Yes, my title is an homage to Hunter S. Thompson. No, I do not think I am as good of a writer as he was. Yes, I’ve heard (anecdote.)
Anxiety is a daily companion of mine. Suicidal ideation stops by at least once a week to check in. My brain has been this way for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I have been able to push through it. Sometimes I have collapsed under the strain.
I grew up with the “you gotta suck it up” advice that a lot of people get from friends and family who do not understand what it is like. And here is the thing – I did. A lot. Ultimately, though, it was too much for me and I ended up hospitalized after years of “sucking it up.”
I hate when people say, “feel the fear and do it anyway.” I get what they’re saying, and why they’re saying it, but I feel like there are some assumptions in that statement. Who is going to help you if you get hurt? Can you afford to fail? It’s easier to be brave when you know there is a net to catch you.
For a long time, I used Frank Herbert’s “Litany Against Fear” to help me cope. I am a cradle Catholic, so writing something so cool in the form of a prayer is catnip to my brain. It helped. There is a reason that people repeat mantras. A good mantra can take you quite a ways down the road. I eventually stopped, though, and I am not sure why. Maybe you can only stick your finger in the dam for so long before the pressure builds up and pushes it out. Maybe it just gets all pruny. (A bad metaphor will not get you very far down the road.)
Self compassion is a hard one for me. My brain has been trying to kill me for years. I can only say “May I be free from suffering and the root of suffering” so many times before the feelings of inauthenticity make me want to claw my skin off. I have to use a different route. Acknowledging that I feel like shit and want to not feel like shit eases up some of the mental pressure and relieves some of the tension in my body. Focusing on the tension in my body, noticing it, and sitting with it can bring tears of relief to my eyes. Witnessing my own suffering – feeling it and not just intellectualizing it – often causes compassion to arise. Because of that, I can experience my fear and other discomforts in an empowering way. If I try to shove them out of the way, they push back. By feeling the sensations as they move through my body, I learn that they are not only tolerable, but can make me feel more connected with myself and others.
I say my own modified version of the “Litany Against Fear” now. It’s inspired by my study of Buddhism, as well as my own lived experience. It references my (probably poor) understanding of anatta, or “not-self.” I may write about that later.
I must face fear.
Fear is my friend.
Fear is an idiot with good intentions.
I will feel my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
When the fear has gone past, I will turn the mental eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
No sense of “I” will remain.