A Cage Left Open

Anxiety is a cage left open, and I am a bird with an injured wing; of course I have the opportunity to escape my prison, but it is nearly impossible to fly. Every time I work up the courage to make the journey to the open door and take the leap of faith, that annoying little voice in my head creeps its way to the forefront, sending me sprinting back to the welcoming arms of my personal Hell. The nervous ticks, the stuttering-- it all comes flooding back, its firm grip wringing what ounce of hope I had out of me, until finally, I am left to grovel at its feet, a puppet laying lifeless, waiting for the puppeteer.

To say I carry anxiety would be false; a better statement is, anxiety carries me. It controls my every thought and action, makes me question every decision I make. Sure, it is not always awful. Some days, it is simply a nagging voice in my ear. "No one likes you," it might whisper, or "They're laughing at you." Days like that are manageable, often even welcomed when compared to the harsher ones. See, some days are terrible, the soft whispers crescendoing, swelling into cacophonies of insults, fears, and self-hatred. Those days are the unbearable ones, the ones that bring me to tears-- often fits that would make tsunami tides jealous. Those days make me long for freedom; desperate, I seek help. Again I am making the trek from one side of my cage to the other. Then, just as I am about to take the leap, those insistent voices start up again; the throb in my broken wing reminds me of how futile it all is, and warily, I retreat to the dark corner of my cage.

My life tends to revolve around this ubiquitous, persistent cycle; a form of purgatory, if you will. Although I have grown used to carrying this weight, there are times when it catches me off guard. What most people do not understand, yet I do all too well, is the paradox nature of anxiety: always there, yet always unpredictable. Certain times, the weight is light as a feather. Others, though, it is unbearable, as though the entire world rests heavy in my hands. Heavy enough to make my lungs burn, desperate for air, I struggle for even a simple step, knees quivering like jello in sheer effort of simply living. The absolute worst is when it catches me off guard. Going from blissfully unaware to painfully so is a transition one doesn't care to make.

As much as I complain about the anxiety itself, it is not the worst aspect of the disorder. Rather, it is the ridicule that accompanies it. People do not understand the implacable fears plaguing me each day, or if they do, they do not care. Even friends will occasionally taunt me when I count and recount my money before paying for my items at a store, for fear of coming up short. They will roll their eyes, sighing in exasperation, when I plead with them to make a call for me. It is moments like these that cause me to shrink back further into the corner of my cage, when embarrassment takes hold and gnaws away at me-- my cheeks flushing pink and my sanity teetering like a tight-rope walker, legs growing weaker with every muttering of annoyance. It is as if I am a marble block, and they are artists chipping away with their chisels. They hope for a masterpiece, but what they don't see is the fault line running through me; they are unaware that each thwack of the hammer urges me closer to the breaking point-- closer to crumbling right in front of their eyes.

Worse yet are my parents, who, despite the best of intentions, typically make things more difficult. They try their hardest to protect me most of the time, but it is all to clear how burdensome my disorder is on them. Worrying, both for and about me, has become the new pastime in our household, and this kind of worry eats away at a person. It ferments, leaving a pit of pure resentment in you. At times, it becomes too much for members of my family, my mother especially. She cracks under the pressure sometimes, causing bitter fights that make worse an already strained relationship; it adds to the burden of what I carry further, the weight fluctuating with each burning flick of spiteful words that fly between us. Of course we make up, but that does not account for much in the long run: pain lingers, scars remain. My biggest fear has always been letting my family down, but when the screaming matches and blame games begin, I fear that I have already done just that.

The thing I carry is ever-present and unyielding. My anxiety has not lessened, has not gone away, nor will it ever, most likely. I am married to my disorder, for better or for worse, and there is no hope for a divorce. Day in and day out, I will wake up with the thing I carry staring me in the face, and all I can do is hope that it is manageable that day. Forever will I be a bird with a broken wing, paralyzed by fear in a cage left wide open.