I spent most of the day in bed yesterday, and I didn’t really understand why. I just knew I had a billion things to do and I felt weighted down and glued to my bed. I sensed that if I stayed still and warm and cozy enough that I would be okay.
This week I’ve been operating with a Master List that I made on my phone and shared with Benjamin. It has all of the many tasks that must be done before we leave and they are broken down and prioritized by day. It’s honestly the only reason anything has gotten done this week. My brain would be utter jelly without it!
But despite having a Master List to guide me through every single step of each day and help me maintain some sense of direction, I couldn’t get out of bed yesterday.
I admit I’ve been lingering in bed longer and longer each day these last couple of weeks. In part, I’m exhausted. We’ve been working non-stop to wrap up our lives here and I’m worn thin. Dinners and tea dates have been sprinkled throughout the last few weeks as we savor dear friendships and say our goodbyes (for now) and they have been life rafts of normalcy and respite for me. These scheduled, carved out moments with friends gave me a chance to sit and eat a real meal and really connect with people. Even though it’s the kind of simple ritual that my days with Benjamin are usually made of, he and I haven’t had those luxuries together for too long. We eat on the go, work evenings and weekends, and we each go to our separate corners to divide and conquer the tasks at hand. I miss him. I miss our casual, normal, average time together. And I miss real, nourishing meals.
So I’ve been lingering in bed a little longer each day the last couple of weeks. It’s felt like reasonable self-care to let myself rest. But yesterday was different. I felt weighted to my bed; glued down and in need of it. Once afternoon rolled around and Benjamin suggested I get out of bed, I felt myself get heavier. It felt physically impossible to move. Furthermore, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t exhaustion or avoidance or procrastination. It wasn’t depression or overwhelm. (All the reasons I’m used to lingering in bed). Instead I felt fine. Content even.
Finally, around 2, I took to the internet to try to understand what was going on and I realized it was anxiety all along! Throughout my life my anxiety has manifested in a myriad of physical ways. Although these ways have changed and shifted throughout the years, there’s always been physical symptoms. I wasn’t tracking this ‘non-symptom’ of seemingly ‘feeling fine’ as any kind of anxiety.
Everything came into focus when I found this article and was reminded of the third F. I’m well acquainted with Fight and Flight, but I always forget about Freeze. Recognizing myself in the words on the screen, I realized how deeply I’d disconnected from my body as I suddenly began to reconnect and felt the physical sensations of anxiety start strongly prickling through my body. This led to a quick rise of panic in my throat and tears started to spill over. It all came on so suddenly that at first I felt it might overtake me. It felt scary. But as the initial rush began to subside, I settled back into the anxious physical feelings I’m so familiar with and leaned into deeper understanding.
The reconnection to myself helped me realize frankly that I’m scared of the next few days. I realized that the reason I feel lonely isn’t because Benjamin hasn’t been a full partner in this whole endeavor (he has) but because I’m scared. I’m anxious because I’m scared. The list isn’t helping because overwhelm isn’t the problem. It’s just plain old fear about leaving everything behind and taking leaps of faith in ways we never have before.
Understanding the root of why I felt frozen and why I felt alone gave me the breakthrough I needed to mobilize again. Because although fear and anxiety are unpleasant, they are also familiar. I’ve spent years working to develop tools and resources to make peace with this anxiety-companion of mine, honor its requests for support, and nurture myself.
Because I associate being stuck in bed with feeling bad, sad, or stressed, I didn’t know that I could both feel fine and also stuck at the same time. Once I understood what was going on and got past the initial scary feeling of all of the anxiety rushing over me all at once, I was able to get out of bed and take out the trash and make some food and feel confident that I had the tools to take care of myself. Simply gaining self-awareness about what was really going on freed me to get unstuck.
The third F is the one I most often turn to but also the one I most often forget about.