Starve The Beast

I wake up every morning with a slavering, pointy-toothed Beast sitting on my chest. And no, it’s not my 14 year old, 9 pound dog. It’s a huge, hungry creature called Anxiety. Thus it has been since the early days of college. I know now why that was, and won’t go into detail, but the rug I was relying on to cushion my life transition was pulled out from under my keister in one stunning yank and life as I knew it came to a thudding halt on a cold, hard floor.

Anxiety did not creep in on little cat feet, no~~anxiety came bounding in with the power and ferocity of a tiger, producing nocturnal panic attacks that were designed to terrify and rob me of sleep. I would be in a state of sleep paralysis, convinced that someone or something very dangerous was in my room and I would remain in a motionless, voiceless dread until I could, through sheer force of will, crowbar myself from unconscious to conscious, my heart pounding and my nervous system on fire. Still being for all intents and purposes a child, I was largely unequipped to manage these feelings and events in any productive, adult manner. I felt I had no one to confide in who might not think I was completely batshit. I was confused and frightened so I turned to Dr. Bottle and Dr. Bed for medical assistance: Sloe Gin Fizzes and sleeping as many hours of the day as possible without flunking out or getting fired from the three jobs I worked. I did try therapy at the student health center….ONCE. The therapist was an older man who diagnosed, from a dream he asked me to tell him, that my problem was sexual frustration. Somehow I had the wherewithal to conclude he was both an idiot and a pervert so I canceled my second appointment.

My inherent resilience, ambition, desperate desire for positive attention, rabid self-sufficiency and fear of being shamed pulled me up out of the slump far enough to get by and pass as reasonably normal, but the Beast continued to demand her pound of flesh in order to allow me to pass through the gates of night hell into the light of day.

For many years, I fed the beast what I thought she wanted: a completely shitty diet of:

*Shit I had failed to do

*Shit I did but thought I shouldn’t have

*Shit that went wrong

*Shit that was going to go wrong….someday

*Shit that was wrong with me

*Shit that was wrong with other people

*Shit that was wrong with the world

*In other words, a complete Shit Breakfast Sandwich

And then I would provide her with dessert~~a gorgeous flambe of negative rumination whipped up with fear about grades/money/relationships/my career/what other people thought of me/body image/my perceived worthlessness/health/the past/the future/the stupid thing I did or said that day/you name it and ended in a spectacular after dinner drink of me living as a pathetic bag lady in the gutter, reviled and rejected.

Smacking her lips, she would belch, then turn around in circles and settle into a food coma, letting me get up and attempt to salvage what was left of my miserable existence until lunchtime.

I was Anxiety’s bitch.

And of course this diet did nothing to satiate the bottomless beast. She came back ordering me to feed her copious amounts of junk all day, every day. And as she grew bigger, fatter, stronger, meaner and demanded even more of me, I spent 90% of my time attending to her voracious needs. Luckily I am a high capacity performer, so I did a bang-up job of keeping her fat and happy. But my high-maintenance Beast was taking an enormous toll on my own well-being.

After many years of experimentation~~with meditation, exercise, quitting caffeine (THAT never lasted), therapy, yoga, weighted blankets, deep breathing, tapping, distraction, praying and other things I can’t even remember now~~in my attempts to quell the Beast, I finally stumbled upon what I will call the Starve the Beast diet; a special blend of Cognitive Behavioral techniques and Radical Acceptance.

It consists of a healthy, balanced regimen of:

*things I had actually done right (perhaps a short list, but nonetheless)

*things that had gone well

*things that didn’t go well but were fixable and what I would do about them

*things that are good about me and my life

*things that are good about other people

*things that are good about the world

*reminders not to raise possibilities to the level of probabilities

*rational explanations of what is out of my control and of what needs to be released (like the dumb ass thing I’d said or what could happen in 2, 6, 12 months or infinity)

I am learning to, like I do with my dog when she incessantly and annoyingly begs for treats, calmly and non-reactively ignore the Beast. Eventually she’ll give up and go back to sleep. It has taken a very long time, but the Beast has started to shrink back to non-threatening proportions~~more a paper tiger than a jungle tiger now~~and doesn’t weigh so heavily on my chest anymore. She’s still there, mind you, and I am fairly sure she is with me for life, but honestly, I am not sure what I’d do without her now. She has taught me a lot and serves as a reminder of how best to care for myself and others. Keeps me on my toes.

One thing I’ve learned, about both dogs and beasts, is that they’ll eat pretty much ANYTHING you put in front of them. Oh, occasionally my pup will look askance at a green bean proffered to her, but if I leave it on the floor, walk away, and refuse to give her the cheesy treat, invariably she’ll figure it’s better than nothing and eat it. As will the beast. So you might as well feed them the good stuff. Remember, Anxiety needs to be YOUR bitch, not the other way around.

Try it! The beast might like it.