How To Get Through The Day When Anxiety Won’t Let You

Wake up.

Lay still and pretend that you’re still asleep so your cats don’t jump all over you, but they see through it.
Get up and feed the cats, lie back down, fall back asleep.

Wake up again, with the cats purring peacefully on top of you, it’s too comfortable of a situation to leave, fall back asleep once more.


Wake up again.

Fear looking at the clock and wonder if it’s early enough to stay in bed any longer,
look at the position of the sun in the sky and guess that it’s not.
Remind yourself that if you don’t get up soon you’re going to feel a lot worse.
Sit up, move your laptop from your bed and onto your table. Wonder if it’s late enough to start drinking, look at the position of the sun in the sky and guess that it’s not.

Check your messages, read the same ones over and over again. Scour the Internet for something that will make you laugh. Think to yourself that you need to stop taking so much advice from the position of the sun in the sky.

Pour a drink.

Hear laughter emanating from the other room and bask in it for a moment before it begins to fall on deaf ears.
 Get up, open your door, talk to somebody.
 Sit with them and share a laugh, until it becomes a chore.
 Stare into your cupboards and wonder why food can’t make itself.
Tell yourself that you’ll eat later.

Eat later.

Think of all of the things that are happening in the world around you, and how easy it would be to step out and become a part of it.
But it’s too cold out there.

It’s always too cold, lately.

Wonder what you can do in your apartment to feel productive.
Feel suffocated in your apartment, pack up your computer, go outside.
Meet a crossroads on the steps of your front door – the pub and the coffee shop are about the same distance away.
The pub has a fireplace, and a few other things that the coffee shop lacks.
Go to the pub, tell yourself it’s a good time to write.

Write. 
Enjoy yourself for a moment, allow yourself that.

Look around at all of the people in the pub and wonder if any of them see you, hope that they don’t because you’re wearing somebody elses poorly fitted clothes and you’ve probably been biting your hangnails. Feel warm from the fire, feel amused, wonder why you didn’t leave the house earlier.
Remember all the reasons you didn’t leave the house earlier and sink back into your drink.
Thank the drink, love the drink. Try to write the next part of this, but you’re still in the pub and the thought of leaving makes you anxious. Here, the world doesn’t seem so small.

See that the sun is setting, tell a joke to yourself that now you can start drinking.
Look around at the people again. Look at their faces, wonder if they could see pain on another person’s face, wonder if you could see it on theirs.

Walk home, it’s colder now.
Remind yourself that you have been through this before, and you will go through it again.
Tell yourself that it’s temporary.
Pat yourself on the back for getting through another day.
Because right now that’s all you really need to do,

Just get through the days.