It’s strange.
I have felt very calm lately, despite everything—or perhaps because of it. Normally I spend my days quietly screaming into the void, braced for the worst, haunted by the future, horribly aware of how fragile everything is and how easily it can all fall apart. It’s terribly alienating, sometimes, to have to hold my tongue and pretend otherwise or be dismissed as a panic-stricken alarmist.
But now that we’re actually here—not at the end of the world, but a global crisis that can’t be ignored and which turns society inside out—I feel… normal. It’s as though the rest of the world is tuning into the wavelength that my brain is always operating on, and my anxieties are simply healthy level-headed pragmatism rather than the ravings scribbled on a roadside sandwich board. I feel calm, and my mind seems to be functioning as it should, and while I am no less helpless in the grand scheme of things, this… internal easing feels like a blessing. I can be calm and competent without wasting energy maintaining a facade of illusory normalacy. It’s one foot after another. I don’t know what’s going to happen or how bad it’s going to get, but there’s nothing to do about that but prepare as well as I can and take it as it comes.
My friend told me that she’s found this common in people with anxiety. We’re always in crisis mode, so when there’s crises outside we’re already THERE. Chaos outside matches chaos inside, problem solved.
Pressure equalization!
(via relevantbunny)
