Karla Yazzolino, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Karla Yazzolino
That's What I Think 1/27/2012 9:53:56 AM
I wrote this essay about a year ago. It explains how it feels to carry anxeity with you and what its effects are on a person and how life sometimes has to be directed.
The Ghoul Within the Girl
I can’t always tell you how I feel when you are near me. There is an obstacle in side my brain that prevents me from being exactly me when you are front and center with me. When I’m alone and silent in my house with only myself to banter with I come up with wonderful ideas for us. I get excited thinking and planning what we could do. I get thrilled with the prospect of surprising you.
But when it comes time to put into action that which I have planned it never goes quite as well as I wanted or come off as merry as I’d think it would. I am devastated to have this happen and then sink into a depression that no one but me can understand.
I take great delight in sending you wonderful cards and writings in the mail. My true self comes out in the sentiment that I’ve picked so that you know how I feel about you and hopefully feel my love through the effort of the selection or the effort of my prose. I may feel though that the reception of these personal treasures is not as well received because I was not there to deliver it personally or because I could not attend the party that was planned to celebrate your event or life moment.
When you invite me to walk outside and partake of a movie or play, I think this will be a superb moment because I enjoy movies and plays so much. But when the outing comes near I begin to dread how I will feel at the venue. Will I embarrass myself? Will I accept the flight and fight adrenalin rush and run in a panic outside to comfort and air? I want to go so badly, I want you to feel a connection with me so that we grow together and our bond strengthens. But, when the day arrives and I am shivering as if very cold and stepping outside becomes stranger than fiction I must cancel and succumb to my nemesis. I get very mad at myself for creating disappointment and worse for widening a gap that would have been cemented had I attended the event.
If you could walk with me inside my head you would know that which I know without me having to tell the story. You would just know the journey of my life and understand without me having to put to words the horror of what I have lived.
When I am home alone in my house of safety I have grandiose ideas of what life is for us. We could go boating, we could fly to Alaska, we could hop a ship and see Hawaii. I want to do these things! When I try to put these dreams to reality I see that it will take more than longing to step up and wear the shoes of these adventures. I must plan out every detail to create as little angst as possible so that I may be able to accomplish these journeys. Add into the mix that I must also enjoy the journey, and in making that happen I must stretch the boundaries of my thinking and trust in the mechanics and invention of unknown people who have had the strength and vision of mind to build and then trust the machines they have created so that people on this earth can travel and enjoy the world. I don’t trust easily.. and because this is so I re-route the planning of these events so that the travel portion of the journey is different and perhaps a slower, longer route than most would take. I do this for my own safety and to soothe the “ghoul” that is my nemesis in life.
The simplest act can be the roaring lion ready to pounce upon me and eat me alive! I want to go to the store with you. I want to share in the simple chore of shopping and turn what can be dreary into a social occasion ripe with banter and good jokes! But on a gray and gloomy day that is the middle of my mind, I worry about the crowds I will have to mingle in or the lines that I will have to wait in and I see myself reaching for the phone to cancel what I have looked forward to. I am angry with myself for allowing the fear of the outer world to come between us. You will hang up the phone and make a check mark on the mile long list that is my tally sheet, and announce to yourself that you are done making plans with me. How could she be so insensitive? You might even go so far as to say or proclaim to yourself that you are disconnecting with me because I tend to disappoint rather than maintain.
Most of the time when you are with me in a social event that I have been brave enough to attend I am performing much like I did in school when participating in plays. I have put on an invisible mask and am playing a part so that the real me isn’t revealed. I say all the right things and move about the room as if I am a solid and strong individual. No one ever knows what I am really in these moments. Inside I am shaking from the windstorm that is my whirling emotions, I am looking for an escape route and where the nearest bathroom is. I am seeking the best chair position in the room so that I can be away from idle chatter and from unknown people. I am watching the clock, secretly (or so I think) ticking off the minutes when I can leave at a socially acceptable time and not look as if I’ve dined and dashed. If there is booze, I will be having a drink to fend off the ghoul that is walking beside me waiting to unleash its scary form and send me screaming from the room.
If I were to reveal to you what it is I go through just to seem normal, would you then think me normal?
If you see red upon my chest that creeps up to my neck and left cheek you should know that I am in the height of worry and fear. Without a word from me my body betrays me by showing every person I pass that I am about to panic. I am mortified to my bones to know that I have no control over this and that I am like Rudolph with his nose so bright, but no one would want me to guide their sleigh tonight that is for sure. Put me in a car and you will know the fear I carry when on the road with others I have no control over trying to kill me at every stoplight and intersection. Then there is the ghoul that walks with me at parties sitting in the passenger seat reminding me of how sitting at a red light at every intersection scares me into panic and his jaw is gaping open at the laughter of this situation. He enjoys my misery and reminds every second I am driving that I will not make it down the hill or through the ½ mile long stretch of road that has no exits without panicking. He sits there with me, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, waiting for my panic and my screams because he lives on my fear, craves it like an alcoholic craves booze. If I could shove him out the door driving 50 miles an hour and kill him I would. But he is my anxiety ghoul and lives with me without permission.
I love you from afar because that is what is best for me. It doesn’t mean I love you less; in fact I love you more because I know what I am missing.
By Karla Yazzolino
Yeah its kind of like that!
I'm feeling somewhat better. The exercise has helped and so has getting real with my partner and taking moments on the side to get close and smoochie! We always need to remember what is really important.. and that is us. We've spent time connecting and that has been very healing.
We've made dates each week for romance and communication.
Life can make you very weak...it is a womann of steel who can see that and make adjustments to take back strength.
