Anxiety

 Anxiety runs in my family like a toxic river.

I began to discover this in reading Grans diaries some years after her death, (my aunt had them transcribed) and being stunned to discover a potent thread of anxiety in them. Grans frantic efforts to quell the tide of anxiety that at times threatened to engulf her were painful to read in light of my own similar daily battles. A devout woman; she seems to have seen the anxiety as a sin and a lack of trust in God. 

My mothers anxiety is something I have only recently begun to comprehend. I suspect it lies at the root of her drinking and violence. Given my own battles with panic attacks and anxiety about nothing (which drives me nuts!) I am forced to rethink Mums behaviour altogether. 

Anxiety blights my life. I am better at managing it now and know what is likely to trigger an attack. Being able to regard it as a mental illness gives me a healthier perspective on it and does not allow me to add fuel to the fire so to speak. I have learned a degree of caring for myself that ameliorates much of the effect of anxiety and does not provide a breeding ground for it. If you had told me years ago that simply getting enough sleep and exercise, that eating plenty of fresh food, that not overworking and getting enough relaxation would ease the anxiety I would have scoffed. But I don't today. I carefully make sure that I do take care of me with out making a fetish of it.

Sadly my eldest son has been put off work (after a torrid time during Covid lockdown when he was retained and many of his colleagues were sent on  furlough) due to anxiety and exhaustion. I know that he has a lifetime journey with our family devil: Anxiety.