A Day in the Life of Anxiety–In Which I Encourage You to Live More Fearlessly than Your Mother

Dear Lily June,

There is a blogger who wrote a description of anxiety recently that I feel encapsulates and encompasses so much of my reality sadly and beautifully. Your letter today is devoted, in part, to her, as she inspired me to give you (and my little corner of the blogosphere) a peek into the life I lead. Thank you, Bits, for giving me the courage to share these things with my daughter.

Without further ado, Lily, I present a Day in My Life [of Anxiety], brought to you also by the Beatles tune of similar title. I don’t have synesthesia, but the song’s instrumentation from 1:45 to 2:15 sounds like my anxiety feels. If that makes any sense.

***

When I sleep, Lily, I sleep fitfully. I often find my mind infested with “What If’s” and their crawling and scurrying keeps me awake at night. What if this is the night that you (SIDS) or your father (sleep apnea) stop breathing? How would I live without you two, who make my whole small world much larger? I turn and check first one of you, then the other.

The mask your father wears pumping air into his lungs howls like a banshee. It wakes me up further. I go to the bathroom to pee. I have broken the seal on my interstitial cystitis. In moments of peak anxiety, I get up as much as a dozen times throughout the night, swapping the pain in my mind for the pains in my bladder. Rinse, repeat.

***

When I wake, I wake worried. Will I be awake enough to drive to work, or will this be the time I suffer some micro-nap from sleep deprivation and get into an accident on the short drive? I should make sure to pack my cell phone so that I can call home if I’m dead. Logic and sense don’t factor into my worry. I pack my cell phone (if I remember to; if not, I’ll spend the rest of the day worrying about it at home, seeing repeatedly in my mind the exact image of the place where I left it).

I make my cup of tea. I make a small breakfast (a bowl of cereal or oatmeal or grits). I sit in front of a computer screen streaming Netflix, trying to turn off my mind. I hear a sound from the bedroom. Is that Lily? I am like the Little Prince. I can never let go of a question once I’ve asked it. No matter how tired or still in pain I am from the night before, I will now have to check on you, no matter the subsequent stillness or silence, just to be sure.

***

If you are still sleeping, I go back to my spot in my chair (the same chair every time) and look around our apartment. Is everything in place? It’s all or nothing with me; I’m anal- retentive or anal-expulsive. Either we’re living in filth, or the place is close to spotless. I take joy in putting objects back in their designated spaces. I rarely move something once it’s been set, unless I move it by a pattern. When I dust the bookshelves for instance, every knick-knack–the stuffed William Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe, the pocket Emily Dickinson, the incense burners, the candles, the family photos–all get slipped just one shelf up before I’m allowed to dust. Being allowed–by following my own, made-up rules–is a must.

***

If I’m not too tired to remember, I take my dishes to the dishwasher. This is a minefield–the highest source of anxiety for my disorder. It has to be loaded, by what my mind argues is, the right way. For instance, in the dishwasher’s silverware slots, it must go butter knives, sharp knives, small spoons, big spoons, small forks, big forks.

Any variation–usually because the dish was loaded by your father–must be corrected before my head explodes. At the beginning of our marriage, this was a constant source of friction. Today, I constantly remind myself, “Your ‘right way’ is artificial, Alyssa. Don’t scold him for not following the rules that you’ve created.” On a good day, I listen to my own advice, and let him off the hook for not being my brand of crazy. On a bad day, I don’t, and I scold him for nothing. Then, I mentally scold myself for ten times longer for being impossible to live with.

The difference between OCD and OCPD is this line: The person with OCD sees their rituals and repetitions as a source of constant shame; the person with OCPD is sure their rituals are correct, necessary, right. The grass is always greener, but I wish I lived on the other side of that line.

***

There are times when the difference is more blurry. I count everything in five. When I clean each night, for instance, I choose five items on my list using a children’s nursery rhyme (Ocka Bocka Soda Clocka). When I pick up in a room, I pick up five items at a time. When I wash dishes or bottle parts, it’s in fives. I work hard to make sure I am counting only in my mind. I caught myself, early on, counting aloud in front of you, Lily, and I was terrified. I do not want to ever catch you imitating this.

***

Personal hygiene is hard for me. While others have worked this into a natural, daily routine, my rules often prohibit me from even starting. I’m only allowed, for instance, to shower every other day. I can only brush my teeth if I’ve finished my tea; I can’t drink anything immediately after. I have to brush my hair before and after getting in the shower. It becomes exhausting, and because I’m often depressed with what I see in the mirror, a self-perpetuating cycle develops where I don’t like the reflection I see because I don’t take care of her. I used to add self-cleaning items to my list of things to clean in the apartment to serve as a reminder, and this worked better for me. I was cleaner, but I wasn’t saner.

