With me, it comes and goes at a somewhat random pattern. Illustrators have made a lot of cartoons depicting how anxiety presents in them, but I don't have any fancy equipment or extraordinary skills, so I though I'd present mine through a story.
"The little monster"
It was a seemnigly normal day for me. I woke up, put on my clothes, and got ready for work. As I was heading out the door, however, I noticed a tiny monster in the doorway.
I didn't think much of it at first, as it was the size of a guinea pig and didn't look very threatening.
"Stop!" It yelled at me with his tiny voice. I stopped in my tracks and looked down at it.
It did seem rather familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
I asked the monster what it wanted, and it responded with an "I want to keep you safe."
"Safe?" I asked. "Safe from what?"
The monster ran its tiny hands through its fur as it looked at me rather nervously and replied "from the world."
"What do you mean? I'm not in any danger." I told the monster. It stretched its back to apper taller, and I could have sworn it started to grow a little when it asked me if I had noticed it had rained.
I had. "Well, have you forgotten that hole in your bicycle seat?" "The one that always gives me a wet butt after it rains because the water it retains seeps out? I have. You don't think anyone will notice, do you?"
The monster nodded. "What if they laugh at you?" "I'll be fine, I'll put a plastic bag on the seat", I told it, and tried to exit the door. The monster had now grown to the height of my knees, and I had to step over it in order to get out of the door, as it had also grown fatter.
"Wait, just wait." it said, its voice sounding stronger and deeper. I took the leg I had raised to step over it down again, and with a sigh, let it speak. "What if... What if you get hit by a car today?"
I could die in traffic. I had to admit, I had in fact considered it. The road I take to work is a dangerous road with many cars, and after many potentially dangerous encounters, I've started to constantly fear the cars and the people in them, on that road.
"Wha-what do you mean? I'm sure I'll be fine. I've taken that road many times and nothing has happened." "But what if... What if today was the day something DID happen?"
The monster was not so tiny anymore. I couldn't tell if I had shrunk or it had grown, but it was now at the height of my elbows.
I took a moment to think about it, and had to admit that the monster could be right. "But," I added, "You could also be wrong. Now, would you please move aside? I have to get to work."
But the monster refused to budge. Like a bouncer at a bar, it put its hand in front of me with a 'stop' motion and shook his head.
"Listen," it said "this is for your own good. I can feel it in my guts; if you go out there, you WILL get run over. I can't let that happen."
We were now the same height. In fact, I slowly started to feel like I had to look up at it in order to keep eyecontact. My head was spinning.
"You have had many close encounters", it added, slowly growing taller by the minute.
It was true, there had been some close encounters. I felt my body become more and more restless. I constantly shifted my weight from one leg to the other, and I started fidgeting with my hands. Then, I started walking back and forth. What if the monster was right? Was I really going to die?
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to get run over.
"What if nobody knows who are? What if you get hit and they can't identify you, so your parents are never informed?" The monster started pounding me with 'what if' questions.
It now filled my entire doorway, its tiny horns the size of goat horns, and its voice deep and ominous. In fact, it looked and sounded more like a dangerous demon than the cute little thing I had seen in my doorway moments before.
"DO NOT" it yelled, "DO NOT GO OUT THERE, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!"
Defeated, I feel to the floor with tears in my eyes. I could feel how I started to shrink until I felt as tiny as the monster had been at first, and then it dawned on me. I HAD seen the monster before. I had seen in out of the corner of my eyes every time I was crossing that road, every time I was passing an intersection, and every time I had been in scary situations.
I tried to kick it in the shins, bite its ancles, pull its fur in pure frustrations, but nothing worked. I put up a fair fight, perhaps a bit too late, but it wouldn't budge. I finally gave up and began to cry uncontrollably while my entire body was shivering.
A twenty-five year old had been reduced to a tiny five-year old in a matter of minutes.
I never made it to work that day. The monster eventually let me out the door, but it was too late. I felt small, vulnerable and defenseless, and after crying to my counsellor a bit, I went back into my room and hid from the monster until it slowly started to shrink back into a tiny, barely noticeable being.
I knew the monster would be back, it always seemed to come back, but for now, it had done what it came to do.
- The end.
And this is how anxeity presents in me. A tiny monster. Sometimes the monster is so tiny that I barely notice it, other times, it slowly grows bigger without me noticing at first, until it is beyond my control, and there's nothing left to do about it.
I try to fight it, and sometimes, I win, sometimes, I lose. Some days it feels like I wake up with the monster standing by my bed, staring at me, already at "gigantic demon"-size, and I know there's no use in putting up a fight.
More often than not, though, I'm in control of the beast.
