Social Anxiety

The wind blows circles in my mind, scattering thoughts of sanity into random confusion.
Around me, I can see the calmness of structure, an anchor of serenity that never allows me the chance to steady my judgment. Two separate worlds that exist at the same time and same place. The first consisting of smiles, the other consumed by tension. In my world was a relentless storm of mental anxiety, the other, an island of peace.

Social confrontations spark a nervous reaction, continually heightened by the unreasonable panic generated in my head. Just the slightest sign of acknowledgment, from those around me, could trigger every nerve in my body to twitch without consent and corner me into a state of unwarranted embarrassment. I wanted to retreat forever into the security of some passive oasis, far away from all those around me.

Forced isolation, however, is never even close to the solution. It is only a means to an end, an attempt at protecting myself from the whole world ripping into a fragile mind. I envisage a rush of cold cleansing water flowing through my mind and removing all that threatens my stability. A magical healing stream of serenity, cold and pure, that could wash away my unyielding mental torment. Nevertheless, until that time, I remained alone, consumed by apprehension, and plagued by inner anxiety. A compromise of life that allowed me to function, but violated my individual freedom.

This type of self-medication separated me from any close human contact I wanted so much to embrace. To have someone to hold, and who in turn held me, just did not seem possible. Day after day arrived for me with empty dreams, offering only a reflection of all those lonely yesterdays for a promise of tomorrow. What started out as just a nervous personality as a child, had then become an overwhelming pressure of self-consciousness

This almost debilitating anxiety seemed to feed off its own panic. I wanted desperately to find peace of mind, before the very fabric of my sanity snapped under the enormous weight put upon it. In an attempt to alleviate my suffering, I tried alcohol, and swallowed down glass after glass to counteract the hyperactivity going on in my brain. To my astonishment, the magic of alcohol actually relieved the tension, and for the first time in years, I began to feel normal.

It was, however, to be a short-lived recovery, as I was about to find out upon waking the following morning. Not only was the anxiety back, but because of the shock I gave it by using alcohol, it now returned to me with a vengeance. Drinking the day before had somehow antagonized my problem, leaving me worse off and violently ill. Facing anybody on that day would have been impossible. It was hard to believe that I could have done this to myself, but I felt it was worth the agony for just a few hours of mental calmness.

A downward spiral had then begun, as the temporary relief offered to me by alcohol was far too tempting to resist. Time after time, I suffered through those, 'morning after' periods, where unbearable storms raged havoc inside my head, yet I continued to drink. I needed to consume more and more of this double edge sword in order to escape both my original problem, and now this new constriction encircling my mental ability to reason. It did not take long before this bad choice of medication turned into an illness of its own, but by that time, I just did not care anymore.

It would take many years of suffering, for both those around me and myself, before I was able to manage my life into a more comfortable existence. Alcohol, I was later to discover, never did give me the relief I once thought it had. Instead, it used my underlining weaknesses to gain a foothold in my mind, furthering its own interests while sabotaging any chance I had for recovery. Accepting myself for who I was, and reaching out to others for help, was to be the key I needed in obtaining mental calmness. The world exists for us to join in it's humanity, a welcoming fellowship always ready to unburden us of our load. In addition, with a heavenly Father offering to guide our way through the darkness, how can we go wrong.