***

All items in my closet are hung by type (sweatshirts, sweaters, blouses, pants, skirts, dresses), which is an improvement for me. They used to be hung alphabetically by the name on the tag. I choose what I’ll wear for the day with my nursery rhyme. If I don’t, I might end up wearing the same thing, I justify. Every habit I have has a reason. Fives are calming. Lists are orderly. Productivity–even in my down-time–is important. I no longer remember why these are things I believe.

***

At work, I have a lot of down time, through no fault of my own. As a secretary and receptionist, I’m only as busy as the tasks others assign for me. When asked for information, I process data quickly and efficiently. (This is the upside of OCPD; I’m rigorously organized, a benefit for a woman whose primary tasks are to book appointments and file documentation).

It’s the way I spend my down time that gives me away: I have a spreadsheet tallying the blogs I’ve read, and it numbers in the thousands. I answer emails in fives, clicking to visit those bloggers who have visited me. Every followerer, every like, every comment, every time. The list is categorized, has tabs for the things I want to write to you, Lily, tabs for the award nominations I’ve given. This is my hobby. This is my “fun time.”

It’s better than the hobby I used to have at home before there was you, playing video games where I pretended to be a waitress who would serve customers over and over, trying not to incur their animated storm cloud ire. It made recreation my work away from work. It stressed me out, and I enjoyed it. I couldn’t say which one of those statements is more true, if either.

***

When I get home from work, I get the Lily Report from your father. How many poops, how many naps, how many ounces eaten. He leaves for work, and I eat the dinner he graciously made me. If you’re not too wiggly, I try to eat while holding you on my lap. If you are a fiddle-bug, I set you to wriggling on the carpet, pulling yourself up on things while I watch you, giggling. These moments are my saving grace, my respite, my peace. But they can’t last forever. There are things to be cleaned.

***

I do my nursery rhyme, I choose my tasks, I clean. If there are clothes to fold, I fold them in fives. If there are items to be picked up, they must be returned to their proper spaces. I can deal with messes if I’ve seen them for enough days. What really frightens me is change. For instance, I have a small heart attack when my phone rings. I like things quiet. If I look at my phone and it’s a friend, I have to psych myself up to answer it. I have to tell myself it will be okay if I can’t think of what to say. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have only made and kept two friends across my entire life: Wanda and Mira. Months go by when we don’t speak because I haven’t been able to accept that I can’t script our conversations in advance. And Lily, I love them.

This is the one part of my mental illness for which I am truly sorry. Mostly, my isolation just harms me. But I hate what my friends and loved ones must think I think about them. It feels like narcissistic terror, the fear I might say something wrong to people who already like me, but I can’t seem to shake it. I have the hardest time with love letters and compliments to your father. If it’s not as perfect as he is, as he deserves, I just don’t say anything. I worry that my silence is deafening, especially when I can speak when it comes to scolding. In this way, I am like my father. In this way, I never want you to be like me.

***

The perfectionism mentality follows me everywhere, and in everything: All or nothing. If I can’t do something perfectly–my work, my cleaning, my hygiene, my conversations, my recreation–I don’t do it at all. It’s why our family Bucket List on the weekends has been so important to me. It forces me to try. Try out new things. Try out a new life, with (as close as I get to) spontaneity. With less fretting before and less agonizing after. With relatively less anxiety.

***

After cleaning time, assuming there were no calls, nothing new to deal with, I hold you and we read, talk or sing, or I set you down, and we play. I have to remind myself not to gear you towards something, force you to play in an orderly way, for instance. I let you crawl and explore. You love popping open a metal tin we have packed to the side of our living room, which is filled with Christmas ornaments, and spilling them, all glitter and shine, over the carpet. You like smacking the glass patio doors, watching the weather just outside of your grasp. You like tugging clothes I’ve painstakingly folded and arranged on the shelves of your changing table into a messy pile you roll around in like they were autumn leaves in February.

Lily June, I let you. I love you, and this is the time and space I can bend without breaking. Like laying down and setting my head on your father’s chest at night, these are the times of my day I live for because nothing is scheduled and yet, contrary to my standard operating protocol, I feel no anxiety.

The rest of the evening goes on this way until you get your nap.

***

You sleep, curled like a comma in the crook of my arm, and I unclench. I watch Netflix in the dark and listen to you breathe. Or I listen to some sitcom streaming behind my turned head, and I watch the rise and fall of your chest. Your father slips in about an hour later from his own work, and we watch something together while you play at our feet. When that’s over, whoever’s turn it is, his or mine, someone feeds you your last bottle and puts you down to sleep, joining the other who’s been warming the mattress, waiting. This is our routine.

***

I turn over in my dreams, and some small sound–a mattress spring, a sigh–wakes me. When I sleep, Lily, I sleep fitfully…

***

Picture Credit:

• By John Hain – https://pixabay.com/en/cloud-insecurity-negativity-fears-705728/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=441966793