Using Fear.
Taming the Inner Spider.
I got sick with covid and didn’t recover fully right away.
I struggled through brain fog, and fatigue for a couple of weeks, then crashed out again. I’m still not at 100%.
It cost me financially too.
I couldn’t work any overtime and had got a little complacent about the money the extra day a week was bringing in as it adds up to a significantly amount.
I had to take three more weeks off work. I slept and tried to relax. It’s not that three weeks is a long time but it felt like an eternity.
At the end of it I couldn’t tell whether I was still sick or sinking mentally.
I became paranoid and anxious. I ruminated constantly. Not good thoughts. I was a screw up. I’d messed my life up. I’m old and don’t have time to fix things. What about ending it. (This wasn’t a serious consideration but it breezed through like ice-cold air).
I could feel it coming on, the rot was bearing fruit of cycling behaviours. Mental habits. Unhealthy attitudes and the sense that it was too late to do anything positive with my life. (Obviously setting aside any achievements that my biased brain was disregarding).
The spider had me.
It had me wrapped up and it’s poison in me. I felt poisoned, paralysed, and consumed.
Okay, so hands up.
I’m prone to this sort of panic. Bipolar and anxiety disorders walk hand in hand and love one another’s company those shits. But those are the breaks I’ve been handed.
So, what if it was all true?
What if I have let everybody down consistently year after year through attitude and choice and behaviour? Through tilting at windmills and burning out. Through wasteful behaviours and misaligned self-regulation.
The fear had me. It was in my bones and brain. It made me feel wrung out and weak and upset.
All this in two weeks. But the rot had been setting in for longer. The burnout, the not feeling good enough. The exhaustion of not having a…
