It’s been a bit of a rough week. Between my first class for graduate school (masters in counseling) and work blowing up, my anxiety has been through the roof.

Anxiety manifests in strange ways for me. It seems to come in waves. I can manage to get sufficiently distracted by work or whatever but sometimes, if I don’t deal with it, it gets stuck in my body and will come out in other ways.

This last year I’ve been having issues with my lymph nodes swelling. It’s not in response to illness, it’s just stress.

Or I start to become really flushed and warm and I can’t seem to keep it together. A multitude of feelings flashes through my brain. My chest feels tight and like my heart and lungs are being squeezed and I’m the one responsible. As if, too many emotions are trying to explode from within and the only way to keep it all in is to push it all back inside. Bind my heart up in string and rope and pull tightly. I pull tight, trying to keep everything tied down and under control, no matter how much it hurts.

And sometimes it feels like, no one cares. No one cares how much it hurts. I know that’s probably not true but it feels that way. I also don’t share same often as I should because I realize how irrational it may be. But even the people I do share it with, it often feels like it just glosses past them. I guess it’s hard to know how to respond to anxiety. It is for me too.

It’s irritating that it used to not be this way. I’ve both become more acutely aware of what’s happening and frustratingly been unable to do anything about it.

Maybe I should go back to an ignorance is bliss approach. Wishful thinking. However, I did enjoy spending some time w colored pencils and my Stabilo pens today. And I’ve been exercising more. It helps, both activities help a lot. I know it can be hard to get the motivation to move when you’re in freeze or so depressed getting out of bed sounds like being asked to climb Mount Everest. I gotta tell you though, for me, it makes a massive difference in my mental health. It’s one of those things that is really annoying to have to do sometimes, but you almost never regret it afterwards.

And with art? Well, you know how I feel about that. As I go into this next week I reflect on what I created. The emotions weaved into the imagery are honest. That feeling is something I want to work on and will continue to do so, even if it’s just one drawing at a time.