Tag: anxiety

sober lifestyle

Fear

jenwielgusjournalism

Last Thursday, I ran through the pitch dark woods, guided only by a headlamp and my memory of the trails, and serenaded by a spooky-themed playlist I put together just for the occasion. (Not that you asked, but selections ranged from “Thriller” and “Zombie” to half the original “Crow” soundtrack and tracks from both of the first two “Ghostbusters” movies.) And I finished devouring the latest Stephen King novel I had added to my Audible library. (Maybe it goes without saying, but I much prefer fictional horrors to the real ones all around us.)

I’m not “into Halloween,” though, in the sense that I put on disguises and go to parties. I haven’t “participated” in the “holiday” since my sewing whiz of a mom was dressing me — and my Cabbage Patch dolls or little sisters — in painstakingly constructed companion ensembles that dominated the elementary school costume contest nearly every year.

A rare advantage for the firstborn daughter: not having to play the pet/sidekick, or “be the boy,” as my childish mind would’ve framed it.
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sober lifestyle

Presence

jenwielgusjournalism

My eyes take in some version of the above scene once or twice a week. It flashes before me about a half-hour into my morning jog, just a minute or two after my turnaround point on the Delaware Canal towpath, and then vanishes behind a line of trees within five or six steps. My brain barely has a chance to process anything beyond “Wow,” before my focus has shrunk from that beautiful big-picture perspective to whatever granular “real-world stuff” I’m going to have to face a couple miles down the path.

The other day, I forced myself to stop — OK, slow, not that I ever move particularly fast — long enough to snap a quick picture. Guess you could say I had the presence of mind to realize how seldom I’m truly present in the moments of my life, and here was a perfect example.

(Of course, my intention all along was to use the example in a blog post, in the future, so…maybe that doubly proves the point? 🤔)

See, the human tendency to time travel is truly torturous. We know our time here is finite, and fleeting, and all we really have to work with/revel in is now, and yet our brains insist on ruminating or rushing ahead. Or they immediately conjure up some distraction, usually involving a cell phone, like how I’m currently standing on the deck of this amazing log cabin in the Poconos at 5AM on a Sunday, under a glittering canopy of stars, playing an episode of “Better Call Saul” on the Netflix app while typing in WordPress and posting a new cover photo on my Facebook profile, for some unfathomable reason…

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sober lifestyle

Representation

jenwielgusjournalism

🚨 SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT DETAILS FROM THE NEW MOVIE “INSIDE OUT 2.” PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL — AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU! ⚠️

When I saw that Anxiety was the new cast member in the “Inside Out” sequel, the feeling in my gut driving me to go see the thing immediately overrode my Anxiety about going to a crowded public movie theater in the summer when school’s out.

That’s not easy to do, in general, because Anxiety (yes, it warrants continued capitalization) has been my most powerful driving force since birth. And these days, during my “time of the month,” it’s basically my entire personality.

I joke that I’m going through “second puberty,” though the hormonal mayhem of perimenopause has hardly been funny. You have to understand: I only recently started feeling my feelings when I stopped drinking to self-medicate Anxiety just under 5 years ago. So while I look mature, I’m kind of a combo teen/toddler when it comes to emotional regulation.

When we walked into the theater last Wednesday, my period was due any minute; consequently, the vigorous heartstring-tugging I expect from all PIXAR movies completely rocked my world this time around. The crying babies in the audience had nothing on me; I had to physically strain to keep my visceral reaction in check. It was so strenuous that I left with a splitting headache.

To quote the Disgust character: “Overreact much?”

“Inside Out 2” review: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (that’s 8) out of 10. It wasn’t a perfect movie, but its representation of Anxiety as a rabid, relentless go-getter that can completely hijack the personality and dismantle the sense of self (if we let it!) was 100% spot-on. 🎯

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sober lifestyle

Birthday

jenwielgusjournalism

I called out menopausal the other day.

I said “sick,” of course, because my supervisor isn’t even 30 yet, and if some of my elders look at me like I’m a freak when I try to describe what I’m going through, a kid sure ain’t gonna get it.

My favorite is when people go, “Oh, you’re too young to be going through menopause!” 🙄

To be accurate, it’s called peri-menopause, a kind of living purgatory where you ride the insane “change of life” roller coaster for 7-10 years while still needing to buy tampons. There’s no official age when it hits or boilerplate experience of the impact, although the list of possible symptoms will put hair on your che…sorry, I mean your chin.

So you can see why it’s just easier to say “sick.”

The way I have been feeling between the 18th and 26th days of every monthly cycle over the past year or so, perimenopause might as well be the bubonic plague.

There are days I feel so mentally scattered and emotionally unstable that I have no business putting myself in close proximity to other people, for fear of some “Temple of Doom” shit going down. Those people might be counted on to provide a reference for future job prospects!

