Life: The Pain of Anxiety

Anxiety. I am surrounded by anxiety. I have anxiety and some of my friends have anxiety. It is hard to get away from, but it is also problem that we should not gloss over,  it is something that we need to look at and help those who suffer from the illness.

I have anxiety and I feel like no one else understands how I feel,  no one knows what it is like to suffer from anxious thoughts and panic attacks – well apart from those who suffer from it as well. Anxiety is a pain in the bum! It gets in the way of life and can be very very annoying.

So what is having anxiety like? It’s more than an anxious feeling. It’s more than fear. It is de-habilitating. It’s lonely and it’s painful.  And it can be very hard to live with.

Having anxiety means knowing your fears are unrealistic but being unable to push the thoughts away.

It means standing in an empty valley but feeling like you can’t breathe.

It’s having a bad day and having to explain to people it’s not them it’s you.

It’s feeling totally alone when you are surrounded by people who love you.

It’s being loved but feeling like it’s only out of pity that people stay.

It’s remembering every single bad thing you've ever experienced and being unable to remember even one good one.

It’s going back in forth in your head arguing with yourself about why you feel the way you do.

It’s a cycle of intense emotion followed by being drained of all emotion topped with a migraine to remind you all about what happened hours earlier.

It’s waking up in the middle of the night feeling like you’re having a heart attack because you can’t remember if you locked your front door.

It’s being at work and having a full blown panic attack inside but having to hold it together on the outside.

It’s wanting to curl up and die but at the same time being afraid to.

It’s having so much emotion that you eventually go numb to save yourself.

It’s knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel but being afraid that it’s an oncoming train.

It’s seeing a wall to climb where everyone else just sees a bump in the road.

It’s going out at night and wishing every moment you were under your blankets at home.

It’s wanting to go out but finding an excuse to stay in every time and then beating yourself up for not going out in the first place.

It’s a sudden burst of fear and you have no idea why.

It’s a constant battle of worrying when the next battle will come and will you be strong enough to face it and win.

Here’s the important thing though if you are reading this and you have anxiety, you have survived 100% of your bad days. That’s not a bad track record.

Anxiety is not like this every day, but it is still hard to deal with. How do I cope with it? I take every day at a time, or sometimes one minute at a time. I find that if I start thinking about things in the future I start to panic and anxious. Also I fix my eyes on Jesus, and ask him to help me get through the day. 

Faith: Grace

The concept of Grace in the Christian Faith can be hard for people to grasp, but it is also a concept which cannot be easily define - it can only be experienced.

What is Grace?

Grace is a supernatural gift bestowed on us  by God for our salvation.  It is something we can never merit as it is given to us by a loving God - it is a gift.

Ephesians 2 v 8 - 10
"For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good words, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them"

Jesus brought us into life in Christ.  Grace is the eternally active, unlimited, unconditional and unmerited love God has for us.  And this beautiful gift of Grace surrounds us at every moment of our life - in the sadness and in the joy - at all times.  We need to ask the Lord to reveal to us, the state of our hearts - to show us the areas which need to be changed  - we need the narrow walls of our hearts broken down - Grace does this.

Grace is God's relationship with us and our with Him.

God is love and it is his nature to pour out his Grace on us - we, who are made in His image.  God calls each of us by our names - he loves us so much he even knows how many hairs are on our heads!

God sent his only Son to this world to die for us - this is the depth of God's love for us - he sacrificed his only Son to save us from our sins  - for us - his children.  (1 John 3)

God loves us more than anything in the world - we are all precious to him - he is constantly with us and in contact with us.  Sometimes it feels like we are alone and God is not with us and that he is not listening to us as our prayers are maybe not being answered, but what we need to remember is that with God there is no time - he doesn't work by a clock - God's time is now and always, and is timing is perfect - Jesus knows what we need and when we need it.

God sometimes makes us wait as he wants us to rely on him and not on others - he wants our eyes to be firmly fixed on him and his mercies. He understand us and our feelings and that we can get frustrated but we are his children and he wants this best for this and sometimes what is best for us if not what we want - God knows exactly what we need and when - our wants are not always our needs.

