I’ve been meaning to write for a while. But every time I do my fingers freeze at the keys, unable and unwilling to put my thoughts into words.

Bless me Cruel Universe for I have Let Myself Go, it has been too long since my last confession. I’m just glad I’m not being dramatic about it…

When I say Let Myself Go I mean succumb to the dangerous state of letting myself go unchecked. I firmly believe that if you are nutty and let yourself go too long without outside help, you risk a relapse. I’m not necessarily talking about doctors in the traditional sense, do what works for you. If you regularly visit a health guru that massages your temples with her ankles (how’s that for a visual) and that works for you then go ahead. But do what works for you regularly. Take some sort of positive action towards the maintenance of your sanity. Because us crazies must do just that, practice maintenance.

Now, you may be thinking, ‘That’s all well and good to say but what if I’m already depressed, I’ve no motivation to help myself. It’s hard enough just to practice proper personal hygiene.’ Believe me, I’ve been there too. In many ways I’m there now. It’s excruciating at times but sometimes you have to force yourself to pick up that phone and make that appointment with your temple massaging guru.

If you leave it, it turns out something like this:

Yesterday was a bad day. Today is not the best either but yesterday was worse. I’m currently at the mercy of a bout of high level anxiety. The kind that has a lot of physical symptoms to match the internal ones. The kind that makes you sweat, feel dizzy, and worry about everything from the cat’s health to your own inevitable demise. Not only do you worry about said demise, but you become convinced that it is happening soon, either through illness or misadventure. This anxiety is a constant force. A wolf at your heels, constantly breathing a stinking mass of fear down your neck. You’re going to die of cancer/ovarian cysts/other fatal disease. Your cat’s going to die and you’ll have to watch it writhing in agony as it coughs up blood in it’s last moments. You’re going to be fired. You’re going insane. No one will ever love you because you are simply too anxious/depressed/insane/fat/thin/freckly/unfit and so on. You are not suited to your career. Your life will never be more than wave after wave of debilitating insanity. Everyone is enjoying their lives while you are condemned to being anxious and alone for the rest of your life.

I spent a good portion of yesterday by myself or crying on the phone to my mother. I couldn’t take the waves of intense anxiety washing over me. I couldn’t take being afraid of the outside world. I was afraid I’d end up agoraphobic and spend the rest of my life fighting to get outside. I was afraid to be around my cat who I was convinced after a minor comment from a friend regarding the cat’s weight loss that she was dying. I was afraid I was wasting my life being sick. I was so overwhelmingly tired of being sick. I was afraid of my own lack of zest for life. All of which could have been reduced by taking action on the problem sooner.

So my lovely nutty chums, the moral of this story is to practice good mental hygiene and see your designated-healthcare-professional regularly, or your Wolf may just end up convincing you that you are about to die from some rare amazonian lung fungus.

Does that sound like fun? Yes? What are you? Insane??