[present]: the storm

One of the first things I learned about my anxiety disorders is their common characteristic of waxing and waning, coming and going:

Kindergarten was rough, but first grade was much better.

Fifth and sixth grades were challenging, but certainly a reprieve from what I experienced in second, third, and fourth.

This has continued up through my adult life, which has meant that I have had many periods -- whether days, weeks, months, or years -- when panic attacks, OCD, and depression have loomed large. But, eventually the tide always goes out, my symptoms lessen (they never fully leave), and I feel more able to manage my disease.
While I can easily recognize where I am in the continual waxing and waning pattern, I know this concept can be foreign to others and can make those around me have difficulty understanding why and how.

Why was she able to work full-time, handle multiple responsibilities, and be so fun-loving just a couple years ago?

How did things change to where now even being home or going to the store by herself is daunting?

Why was she so functional before and now is just trying to survive?

How long will this last?

And especially: How can she be struggling so much when it so clearly seems she has her life together, or at least did not too long ago?

I wrote this poem during a current panic disorder “waxing” period that has lasted for nearly two years now -- the longest and most difficult stretch for several years. I wrote this because I know it must be confusing and frustrating for my family, friends, coworkers, and others to experience such drastically different versions of me, without any obvious reason for the change.

I wrote this because, regardless of what they understood of me before, this is what I need them to understand right now.

There's a Storm in My Mind

There’s a storm in my mind and I need you to know.

It’s a bad one; I wasn’t prepared

For how aggressive, how long, and how loud it would be;

For how exhausted I’d be, and how scared.

I’ve weathered this before, but each time until now,

I always trusted the clouds would part.

This storm is different, the forecast is bleak in my soul.

Just when I think it will end, it restarts.

I promise I’m trying, I’m doing all I can

To keep the wind from breaching my door.

Yet so much of how I used to be, feel, and do

It has carried away with a roar.

So often I think of the relief that would come

If I just let the floodwaters rise.

Let them come, swallow my house with a rush,

Blend in with the tears from my eyes.

Yet there’s a part of me that remembers the sun,

How it can feel -- the warmth and the peace.

And so I continue to board up the doors,

Breathe deep, and pray for the tempest to cease.

I know you can’t see it, this storm in my mind,

But you can see the gloom it has cast.

I’m no longer reliable, go-getting, or social;

No longer the “me” from the the past.

So even if the lightning never reaches your eyes,

Believe that, for me, each flash is real.

That even if my home looks dry in your view,

It’s very wet, this water I feel.

I don’t know how long this storm will rage on,

So please be patient with me as I wait.

When I let you down more times than I’d like,

Please understand: for now, the thunder’s too great.