Anxious and DepressedAnxiolytic Isn’t Even in the Dictionary

I grit my jaw. I bite the skin around my nails. I pull at my hair. I bunch my fists. My breaths are shallow. I twitch and clench erratically.

I tell myself not to grit, bite, pull, bunch, twitch and clench. I tell myself to intake more air. Those instructions are followed. For moments. And then they’re not. While I wasn’t looking I started gritting, biting, pulling, bunching, twitching, and clenching all over again.

Anxious. Anxiety.

These are tiny, little words. The barely seem to warrant entries in dictionaries bloated with words like crunk (a type of hip-hop or rap music) and yogilates (a combination of Pilates and yoga), and yet somehow they have achieved great significance in my life.

Anxiety and Depression, Like Peas and Carrots

Anxiety and depression always come in pairs. The each cover half a sphere. How much you feel of each of them depends on your point of view of the sphere.

I was never an anxious person before. Or at least, I was never inordinately anxious, I think. But then came the psych meds and so the anxiety. Anxiety – the side effect that’s it’s own mental illness.

And now I worry. And I’m overwhelmed. Frozen with the fear of things not getting done . . . leading to the very obvious result of things not getting done.

Anxiety. A self-replicating organism.