Hi @Sarah108 and ALl in this amazing conversation. i am so glad it has been left open for a day or two to continue.
I live with the labels BiPolar II, cPTSD, OCD and Core Anxiety. (I have been anxious since ever I can remember and before, probably onset at about 4 years old)
These two things resonated with me.
1. both from @Sarah108
Anxiety is disconnection with this Something Else. It’s this lack of connection and clarity that leaves us fretting and checking and spinning around in our heads and needing to compensate with irrational, painful behaviors. It’s this sense of missing something that leaves us feeling lonely and incomplete and fluttery. When I fret that someone hasn’t rung me when they say they will, for example, sure, I’m fretting about feeling abandoned and lonely in life. But let’s pare this back another layer. I’m really fretting that I’m not able to exist calmly, happily on my own, on my own bench. My anxiety is my not being able to connect to this Something Else, my ultimate companion. Do you agree?
2.
@theaveragejoe do you think being diagnosed with bipolar etc can prevent the "inward journey"?
I have been having this very conversation with a dear friend, she is on a non-dual journey and seeks oneness with the hugeness/no barriers through meditation.
I am sure that being BiPolar II prevents the inward journey for me, If i pursue it I can pretty well add Pchytzoid Effective Disorder to the labels. I unravel and start to live in a parallell and very awful universe.
I cannot do "meditiation'.. I have floods of memories of abuse and if I "open" and relax and do the meditation thing I am assailled by memories (like they are just waiting for me to open Pandora's box), fear, become even more anxious. We,my friend and I recently, through some very frank and honest and beautiful discussions decided that for me there is "No path" into this journey (call it spirtuality or whatever). For me this resonated when my friend said "A healthy, healed ego is vital to human survival. If the ego is shattered and brutalized, it cannot find a point of origin and there is nothing to see through or transcend because there is no ability to refer to ones self."
So if there is a path it is to find the 'I" that was stolen from me when I was a little girl. Contraire to most 'paths' for meaning - My greatest need is to not divest myself of the "I" - I never had one - but to regain and create the I. And as I do that my anxiety lessens.
My anxiety is lessend when I purposefully take charge and come into the PRESENT, right now. Here.
My anxiety is lessened because I CAN give myself permission to change, to not have to do what others seem to think is "the search for meaning". I am much better not doing the search at all. Just being, and 'acting as if'. Carving a way that is loving, kind, helpful and compassionate, practicing that.
The anxiety I live with is like a tornado of thought, bodily responses, adrenaline roaring fight/flight. If I could act it out I would keen aloud forever.
Thank you @Sarah108 for your interesting talk - I think living with co-morbidities (not just anxiety) brings with it a myriad of challenges.
