The Waiting Room

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The past two weeks have been... not good. Even though some awesome things have happened, there’s just been this underlying gloom. The gloom seeds itself deep inside. It’s in my chest, sitting heavy. I wonder if I’m the only one. Do Dad and Rich feel it, too? Mom? Grandma? I’ll tell you, it’s about the worst feeling anyone can have. It just sits there, leaden, suffocating. It makes you want to vomit. Stand alone at the top of a mountain and scream until it explodes, projecting everywhere except for inside of you. Aghh! I can’t stand it. I think this is what fear feels like.

Fear exists because of this thing called the unknown. The unknown allows fear to live, allows it to thrive, to pull you down to the dark depths of nothingness. To wash away the simple things that make you happy, that make you excited for each new day. They also have a name for the feeling that arises from this fear. It’s called anxiety. Or, what I refer to as the waiting room. About two and a half years ago, it was springtime and I was in my third term as a junior at U of O. This feeling came over me a day or so after getting wasted one night and being deathly hungover the next day. This odd feeling got stronger and stronger as the weeks passed. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what it was, what was happening to me. But the not knowing made the feeling even worse. It’s such a god-awful, helpless feeling. It makes me sick to think about. About five months later while attending summer classes, I realized what I was feeling.

I self diagnosed myself with anxiety. Oh yes, anxiety. The big A. The Waiting Room. Anxiety and depression are like the scariest things to admit you may have because… well… everyone seems to have at least one of the two or knows someone who does. And if you haven’t experienced it yet you just think, “well, sucks for them.” No one has sympathy for people with anxiety or depression because it’s so common, just like A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. The funny thing is that everyone has some degree of it. Some just have more than others. The real question is: to what degree do you continue managing it yourself before seeking help? It definitely depends on the person. In my case, I haven’t gone to a therapist yet. And there’s no way in hell I’d take medication. At least not right now. Maybe someday though. You never know. These days, you just never know.