the pain of a highly anxious mind

…the best I could do was keep on living without knowing anything at all.

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Ever since I was small, I knew I was a sensitive child. This was clearly and consistently communicated to me by teachers, parents and friends alike — always with a hint of condescension and pity, as if sensitivity is a disadvantage of the mind, a detriment to the rational human excellence.

And for a long time, I agreed with them. Nothing good had ever come from the acute awareness of my surroundings.

My blood boiled at the very thought of introducing myself in a new class (ice-breaker sessions criminally poured actual ice down my spine).

The world spun and threatened to crumble at my feet for something as simple as having to tell the server that they got my order wrong, so most of the time, I just swallowed it down, eating away both that disgusting taste of coriander and the overwhelming shame of not being able to initiate such a basic human interaction.

My cheeks burned, my pulse quickened, visions blurred, and my senses, ironically, both felt amplified and blocked at the same time.

Anxiety was painful, to say the least. It felt like a thousand needles wiggling inside my flesh, stabbing me at every turn. But there was nothing I could do. If I could have dissected myself and cut out all the parts that made me feel wrong, I would have.

Sometimes in my dreams, those fears and doubts manifested into a villainised version of myself, and we fought. I wanted so desperately to eliminate her; she was the reason why I felt weak and inferior, the culprit of every awkward conversation that haunted me at night, the very antithesis of everything I strove for.

But every single time, she beat me to the dust.

‘You cannot kill me. I am a part of you, and I will always be. Stop trying.’

Yet, it was easier to imagine the anxiety inside me as an antagonist, a monster to fight against. Other times, it would morph into a scared little girl, timidly watching other kids on the playground, not knowing what to do with her hands or mouth, so she got creative and dug her nails between her teeth.

I did not fight then, I couldn’t.

All I wanted to do was to hug her.

It was hard to articulate this with my loved ones. Most of the time, they skirted around it, concluding that I was being too dramatic and that I should simply look on the bright side. But no one ever taught me how to find the bright side when my vision was filled with fog.

But I stomached it. They were right. If I wanted to survive and thrive in this fast-paced society, I ought to sacrifice that anxious mind, trade it for something more lightweight and effective, and I had to do it quickly.

Then came the years of relentless consumption of self-help books, motivational podcasts, and aesthetic Instagram quotes. I thought that if I could absorb enough theories on achieving inner peace, then maybe one day, I would finally be fixed.

And it did get better. The practices worked.

Slow breathing calmed me down. Journaling helped me clarify my thoughts. Meditation alchemised them into something beautiful. Drinking warm water, surprisingly (or maybe not that surprisingly), was incredibly effective in clearing the blockage in my nervous system.

Anxiety, I learned, was a product of unfamiliarity, and the best remedy was to habituate yourself as much as possible with the thing that scared you the most.

Sadness is the rain, I am the whole spectrum of weather, I am the sky.

Stoicism is the way.

Don’t get too attached. Nothing lasts.

For a moment, I thought I had finally made it. I was progressing. I knew how to acknowledge the weight without succumbing to it. I understood why I was bothered and how to avoid it. Step by step, I was inching closer to the identity I had always longed to embody.

But you cannot outrun your own architecture.

Beneath the steady breathing and the journal entries, an old dread still resided in the deepest corners of my brain, shrieking and laughing at my pathetic performance of being ‘okay’. It was the villain, or maybe the little girl, watching me play dress-up in a life that didn’t belong to me.

‘I told you. You cannot kill me.’

How desperately I wished for a happily ever after.

I wanted the sweet, permanent taste of a cured mind. For all the work I had done, I foolishly believed the healing could be permanent.

But I guess life is much more brutal and demanding.

They always returned — those sharp currents of anguish and trepidation — draining away all the wise, insightful knowledge I had gathered, leaving only the scorching, familiar pain of not knowing how to live. And any attempt at finding answers only produces more and more questions.

The best I could do was keep on living without knowing anything at all.

There is no antidote hidden at the end of this page.

Some days, the sun envelops my spirit like a warm blanket.

Some days, the weather turns, and the fog rolls back in.

Some days, I am no longer the sky, but a mere object that is bound to be affected by its every movement.

You cannot fight the scared little girl waiting by the playground, and maybe you shouldn’t try.

Instead, you just learn to sit with her in the heaviness, offering her some warm water, and waiting for the sky to clear again.

The questions remain. The fog stays. And tomorrow, I will wake up and learn how to breathe through it all over again.

Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you.

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