Important things to remember are that we are the light of the world.  And when we feel like things are falling apart and we are alone, we need to remember we are not alone as God is always with us - he carries us through our difficult times and through trials it may seem like we will never get through them and we wonder why this is happening to us, but once we are through the trials and on the other side we realise that God and His Grace got us through.

Faith is very important to have during our trials.  I know that if I did not have my faith during trials I would not be able to cope. Don't get me wrong I haven't coped all that well during trials but without God's help I don't think I would have made it to the other side and when I feel God is not with me I need to remember that he is carrying me and when we suffer he suffers with us and also that when He was on the cross He suffered for us.

Writing: It takes time

I know a lot of people may have the grand idea of wanting to be an author but don’t have the time or can’t seem to be able to get their ideas to paper and in an interesting readable way. I struggle with both of these.

However, we should not worry about time as sometimes it takes best-selling authors a few years to write their bestselling books – sometimes big things take a while to come to fruition:

Meet John.

John has a big dream - becoming an author.

But John feels he has no time. He’s a lawyer, has a family and his days are packed.

But his dream doesn’t leave him alone, and he decides to do one small action:

Write one page per day.

However much he has going on, this he can do. So he starts - some days are easy, others are hard, but he keeps going.

It takes John 3 years to finish his first novel.

John has now gone on to publish one book per year and has sold over 300 million copies in 42 language.

All this from one small action: one page a day and limited time with a busy life.

Who is John?  None other than the bestselling author John Grisham

What is the moral of this story?  Never give up on your dream and if you have limited time, do not worry as all it takes is one page a day and if it takes a couple of years for the novel to be written, don’t worry as that one novel could be all it takes to become a bestselling author, always on demand for writing more books for your fans.  

MS: So True

I saw the below picture and decided to share it - do not really need any words to explain it - the picture speaks for itself - but I agree with it - MS is an invisible illness and people don't understand and think there is nothing wrong with you unless they can see a physical problem!!

TV Review: Person of Interest

My latest Netflix binge for the past couple of months, or maybe just one month, I lose count has been or still technically is “Person of Interest” starting Jim Caviezel – wow what a handsome man he is with those dark smouldering eyes and whispery voice.

I am halfway through the third season and just realised that this is the last season available to me on Netflix and have just missed season four on Channel 5, so not sure where I am going to find that season.  I came late to the show, but am glad I decided to watch it.

It is a cool TV show. Season one was very samey and I thought this is good but it’s not going to be very exciting – it seemed to be the same thing each episode – somebody needs saved and they get saved by the ‘Man in the Suit’. But it does get interesting.

We started to find out more about the main characters Harold and John.  So back to the beginning what goes on and who is who?

Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) is the brains behind the operation and John Reese (Jim Caviezel) is the brawn.   They work together to save people who are either in danger themselves or else put others in danger.  They do this with the help of two NYPD detectives (who are working beneath the wire – is that the right expression!) These two detectives are Joss Carter and Lionel Fusco – they both work for Finch and Reese but at the beginning they do not realise it and Carter thinks Fusco is corrupt and working for HR (the corrupt side of the NYPD)

How do they know who to save? At the beginning we aren’t told about how Finch gets the numbers, but it seems that he gets them from a machine. Won’t go into too much detail as don’t want to give too much away as you need to watch the show.

Anyway things don’t always go to plan and trouble comes calling especially at the end of season one and throughout season two and definitely in season three. It is one of those shows which makes you want to watch more in order to find out who exactly Harold is, what is his connection to John prior to him being his boss as there are hints of them being connected long before they met but is unknown to John.

In season two we are introduced to another person, Shaw who seems to be in the same work as John and Finch, but instead of saving people she eliminates them. It seems the machine gives out numbers to two people – relevant ones to the government and non-relevant to Finch.

The relevant numbers are deemed to be a danger to the world e.g. terrorists etc. and the non-relevant numbers are just ordinary people who aren’t deemed worthy to save by the government but these are the ones John and Finch save - the ordinary members of public who are in danger.

