My head is a prison…

I am at work. And I am not working. It feels like I have something crawling under my skin. Something deeply uncomfortable. I know what it is. It is anxiety. I have been struggling with anxiety for a long time now. At least it feels like a long time. It is not much more than a year. I have things I need to do, things that have a deadline today. But I just cannot do them. I try, but I do not get anywhere. Just the thought that I need to start doing something work-related makes me want to cry. My breathing gets faster and shallower. My eyes start prickling and I start looking around my small work area for a safe way to get out. To get away.

 

Then I start reading, or looking at facebook, while looking around to see if anybody have discovered that I am not working. But usually no one notice.

 

Then the beating starts, the beating I give myself in my head. You need to finish this, you need to do this, you have to pull yourself together… Come on, do not be a lazy arse. It goes on and on, until it gets to a point where I can almost look at myself beating myself up. Just observing all the negative thoughts, and my weaker self, trying to answer the accusations. And I watch myself failing, and falling – but I cannot stop it.

 

And when I get back to reality, I am still at work, and I still have things to do. And then the cycle can start all over again.

 

I know the cycle will start again, even before it does. But I do not know how to not let it happen. I can just passively watch as the whole thing starts over again, while a little part of me observes it and wonders, if this will be the last time. But it never is. It never is.

 

I am writing this, instead of working. It gives me a small break from the cycles. Because writing about it, does not have a part in the cycle. But I can feel that the nauseous feeling in my throat is coming back, and my heart is beating faster… So, this is only working for a short while. Before I have to go back to being a prisoner of my own behaviour.

 

I hate being a prisoner. I love and highly treasures rational thought. I have always thought was one of my strong points. And now I am being imprisoned by my own irrational thought spirals. I HATE IT.

 

Well, it is time to go back to the prison…