Stop putting my anxiety down

Soundtrack to this piece: Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

In the end it always comes back to that assembly in primary school.

That’s when I know this bout of anxiety is legit, when it’s time to strap in for the ride.

See if the tide is rising in my mind and the thoughts are beginning to spiral, this brain of mine will dredge up that old memory.

I was tempted to include a Nickleback pun here but it isn’t a photograph or a still image hazily reforming in my brain.

It is more like if you buy a packet of trail mix, the ones with nuts and oats and little chunks of chocolate and dried fruit.

You take a handful and suddenly ‘pop’ a burst of fruit explodes in your mouth — except instead of dried blood orange it is fossilised emotions that are bursting into my consciousness.

At this point I should probably roll back the clock to the late 90s or early 00s, to St Bernadette’s Primary School in Nunthorpe, one of the well-to-do suburbs of Middlesbrough.

I’m never actually sure of the year: that is the tricky part of memory, things become untethered from time and the order can get confused.

But I know it had to be sometime between 1998 and 2005 — we weren’t sat on the benches at the back of the hall, so it can’t have been when I was in year 6.

I think it must have been around year 3 or 4 but that doesn’t really matter, it is just window dressing to avoid getting to the memory.

It was the mid-point of assembly and as little kids do we were starting to get restless.

One of the teachers stood at the end of our row pointed at me and beckoned me to come and sit at the end of the row. See that was the punishment for being naughty, you had to stand up and leave your friends behind.

Except it wasn’t me she was pointing at, it was someone else. But by this point I was already stood up, for the whole room to see.

And that is the ‘pop’ of memory that my anxious mind has clung to for nearly two decades now.

Each and every time I start to feel the anxiety rising, you can be sure that I’ll be feeling that sense of embarrassment and worry. What would the other kids think?

Except it is now 2020 and there are no other kids, yet I still feel it — that flush in my cheeks and the sheepishness that comes when I’m embarrassed.

I could be feeling anxious about anything — work, did I leave the stove on, a date (hahahaha), you name it — and click I’m back in that prehistoric memory. Worrying about what other people think.

See that is one of the worst part about my anxiety, that streak of narcissism underlines it. That question — what will other people think?

What are the chances that anyone in the room that day thought about me standing up in mid-assembly?

Yet my narcissistic brain thinks I was worthy enough to take up a space in their thoughts.

****

It is only Wednesday, yet it feels like this week has lasted a life time.

When I rambled on about my quicksand metaphor and trawling the depths of social media comments on Sunday, I figured that would be that.

It would be off my chest.

But nope, the quicksand is not only up to my neck, it has probably reached my chin by now.

See my anxiety and the contempt people have for it have been all consuming for the last few hours, heck days.

First there was a friend who I had reached out to on Sunday to say that I was struggling and how reading all those comments had taken a toll on my mental health.

I had hoped that there would be the offer of support and the comfy blanket that is the reassurance that things will get better.

Instead it was — to me from my view point — dismissed instead. With a simple ‘I’m not interested in that celebrity’. It cut like a knife.

I stupidly ended up confronting him the next day, which is just never a good idea. A weekend spent angry over comments is not improved by a Monday spent rowing with one your boys.

He couldn’t see how the message had been dismissive. I swore. Then I started to worry.

And it has all been downhill from there. What if I had upset him? What if he was offended? Why had I not taken him into account before snapping? Why had I snapped? What is wrong with me? Why are you so selfish?

Now that the worrying had begun, it was only a hop, skip and a jump until I’m back in the hall for that assembly.

Kindly the universe decided I didn’t have enough to feel anxious about and decided to throw two grenades in the shape of opinion columns my way.

First there was a sports one that riled up the locals at the paper I work for — and I stupidly decided to look at the comments.

Insults were hurled at the paper and of course I end up taking them personally.

But that was just the aperitif. The worst was yet to come. Clive Smith had decided to share his thoughts about Phillip Schofield.

The column included things that are just so offensive and pathetic that they belong so far in the past that dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

Homophobic nonsense that had by a cruel twist of irony been placed next to a piece calling for people to be more kind to stop bullying and improve each other’s mental health.

All from a man who I soon discovered had form for this kind of thing. He had in the past insulted depression. Yet years later here he is still writing this foul rubbish.

I want to flat out state that I find it personally disgraceful that the Portsmouth News publishes columns by this man.

In fact at more than one point on Monday evening, I wanted to quit my job because of its association with writing like that.

This in turn then led to hours of frantic worrying about how I would survive without a job followed by the fear of having to move once again and start my life over for the umpteenth time.

Tuesday that article hung about and was the most read story on our website — hovering at the top of the board tracking who is reading what all day. Despite being taken offline.

It felt like it was taunting me, laughing at me for having such stupid grand thoughts like quitting in protest. Interspersed with bouts of worrying about what would have happened if I hypothetically did quit.

My anxiety does that, lingers around. Long outstaying its welcome.

But me and my friend were back on good terms, the steady stream of aimless chatter continuing throughout the day.

