Solitude

A Solitary Night-in

It was time again for Mine and Morgan's dreaded one day a month agreement. Last months was a shopping trip at a very crowded shopping centre where I had to leave through a fire exit, causing deafening alarms to blare and three fire engines to arrive, because I had a panic attack when a shop assistant shouted at me for not coming to the counter. I was preparing myself for the cashier/customer chat.

I had never felt humiliation like it.

She called Alex to pick us up and I cried and wheezed all the way home while Morgan rubbed my back while we sat together in the back seat.

She promised to start slow with our outings again, not going anywhere too public and too panic attack prone.

Even with that promise, I was still anxious. I had no idea what she was planning. Normally, she called ahead of time so I could digest the information of where we were going and I could research it, if I liked. But today, all she did was send me a message.

'Be there at six'

That was it. That was the message. That was all the information I was provided for our Morgan and Oaklee day for February.

I both breathed a sigh of relief and panicked when the door knocked. I slowly tiptoed to the door, an anxious masking my face. I wasn't just anxious. I was terrified.

"Lets get this party started!" Morgan yelled when she set foot in my apartment.

The panic button was pressed. "What?! I'm not going to a party. No. No. Nopity nope nope nope." I shook my head furiously, eyes on the ground and backing away like one would do from a rabid dog.

"Relax Fear, it was a figure of speech." She rolled her eyes. I frowned at the nickname. I didn't appreciate being compared to the purple character from Inside Out.

From an outsiders point of view, someone who didn't know the depths of anxiety and how every action is thoroughly thought out and overthought, it was difficult to understand my disorder and my attacks. They were 'stupid' or 'strange'. I knew it was weird, I knew my anxiety was overpowering and suffocating, often making me feel tiny and like I had a plastic bag over my mouth when I was in a room full of people, my lungs collapsing and my body dying.

But that wasn't happening. Physically, I was fine, I was healthy. I could breathe, my lungs were functioning normally. But mentally? I was dying. I was suffocating and drowning and crying and screaming. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't survive when my attacks hit; I was dying. The waves of anxiety were pummelling me, dragging me under and blinding me, ripping the air from my lungs with its own bare hands. It was all in my head but when it was happening... it felt like the world was ending.

Yes, I related to the character in certain ways. His life was ruled by fear and anxiety, as well as mine, but I was so much more than skin on bones and anxiety. I hated how I let my anxiety ruled my life, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't stop it. It was attached to me, it was in my bones, in my DNA to be anxious and to overthink every little thing.

And sometimes, when my anxiety was so overpowering and suffocating, when I felt like my whole being was just anxiety, it was nice to say 'Morgan understands. Morgan gets why I have my panic attacks and she does all she can to help'.

But of course, there was only so much Morgan could understand. She didn't truly understand how I felt, she sympathised, she didn't empathise. And as much as I was grateful to her for understanding, for not forcing me out of my shell of solitude, I knew she couldn't truly understand the depths of my disorder and she didn't understand how being nicknamed a character with anxiety was both hurtful and offensive to me. She also wouldn't know the impact being called that had on me because of my anxiety.