Silverlinings...
Posted by Codejoy Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:41:00 GMT
I have had a whirlwind of a past few months, I won't detail the specifics but suffice to say I think I have things under control. I found out I suffer a great deal from anxiety (hey so does Donny Osmond and Scarlett Johanson). I cannot pinpoint how long I have had this. I know its gotten more severe over the years, but I can guess that I had this since the 5th grade at least. How do I know?
I went to Illinois to visit family my 5th grade year (I was what about 11?), it was a nice trip back east and it was during the summer. We made the usual rounds to family members and visited one uncle in particular. He happened to live in some small little town somewhere in Illinois..the visit was nice, though this was summer and a storm rolled in....
We are all standing out there, the clouds aren't looking good and we hear on the news there is a tornado warning for that county where that town is. The thing is, this town is little and has no storm shelters on the house we were in. I and my cousin start to freak out and my grandma, 80+ at the time I think, was tired and just decided during this crisis she will take a nap on the couch. Makes me chuckle now.
Anyway, after that trip when I got back to New Mexico, for over a year I was obsessed with the weather. It is well known in the late summers here we get some wicked thunderstorms and every time we had one I would freak out. In fact I realize my sixth grade year just starring out the school bus at the clouds, fretting about the weather, hoping it wouldn't bring something akin to a tornado. The worse part is, the worry would be in the back of my head playing or doing whatever. Its odd to me that to this day I can remember the exact feelings of worries i had, what I was thinking, concerned about and this many years ago, like 19 or so. Jeez.
Mental issues are difficult to deal with, it depends on the issue, the person, the context, the environment and you will really never know what its like unless its you. Anxiety is particularly horrible, cause the worries are perfectly logical to us, but totally unlogical and absurd to an outside observer
It was quite a while I fretted about the tornadoes and weather, but it finally just went away, and now the silver lining is, I chase storms, or want to...I love them. So I am at a new place, and hopefully better equipped now to control this rather vicious little issue that really degrades ones quality of life...time will tell, sooner or later time will tell.
Its so bizarre to me that i have known you only 2 years MORE than that experience yet i don't think you have ever mentioned that episode to me. I firmly believe the stress of our youth doesn't make us the adults we are but certainly shapes how we DEAL with being said adults. In either case, I feel your pain brother. It's good to see you facing it all. Just remember you have friends and family who love you and will be here whenever you need us.
Hey, grandma wasn't snoozin on the couch. She was tremblin' and prayin' like Charles Heston at the parting of the Red Sea. How do I know? Well, when I was young, there was mom (grandma) up in the middle of the night prancing around during a thunder storm. I could feel her anxiety and it took me years (at least 3) to get over the fear and anxiety of an on-coming storm. You have whipped it. And so have I. Good going.
You described that night very well. Just the way I would have. I guess it did not help you when you dad was running around screaming and shouting. LOL. All kidding aside, I remember my parents making it a point to go see what a tornado had done in a small town close to where we lived in Illinois and this was when I was about 10yrs old. I remember people standing by the road with jars in there hand hoping someone would put some money in the jar which my father did. It was a bad storm. I too had fears of a tornado and this was one reason I wanted to move to NM. But ha, the day we got to ABQ, the newspaper read how a tornado hit the fairground. Of course this was a mini one. Then you send me a photo of a tornado in the background. Wow, I always wanted to see a tornado, but from a mile away. I never have. oh well I am glad about that.
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