The Grey Elephant

If depression is The Black Dog, anxiety is The Grey Elephant. It walks up and settles itself heavily on your chest, crushing your sternum and expelling the breath from your lungs. It lays there, not moving, while your chest is slowly imploding under the immense weight. The more you panic and try to shrug it off, the heavier it becomes until, eventually, it pins you down until you are unable to move.

On the surface, everything seems to be fine. You are still, mostly, able to function. You get up for work, have a laugh with friends, do all the normal things. On the inside, your anxiety just keeps growing. An analogy I’ve heard used to describe this is that of a duck – On the surface of the water the duck looks calm, cool, collected (and delicious with a little plum sauce) however, underneath, it’s little legs are spinning around twenty to the dozen.

I was always a worrier as a child. When I hit puberty, the worry must have met a Russian gymnastics coach and got on steroids as it morphed into anxiety which, in turn, led to depression. I didn’t know to feel any different so I thought that this was just normal. It went up and down in stages but I had both The Elephant and The Dog with me pretty much constantly until around the age of 26. That was when I started to question this feeling. Was it normal to feel like this?

From there, things started moving. Exercise, diet, cutting back booze and ensuring proper sleep were the major factors, for me, in moving forward. It did take an enormous amount of energy to beat that initial inertia to get myself going again. It wasn’t a linear progression and took a little bit of time but the depression eventually died away and the anxiety, whilst still there, was minimised.

Fast forward to roughly two years ago. I had some injuries and was unable to train. When I look at it now, I can see that is the point that the anxiety started building up again. There’s been a fair bit happening in my life and without the training I turned to food and alcohol to help quell the growing Elephant. Not my smartest idea. My smartest idea, incidentally, is getting twenty drones synched with each other, attaching them to some carpet and then sitting in the middle with a remote control flying around like Aladdin.

The anxiety was growing so slowly I didn’t even realise that it was getting bad again. It was surreptitiously stalking me. It silently sidled up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and as I turned around, it bitch slapped me in the face.

Four weeks ago I went down to Melbourne to see my beloved Bruce Springsteen with my old china plate Tangles. It was such a great weekend but on the day I was scheduled to fly back home, I woke up to the beating heart reverberating throughout my body like a drum. Bah-boom bah-boom bah-boom. The walls were closing in on me. The Grey Elephant was affixed firmly to my chest. I was sweating. I felt nauseous. Something was wrong.

I was having a panic attack.

I threw the cover off me. I paced back and forth. I jumped on the spot. I paced some more. I walked and bought some food. I paced yet again. I swung my arms around in a circle. My hands were shaking. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. It was a self-perpetuating beast. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I felt like my insides were struggling to break free of the thin layer of skin housing them. The whole time I could feel the ever increasing hammer of my heart. Bah-boom bah-boom bah-boom.

It was a terrifying and ethereal experience. Since then, my base level of anxiety has increased ten fold. I’ve been on edge constantly. It did push me to complete an internal stocktake. Doing that, I can see it was something that had been building up for a while. The signs were there, I just either ignored or didn’t even see them.

I’ve since started seeing someone and I’m trying to actively manage The Grey Elephant. The anxiety is abating and I’m getting back to normal. The funny thing is, I’m actually a laid back individual and things don’t tend to faze me.

The reason I’m telling you all this is, number one, I just felt I needed a verbal (written) purge. Secondly, mental health issues can be quite isolating. It’s easy to feel like you are the only one in that circumstance. You’re not. Many people, most likely your good friends, are struggling with the very same things at this very moment. Seek help. Talk to friends. If you don’t have any friends, find an online or face to face group. Vent. Purge. Empty your cup and refill it. It’s ok to feel shit sometimes. It’s ok to not be ok. You will be amazed at how supporting and understanding humans generally are.