Then a YouTuber called Jake Paul decided to offer his thoughts on anxiety. How kind of him. Apparently anxiety is created by you and it can be solved by having chilled thoughts and going for a walk.

Well thank god for that. I can finally be cured!

Bringing this up might seem random, what has YouTube got to do with this? But it is probably key to how I’m feeling right now.

I felt lingering sense of frustration at my mental health being dismissed by a friend and now yet again my condition is treated like it is nothing.

You know that feeling you get as a kid when an adult pats you on the head, that bubbling anger and outrage. You want to scream ‘I’m not a stupid kid’.

I just wanted to scream, but I was in work and that is not acceptable behaviour in the grown up world. Tantrums are for stupid kids.

Because this is the way it always is with anxiety. People put it down; treat it as a lesser thing since we all get a little anxious sometimes. We know how you feel!

No-one knows how I feel.

So we come to Wednesday, still feeling indignant about this YouTuber using the internet to spread condescending bullshit about this thing that is a core part of my existence.

And of course that column was doing better than ever. In fact it was doing stupidly well.

But I was hyped about the rapper Dave’s barnstorming performance at the Brits on Tuesday night.

I decided I wanted to get my friend’s thoughts on it because I was eager to get that secondary approval to confirm that it was as great as I thought.

Instead he made a joke and said: ‘Didn’t realise Comedy Dave performed at the Brits.’

****

So for context I’m going to take a moment to talk about Comedy Dave.

Because I hate him. I hate Comedy Dave so much. I hate, hate, hate him.

Who is Comedy Dave you are probably wondering?

He is me. It was a nickname I was given on my first night at Scouts — a night that bares all the hallmarks of my anxiety and should have been a warning sign.

I was the first of my friends to move up from Cubs to Scouts and I didn’t want to go in. I was worried, I didn’t know anyone and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone, that no-one would talk to me.

Basically all the stuff I worry about now. It is the reason why I panicked and pretended I was ill instead of going to a colleagues Halloween party last year.

My dad ended up forcing me to go in — and I ended up talking to the older Explorer Scouts, telling a dumb stupid kids joke. You know the kind.

What do you get if you cross a football team with ice cream? Aston Vanilla.

They laughed, so I told another and then a third and they crowned me Comedy Dave.

It was a name that stuck but over time it ended up morphing in meaning. It ended up becoming an ironic title. See I ran out of jokes, I couldn’t make people laugh.

So from silly joke Comedy Dave I became the clown who wasn’t funny. Look at Comedy Dave he can’t make us laugh.

That’s why I hate Comedy Dave.

But at least in 2020 he was dead and buried. Or so I thought.

****

So now Comedy Dave was back, a name I hadn’t heard in years and with it all those memories. All of the ridicule and contempt that came with that name, flooding back into my mind.

Oh and of course the memory of my fraught first night with Scouts. All that worry and anxiety just bubbling up inside of me once again.

So I shared how I was feeling with my friend, not blaming him since he didn’t know how much I hated that name.

How did he react you ask? He dismissively replied with a ‘just take your mind off it — do some work’.

Just like that YouTuber, here was one of my closest friends on earth putting my mental struggles down.

The anger that had burst from me the day before reading Jake Paul’s useless advice was back and it was amplified.

I swore at my friend and called him out for the dismissive way he had fobbed off my anxiety. It turned into a row. I swore. A lot.

Then he played the ‘oh I get anxious sometimes, just cos I don’t get medical treatment for it doesn’t mean I don’t’ card and then muted me.

My mind was now just a nuclear explosion of thoughts. Anger. Rage. Worry. Regret. Anxiously worrying about him and if I’ve hurt his feelings. Worrying that I shouldn’t regret. Anger that I was narcissistic enough to demand that he should have to hear about my old anxieties. Anger that I was angry at myself. Worry about my anger, anger about the worrying.

If you’ve ever played a video game you’ve probably encountered those mini-games that involve wave lengths — and matching them up. You have the two frequency lines and you wiggle the thumb stick around for a few moments until they line up perfectly.

Well my mind was like that — the two wave lengths of thought: the worrying side of the anxiety and the anger/ frustration.

It turned into an anxiety attack. Sat at my desk, I felt my arms shake, my pulse quicken and my breathing sharpen. So many thoughts running through my mind at once it felt like they would overflow.

Then like clockwork there was that ‘pop’ back to primary school.

I’ve taken multiple trips to that old assembly hall today. I probably will tonight and tomorrow.

In the end I needed to get fresh air to stop it getting worse. I wanted to scream all over again and to be honest I was so very close to doing that.

But why am I fretting and complaining — after all we all get anxious sometimes. It is no big thing. It’s just anxiety. How bad could it be?

We don’t take my kind of anxiety as seriously as it should be and that makes suffering with it even worse. Like someone pouring salt all over the open wound of my mind.

Maybe what I suffer from needs another name, not to share one with a natural feeling that comes as part of living.

But I can’t change that.

So for now if you want to find me, I will be stood frozen in time in that assembly hall worrying about what everyone thinks.

Worrying that my friend will never forgive me for overacting.