I lay in bed and take slow deep breaths, that is what you are supposed to do right? My tight body clenched in a mini fetal position, although unaware to my brain, leaves my body aching for no reason but my own. I try to slow my mind down. I try to quiet the noise. The harder | try the louder it gets. I sit and think about my day, how I did not try hard enough, didn’t work hard enough, how I ate bad or wait did I eat once or twice today? I go through every phone call, text message, conversation and Facebook comment. Speculating each reply, thought and decision I have made throughout the day.
I sit and twist my mind around each detail as if my mind were gripping onto each thought and slowly ripping each one out as if it was a page out of an old spiral notebook. The ripping and tearing starts to echo and take over my brain. I cup my hands over my ears thinking I can trick myself into a calm silence. As I lay in a rolled up ball hugging my ears and head, I wonder if I will ever think clearly. What does it mean to really think clearly? Do others feel such pain and discomfort thinking about who they are and what they are doing each and every day?
Sadness begins to emerge. Slowly a warm stream of tears wrap around themselves around my cheeks. I start to cry; I start to weep. Maybe I should take another Valium I think. My mind slaps me for being so dependent, so needy on something else, anything else to turn off what I am feeling. I want to run outside my body and away from my stabbing twisting gut and the throbbing pounding waves pulsating against my brain and against my loud, opinionated mind. Tlay and think of all the advice my therapists, family, friends and books have given me.
Thoughts like “Think of what you are grateful for” or “Be thankful for what you do have”. Moreover, I totally agree. I should be extremely grateful for what I have, and I am. I am not homeless, loveless or joyless. I share my life with an amazing man who knows every inch of my being and still loves me deeply and passionately, as do I for him. Tam living in a warm and comfortable apartment that we both worked hard to make feel like our home and I have the coolest dog who makes me laugh all the time. Who can be unhappy or worried with an overly joyous, kiss you all over your face, full of love black lab.
This is supposed to help I whisper to myself… but why do I now feel guilty? I feel guilty for thinking this way, and I judge myself for being so selfish. So many have it so much worse. So what does it take to make the noise in my head a positive one, a calm one, and a rational one? How much medicine to I need to take, how many counseling sessions do I have to go to before I learn how to cope with these feelings? How many times to have to read the “how to’s” on meditation, mindfulness, and self-acceptance?
To put it into plain text I felt like a prisoner in my own mind, as if I was trying to break free. Inside my head; I was fighting a war. I was fighting a war against myself. An answer came to me while stepping outside my clusterfuck of a head for a moment and experiencing a brief moment of clarity. I was seeing myself fighting myself in a relentless, pointless war. I was breaking myself down one by one. Mind- 1 Me-0. My hypothesis was; I am not fighting a war but a circus. Fighting a rambunctious circus inside my head.. And I do not like the circus. I am afraid of clowns.
They are freaky and weird and to have one come juggle in my face actually sounds frightening. So my conclusion is this: Tam the lion tamer who needs to train my thoughts to behave. I am the clown who needs to make humor part of my inner dialogue. I am the trapeze artist who needs grasp onto reality to keep from spiraling onto the ground. But from where I am sitting now, I am the little girl in the front row scared of the clown, in disbelief of the trapeze artists and threatened by the lion tamer. Now, I wave the white flag and surrender myself to my “mind war”.
I have decided it is time to pick myself up from the ground, shake the war dust off my shoulders and take myself out to enjoy the damn circus… Even if I am still afraid of clowns. Thave learned and laughed from the clown, took notes from the lion tamer and practiced swinging above the trampoline until it felt natural to fall once in awhile. I decided to turn to the man selling elephant rides. I hopped on the elephant and rode him away into a new life, because elephants do not belong in the circus anyway, they were born to run free into the wild. So here lays my mind, open and free and wild with endless possibilities.
