Escape Anxiety: Get Intimate!

And by intimacy I don't necessarily mean sex but sure, there is that.

Have you heard my heart? It's beating, healing, wanting, aching, anticipating. It's telling you I hear you, see you, feel you. You aren't lost.
And it's telling me the same.

It's somewhere in the maze of all these words scrolling down yet another page. Not even a page you can hold between your fingers. Maybe just keys to prop you up as you listen, fighting the panic, and feeling like you're slowly coming unstuck, again.

Listen. You can cope with anxiety.

I listen. I listen to you, to your comments or to the stats counter ticking over on your way to answers. I listen to friends, counselors, doctors, shrinks. I listen to the world, to myself, to the fine print and the news that it's more than just me and a lifeboat full of fear.

Listening helps relieve anxiety

It's a skill that can makes all the difference in a life. Yours. Mine. It doesn't matter. If you can listen, you can be free. If you can turn your ear just enough, you'll find that uncertainty isn't all that's out there, feel a little closer to the world around, and within. It won't be so scary any more.

More than just a style of communication, it's a skill that speaks to how you're doing, who you are, why you're fighting anxiety in the first place.

It's that all too human connection, that terrifying kind which isn't often physical. It's harder to find, and even harder to sit with - if you're not really used to that sort of thing.

You're anxious, why would you want to make it worse by starting something like that?

Except... yeah.

Anxiety can't be treated in isolation.

The way to stop anxiety is to find a way of being that feels like you aren't alone.

Overcoming worry, stress and panic

And maybe it doesn't always have to be about action, distraction, reaction. Maybe treating anxiety means more than that: Responding, reciprocating, being care-full with yourself. And others.

Ultimately, what we think we're doing in terms of healing, and what we're actually experiencing have to sync up --

Take part in things which make you feel good, accepted, stronger than the panic, worry, flashbacks, compulsions that set in way too early and never really leave.

Value your own experience, learn from each day, know yourself better tomorrow. These are the things that will never leave you, that you can tuck in your back pocket to come back to whenever the need should arise because the one thing I can guarantee you is that living with a mental illness isn't easy.