
It is a recognition that human nature, by its nature, is flawed. Human nature needs checks and balances because perfection is not attainable within it.
It’s something only for the Divine.
I do believe in God. In Christ. In Goodness.
I have serious reservations with organized religion. How so many in organized religion mistake “walking in the steps of Christ” to mean put up a false image of holiness, of unreproachable cleanliness. Pious, pompous perfectionism leading many in organized religion to look down on others, rather than up to the Heavens.
And what example of Divine, Perfect, Leadership should people attempt to walk in? What steps should a believer be trying to follow?
If anyone who ever walked the Earth was fit to rule over all of us; it was Christ. The only one who could truly wield power appropriately, in complete goodness, over the world. The only one worthy of wearing a crown. And he bowed before his disciples to wash their flawed human feet.
Limitless power, capability, authority – and He chose to serve. To serve us. Deeply flawed humanity.
And here I am, sitting wondering what’s wrong with me, how do I fix myself, because I’m not perfect. I am a human being who is running from the human experience in order to no longer be human. To be perfect, instead of accepting my flaws. To not feel feelings, all the feelings I was designed to feel.
Abhorrent. To try to ignore and hide away the very things that make me human. To open myself up and be vulnerable. What would that say about me as a man? Why should I give a shit? I am human, first and foremost. Feelings, pleasant and unpleasant, are not just part of the human experience; they are the center of it. It’s what connects all of us, or what could connect all of us, if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to understand regardless of gender, race, sexual-preference, gender-identity – we all are meant to feel, to experience, to process and try to understand and deal with our feelings. Emotion truly has the potential to break down any and all barriers and connect us with one another.
Looking at this emotional wheel, one of many, but all potentially so useful; there are so many more unpleasant feelings than pleasant ones. They are not inherently good or bad; they just are. Their existence is indifferent; they will continue to do what they do within us.
Our reactions to these emotions are not indifferent. That’s where we have agency.
Feeling anxious is neither good nor bad, it is just a feeling. My reaction, my impulse, to run, hide, and bury this feeling is bad. It will propel me, eventually, into depression. Into a very dark, unhealthy, and potentially dangerous place.
It is especially dangerous to those around me who do love me. My depression would hurt them.
“Yes, I’m a Mess.”
I’m not at self-acceptance. But it is time to stop beating myself up for having feelings. It is childish. It is cowardly. It’s time to grow up and experience them, truly feel them.
Yes, I’m flawed. I’m human. It is what I was designed to be.