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LJ Idol Week 6, Topic: Step On A Crack
Apr. 19th, 2014 12:54 pm"....step on a crack, break your Mother's back!"
This sort of thing is exactly what you should NOT tell a child with anxiety disorder. That playground rhyme haunted me for a long time.
As a child I fretted. I would try to avoid the cracks. So many of them. I learned to walk carefully, with a hyper awareness more suited to someone dancing on the edge of life and death than a child. I learned that the little cracks were okay, I'd accidentally step on one and immediately look to her, waiting for her back to break. But I avoided large cracks with all the power my young body had.
As an adult it would pop up at the oddest times....walking across the parking lot, full of thick strips of tar where the asphalt had cracked, strolling down a sunny sidewalk with it's even straight divisions....something would trigger it and suddenly I was walking across that parking lot, looking more like a drunk trying to stay upright, as I tried to avoid the major cracks.
This would occur well into my 30's because, while I didn't really believe the rhyme, the anxiety disorder never left me and was a vicious passenger in my brain. It waited for the right moment of weakness, when my guard was down, and swooped in...like a fire breathing dragon....come to torch my mental village of peace and happiness.
I battle it constantly. My weekly therapy sessions help to keep the dragon at bay. I've learned ways of self talk that keep me from feeding it. Then there are the medications. The ever present medications. But I suffer through them willingly because I know what the alternative is. That lack of control. The feeling of being afraid of everything. The weird random thoughts that take over my mind and lead me into destructive behaviors.
I'm turning 40 this July. And I no longer have to worry about the cracks, since Mom passed in 2013. But the anxiety disorder is still there. Lurking and waiting for a new obsession.
This sort of thing is exactly what you should NOT tell a child with anxiety disorder. That playground rhyme haunted me for a long time.
As a child I fretted. I would try to avoid the cracks. So many of them. I learned to walk carefully, with a hyper awareness more suited to someone dancing on the edge of life and death than a child. I learned that the little cracks were okay, I'd accidentally step on one and immediately look to her, waiting for her back to break. But I avoided large cracks with all the power my young body had.
As an adult it would pop up at the oddest times....walking across the parking lot, full of thick strips of tar where the asphalt had cracked, strolling down a sunny sidewalk with it's even straight divisions....something would trigger it and suddenly I was walking across that parking lot, looking more like a drunk trying to stay upright, as I tried to avoid the major cracks.
This would occur well into my 30's because, while I didn't really believe the rhyme, the anxiety disorder never left me and was a vicious passenger in my brain. It waited for the right moment of weakness, when my guard was down, and swooped in...like a fire breathing dragon....come to torch my mental village of peace and happiness.
I battle it constantly. My weekly therapy sessions help to keep the dragon at bay. I've learned ways of self talk that keep me from feeding it. Then there are the medications. The ever present medications. But I suffer through them willingly because I know what the alternative is. That lack of control. The feeling of being afraid of everything. The weird random thoughts that take over my mind and lead me into destructive behaviors.
I'm turning 40 this July. And I no longer have to worry about the cracks, since Mom passed in 2013. But the anxiety disorder is still there. Lurking and waiting for a new obsession.