Anxious Muse

I've fought anxiety and depression issues for a good portion of my life. The smallest "whoops!" situations would turn into the biggest embarrassments, and when you're as clumsy as I am, that's a big issue. But it's not just my lack of physical grace that gives me anxiety - it's the constant nagging thought that I'm too clumsy, too slow, too unintelligent, too big, too fat, too uncomfortable in my own skin to be good enough for anyone, myself included. 

So I've been on a quest to find a way to chill. The past couple years that quest has landed me in the doctor's office for a chemical cocktail to calm me down. We recently found a combination that stopped the voice in my head from constantly berating me for, well, being me. When that voice shut up, I rejoiced. No more "too this or that" thoughts or cringing at moments from twenty years ago that were remotely embarrassing.

During the past month, I started watching more TV instead of writing. Shows like Fixer Upper and Love It or List It became my nightly routine. I continued to read, but the stories just didn't do anything for me anymore. Even my favorite novels didn't hold my attention. 

I had no anxiety, but I also had no strong emotions. I didn't get upset over anything but, then again, I didn't get excited about anything, either. 

I just didn't care. 

Slowly I saw myself beginning to eat more sweets - my old go-to comfort food - and pizza, too. I stopped working out so hard. It didn't matter anymore. I'd found freedom from my anxiety at the cost of my emotions - ALL of my emotions. 

But the worst of it was, I couldn't hear my muse anymore. Where she normally was, was nothing. Not an empty space even. It was as if she had never been there. 

And still, I. Just. Didn't. Care. 

And that alarmed me. A person should care about something. To be human we should have some emotions, some joy and some sadness, some anger and some love. We need these things to be human. 

I discussed everything with my husband, telling him how I felt I'd lost a significant part of myself. We agreed, and with my doctor's blessing, I stopped the new medication - the one that turned off my anxiety. 

Almost immediately, my muse came back. 

She whispered softly at first, a promise of things to come. In that first wonderful, relief-filled moment I realized how I'd been silly to think that I was better of without my anxiety. Sure, anxiety's a bitch some days, and in the days since my muse came back, I remembered why I went on the quest for equilibrium in the first place. 

But without that irritating voice, I can't feel anything. And without emotions, I can't hear my muse. 

That's unacceptable. She is an integral part of me, along with all her quirks - all my quirks. We are, after all, one and the same. 

I could go on; waxing philosophic about why we need our emotions to be human and so on and so forth. But now that she's beginning to talk to me again, I don't want to waste any more time without feelings, without...anxiety. 

Sometimes the things that irritate us the most are the things that we need the most. Strange how that works, huh?