Breathing is hard. It's supposed to be automatic so when people used to tell me that I had to breathe in order to calm my anxiety, I was pissed. I have experienced symptoms of panic in my life, residual from abuse. If you don't know panic personally, it constricts the chest and feels like breathing is not an option. So when I try to breath, it reminds me that I'm dying. Like drowning without the water.
Over the years, as I've healed, I've come to understand that it's in my mind that I cannot breath and if I'm patient and I do go through the motions it will help. I needed time to get there and people continuously reminding me made me angry. Made me feel misunderstood. But maybe it encouraged me to keep trying? That's a relieving thought.
Now sometimes I'll wake up and feel like I can't breath, once I gain enough consciousness I can remind myself "BREATH". I know that I process tough stuff in my sleep so I try to do a mediation or some other calming activity before bed, but it can be challenging to find discipline in the evening. It's my least motivated time of day. Sometimes the meditation feels too fast paced, sometimes I feel distracted, and sometimes it feels just right and I don't remember if I was awake for the whole thing.
Meditation can be a tricky thing, just like most anxiety-reducing techniques, when you're feeling anxious it can be hard to engage. When I'm anxious I feel like I can't do anything right, what's the point in trying, my life is over, I'm damaged, I'll always be alone...etc., etc. Do I really want to pause and be with my thoughts when I'm feeling like that? HECK no. Again, over time I've been reminded and reminded the benefits and experienced them. So meditation has become a part of my life.
I figure, even if it doesn't feel like it's helping it probably is and at times it really feels helpful. The former was what helped me stick to it. Also one meditation I did said that the action of recognizing my mind had wandered was meditation, that made me feel a lot more successful at it because I caught my mind wandering heaps!
I wonder if anxiety will always be a part of my life. Does abuse ever fade away until I am accepting of the way it's shaped me and I'm no longer angry? I'm not sure. Sometimes I feel accepting, but more often I feel so angry and frustrated. I feel broken.
I want to take responsibility for who I am, but things can feel so hard and it can feel impossible. As I'm writing this I recognize a lot of these thoughts are ancient in my life span, perhaps even ancient to my lineage. We can pass thoughts like these through generations. When your parent repeats something thousands of times to you as your brain is developing, you keep hearing it well into adulthood. It's a lot of work to challenge these thoughts.
I wonder how much we can really undo our conditioning. To what extent can we erase generational trauma. What percentage can I achieve difference from the aspects of my family history that have been going for several generations?
Stopping drinking has been a fascinating. I was blind to the insane consumption of alcohol by many generations of my paternal family until I decided to not drink myself. I actually felt afraid that I would no longer fit in and that I would be rejected by my family. That's how deep drinking goes. This was an unexpected feeling, I had no idea that's how integrated alcohol had become.
I did get pushback from some family members and it has been awkward at times, but there is no doubt that it has been a worthwhile effort. Drinking gave me a false sense of safety and the real thing is so much more calming to my anxiety.
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