As I was watching season three last night – one episode after another – couldn’t stop watching as I needed to know what happened – I thought, well John can’t get any more attractive or badass – oh how I was wrong.  In avenging the death of someone he held very dear to his heart he became like a broken man - the man he once was when he worked for the CIA. He was going off the rails. I had to go to bed but I am interested in seeing what happens next and how everybody involved comes back from the very explosive middle season of season three.

Flash Fiction: She hopped nimbly....

She fixed her hair and hopped nimbly through the window.  She was escaping what to her may have been a very horrific future.  She thought she knew the man she was about to marry, but the last 48 hours had shown her different.

Stan was such a sweet quiet guy but it turns out that he wasn’t what he seemed to be.  He told her his job was an IT consultant but that was a lie.  He had told her so many lies over the past two years.  She did not know what to believe anymore – did he even love her anyway?

The two days leading up to your wedding, your special day are meant to be spent in dream land as well as panic – thinking about the future and how it is going to turn out between the both of you. 

However this was not so for Jenny as she has spent the last two days following her future husband because over the past few weeks she had become suspicious of his behaviour, the late nights, and the mysterious phone calls he was getting all hours of the day and night.  Jenny had convinced herself Stan was having an affair and she had had enough and decided she would spy on him and catch him out on the act.  She didn’t want to marry a cheater.

So Jenny set out to follow Stan, trying so hard not to get caught by him – it was a near miss sometimes.  I tell you, but she never was found out, or if she was Stan never let on he ever saw her.

Jenny followed her future husband through the streets of London until they reached Stand’s first destination – a hotel.

Ah, Jenny thought, I was right, he is having an affair.  She followed him into the bar expecting to see him meet a gorgeous blonde babe, but oh she was so wrong.

Oh boy, was she wrong.  Yes, there was a gorgeous blonde woman there but that is not who caught Jenny’s eyes.  What intrigued Jenny so much was the little boy who had just rushed up to Stan shouting Daddy, Daddy. 

Jenny nearly fell, she was so shocked. Stan was a dad, and he had never told her, why?  All these questions and doubts about Stan and their relationship were running through her head.  She knew she couldn’t go through with marrying him but she also knew she couldn’t let on that she knew his secret because then he would be furious she had followed him.  Also she was so furious she didn’t trust herself around him.

So Jenny went on with the wedding plans, got into her wedding dress, went to the church and made sure Stan was in the church waiting for her.  But while her bridesmaid were not looking, Jenny decided to escape through the window in the bathroom.  It was her only chance.

So she fixed her hair and hopped nimbly through the window. 

Flash Fiction: The Word Prompt

Everyday in May I will receive an email from Story a Day which will be given prompts in order to get the creative juices flowing. Today's prompt was to write a story using the following words:

• Blame
• State
• Frame
• Holiday
• Relay
• Waist
• Pail
• Gain
• Raise
• Mayor
• Airplane
• Remain

So here is my attempt:

The race for Mayor was just beginning to get interesting, the red one was dissing the blue on and everyone was just like who knows who is better, they are both as bad as each other.

Morris, the blue party Mayor was a person to really understand, he was a typical upper class politician, putting the blame on others for the state of the way the country was turning out.   He couldn’t see that he was part of the problem – the party he stood for were not really moving forward in their political gain, instead it seemed as if they were going back to the days of old. 

They say they stand for one thing and then never actually provide what they promise. They just knew what to say in order to raise their votes and remain in control of the country, even though it seemed as if things were just not going anywhere.  It was a shame.

But even though Morris was a bit of an idiot at times, he was a lot more better than Den, the red parties contestant in the mayoral campaign. He ran before and he did a few good things in his days, but now he just seemed to falling into a pail of trouble, always saying the wrong things as the wrong time. 

However, in all honesty they both said a lot of stupid things – it sometimes seemed like they were in a relay race of who was trying to say the dumbest thing to the press! Some people never learn.

The time was coming to decide which one – the red or blue was the best person for the job – who should the public put in the frame – the tiny one or the one with the big waist!!  And which one should be put on the airplane for a very long holiday.  The case is still open – so which one will win the race, or will it be like the Milky Way advertisement – the red car and the blue car had a race, but all the red car wanted to do was stuff his face!!