Kaaleeemaaaaah! Good thing for y’all I’ve become a pescatarian in my old age! 👹
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sober lifestyle

Insecurity

jenwielgusjournalism

Someone recently asked me if I went to rehab to get sober, and I was like, “No, but I wish I could go now.”

I mean, generally speaking, there’s nothing I would rather do than put responsible adult life on “pause,” indefinitely, to go read, reflect, hike, do yoga, get therapized, yak with likeminded folks about recovery, philosophy, history, humanity…which, incidentally, is what I do with my friend Kim on our “Living Sober” podcast. It’s worth a listen, if you’re into all that deep stuff, too! 🗣️🎙️👂🏻

I should probably warn you that some off-color language occasionally slips outta my mouth on the pod. In the only listener feedback we’ve received (from someone other than my mom), an emailer took issue with my “use of profanity.” 🙊

Figures! It’s been that kind of season lately, when my square-peg edges seem particularly rough, and all the world seems especially round. Like any good self-protective human who feels cornered, and like any recovering addict who buried their old trusty escape hatch, I find myself really yearning to run away and leave it all behind. Thus, I guess, the rehab fantasy. 🤷🏼‍♀️

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Mediocrity

jenwielgusjournalism

Five minutes into the first class of the final semester, I realized I was done with being in school.

I mean, it was fine to be treated like a fresh-faced noob when this all started three years ago and the experience of academia as a “nontraditional student” was novel; I was so caught up in the adjustment to a full-time job/class/homework schedule that I had no perspective on anything. But to be older and wiser and sitting on achy hips in a plastic chair past my bedtime, dissecting yet another syllabus and engaging in childish icebreakers like, “Tell us what grade you want to get in this class”? 🙄

I at least tried to make this futile exercise interesting. “I’m going to say a ‘B,’ because I used to freak out about this stuff, and now, I’m trying to be more chill about everything.”

B’s, by the way, are the lowest you can go in this Master’s program and still pass, but to suggest that it’s OK to want that was apparently the wrong answer. My professor seemed taken aback, and quickly clarified: she wanted us all to be good little grade-grubbers gunning for A’s! My classmates complied, upping the absurdity ante as they went around the room: “I want an A-plus plus PLUS!” 🙄🙄🙄

The recovering perfectionist/all-or-nothing alcoholic in me wanted to scream, “WAKE UP, YE CITIZENS OF LA-LA LAND! YOU’RE BEING SOLD A LIE!”

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sober lifestyle

Emotion

jenwielgusjournalism

It makes sense that I would cry at the sight of her signature. The encouraging words my great aunt cared enough to scrawl on Hallmark cards and snail-mail from Chicago to Philly have helped keep my blood pumping — at a 0.0% BAC— over the past 4+ years. To see them jumping off the wall on Nov. 14, what would’ve been her 91st birthday, stretched my heartstrings to the breaking point.

“Can’t wait for Christmas” popped a few of them, I think.

I taped my entire collection of recovery support cards to the mirror in my bathroom, as positive affirmations to start each day. Since Auntie Mickey passed away back in July, I’ve found myself staring at her handwriting, and, like Proust’s madeleine, it’s sent me spiraling into an emotional rabbit hole of family memories. Misty red-and-green-colored memories, now that the holidays are here.

“Auntie Mick” was our annual Christmas Eve hostess, as iconic as mom’s patchwork stockings, dad’s retro bubble lights, or the mysterious cookie crumbs that covered the special Santa plate on the most wonderful morning of the year.

I guess it also makes sense that every flippin’ Black Friday commercial on TV or wintry ad on Instagram has been triggering my tear ducts of late. I hear jingle bell sounds on a podcast break or see a flash of twinkle lights in my neighborhood — there was a truck loaded with pre-cut evergreens, riding down the road the other day! — and I’m suddenly all up in my feelings. ’Tis the season for existential distress!

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sober lifestyle

Procrastination

jenwielgusjournalism

My jogging route includes a few steep(ish) hills that never seem to feel easier, no matter how many times I scale them, so I allow myself a break at the traffic light leading from the park back into my neighborhood. I typically have a gorgeous view of daybreak as I shuffle up the final incline, and on Halloween morning, I lingered a little longer at the stopping point to catch my breath and snap the attached pic.

That sky illustrates how my life feels right now — no matter how you look at it. From the “glass half full” perspective, I’m currently, temporarily, mired in murkiness and doubt, but there’s light, hope, room to breathe and seemingly limitless possibility waiting in the distance. On the other hand, I could say I’m floating around on the light side while the dark clouds of reality are looming, creeping in, getting closer every day.

My grad school “commencement” is May 11, 2024, which I suppose could be the line of demarcation in this scenario. The plan is to cross it, grab that diploma, then take a beat to decide on next steps for my counseling career.

I have hundreds of internship hours to log and research papers/final projects to turn in prior to that date. There’s also the minor matter of passing the National Counseling Exam, which students in DelVal’s program are somehow expected to do during their second-to-last semester in school while they’re trying to log all those required hours and turn in all those aforementioned assignments.

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