Had therapy today and genuinely spent the entire morning ping-ponging between my desk and the loo like some anxious Victorian ghost with an upset stomach. Cramps, nausea, everything. By the time the appointment actually rolled around I was so stressed I was pretty sure I was going to throw up.
And when I told my therapist all this, she just looked at me and said, “and yet you’re still here.”
Like. That anxious, that many physical symptoms, feeling that sick - and I still showed up. I still came to the appointment. Even though I hate being on video. Even though every fibre of my body was screaming nope-nope-nope.She was genuinely proud of me. She said so many people don’t make it to therapy at all because the anxiety walls them off before they get there. And I just… cried. Because I was sitting there saying how much I hated all of this, how miserable and scary it feels, but also that I knew I could get past it again. I’ve done it before. I can do it again. Even when it feels impossible.
We talked a lot about how many “micro-tasks” actually make up a single win - and how fast the brain erases them. Like we say, “yeah, I went to work today,” but we don’t acknowledge the twenty-seven terrifying steps inside that.
Like:
- waking up, feeling dread punch you in the stomach
- choosing not to call in sick
- untangling yourself from blankets that suddenly feel like the only safe place on earth
- dragging yourself upright, grounding through dizziness
- dealing with the whole stomach situation
- brushing teeth with shaky hands
- picking clothes (harder than astrophysics)
- eating something, taking meds, checking the time
- finding your keys/phone/badge like you’re completing a quest
- putting on shoes (its own battle)
- opening the front door even though anxiety wants you barricaded inside
- locking up and then immediately worrying you didn’t lock up
- getting to the car
- sitting there thinking “I could just… not go”
- starting the engine anyway
- navigating traffic, roundabouts, other drivers, all while barely holding it together
- parking, getting out, walking into the building
- pretending to be a functional human despite your brain being a screeching smoke alarm
And then you do your job. And you come home. And your brain still goes: “yeah, regular day.”
When really you climbed a mountain before 9am.
So we talked through treatment options. Weighed up a wellbeing course vs one-to-one exposure therapy. In the end, we decided to start with a remote 6-week wellbeing course - 2 hours a week, each session covering a theme (anxiety, low mood, sleep, self-esteem, self-identity). She said - and I agree - that while anxiety & agoraphobia are the headline problem right now, I’m actually struggling with all of the things the course touches on. So hopefully it’ll lift the baseline a bit before we dive into exposure therapy.
(Also, neither of us particularly wanted to start exposure therapy during Christmas. Sensible boundaries.)
The only downside: the course doesn’t start until the end of January :/
So… now we wait. And I try to remember that even when my stomach is imploding and my brain is screaming and I feel like a raw nerve with legs — I’m still doing the thing. I’m still showing up. I’m still here.
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killercahill
