A Beautiful, Dark Morning

I want to say what a beautiful morning, which it is. I want to tell you that Ellis graduated from Safety City today, which she did. I want to say we’re heading to the Lake for the weekend, which we are. It’s all bright and shiny on the outside, but many times it’s not on the inside.I have been suffering with anxiety for the past year. I’ve brought it up briefly here before, but have never felt ready to fully share it. It’s a strange thing saying it. It may be defined now, but it has been how I have lived for years without any definition other than thinking that it is just the way I am. All the symptoms I now recognize as anxiety used to be just a bad day, a day where I would try to shake off the awful way my body felt with no success.But now I recognize it for what it is. I’m aware of the way my body starts to feel when it begins to take hold of me. I can hear how my brain spins as it goes on. I can see it, yet I am still learning and figuring out the sources, the triggers, and how to stop it.I don’t know why I have had such a good week and then all of a sudden last night my legs were tingling. Why I laid in bed and felt my body shaking. Why I couldn’t sleep. Why I woke up and the feelings of dread were there again. Why I swore I would see my body physically shaking on the outside looking down by how I felt on the inside but didn’t. Why I feel separated from people when they are right next to me talking. Why I can’t focus on the things outside of myself because there is so much on the inside that I cannot control. Why yet I control everything I can outside of myself to the extreme. Why I am short with my husband and kids. Why even as I say the rude things to them I know what I really want to be saying but can't.But here’s the thing, I finally can recognize it. I know now, which I didn’t a year ago, that it isn’t just me and something I can shake. It’s something that I can recognize, take steps to feel better, keep working through things in counseling, keep handing it over to God over and over again, and it’s not my fault if I can’t make it go away today or tomorrow or the next day.So today, I woke up and wrote out my thoughts to help find some of the things that have possibly triggered it again. I read God’s word. I ran a quick mile to have control over my shaking legs and to clear my head a bit. I’ve prayed; I still pray for it simply to be taken away forever, but I also now pray for God to keep taking me through the process of learning more about myself, my past, and more about Him through this all so that I can begin to share myself more fully with the world. To be able to share myself to the people around me.This is why I share this with you. Because first of all, I can’t share my good without sharing the hard. I don’t know quite how to be fully known and fully me with simply sharing the good. I held back from sharing this many times because I may feel this way for a week or it may be only this morning, and if I share good right after this I thought it would be confusing. But that’s life; up and down and back up again in a matter of minutes sometimes. I also share because if anyone feels this same way, I want to say you’re not alone. It’s not something you have to stay in. Tell someone in your life the way you feel, and take the time to start taking steps to heal on the inside. Our brain is so powerful over the way our bodies feel. Take the time to recognize it. Counseling has been huge for me this year. It’s not the overnight fix I wanted it to be. It’s hard work over a long haul, but it is so worth it.So here’s to saying, what a beautiful morning, but also recognizing the darkness that can still loom.