a long time after that, but before now

“What are you thinking? What are you thinking when you begin to feel anxious?”
“Nothing.”
“No, but you are thinking something, and that’s what starts you feeling anxious. We can break it down.”
…
“Well, I guess I’m thinking ‘Oh no, not again’ and then I start thinking about what I can can do to cover it up, or how I can suppress it, or get out of the situation.”
She is excited (she’s a very enthusiastic person, or at least is making a concerted effort to be one) and she goes over to the whiteboard and starts diagramming it out, writing down thoughts and drawing arrows between them, looping each one back to the thought before, back to the beginning.

Except that the first thought is not the beginning. Anxiety is not a thought. It’s a nothing, a black hole/black blob with no words in it. My mind is not blank but anxiety is not made of words.

Her diagram should have a hole at the top, a gap. Where all the arrows go.

This clatter of thoughts, it happens a moment afterwards, and continues until I am safe (safe from nothing except my own anxiety: I am far from unaware of this). It is not the anxiety, but a reaction to the anxiety. My attempt to manage it, to keep it contained, away from other people, to avoid doing them harm. This would be obvious to her if she wanted it to be.

For her sake, I pretend things are getting better: I bring her stories of improvement every week. To tell her otherwise, to tell her that things are standing still, the black blob/black scribble untouched, would shame us both. CBT promises rapid results, so I do not have to do this for many weeks.

When I was very young, I used to imagine that the soul was a physical organ, embedded (of course!) in the foot. I saw it as a discrete wiry tangled bundle, like a steelo-pad, only black, and somehow of the nature of an inflamed tonsil. The anxiety is like this, but rather than being embedded in my instep, it floats freely before me. My heart is written over in a dense scribble that blocks out meaning, and cuts in. hurts.

“How do you know that other people notice?”
My answer is a mumble because of course I have held things back, I will not tell her all of my shame, or tell you.
“Where’s your proof? Can you prove other people notice? And even if other people notice, can you prove that they mind? Their reaction could be anything. They could be worried about you, or wondering what’s going on.”

They are standing outside on the driveway when I come home. My neighbours. They have been having a barbecue and are happy, relaxed. I see them from 50 metres down the road, but there is nothing I can do about it. I will not be able to speak to them or look at them today. I try to get past as quickly as I can.
“Yeah, what you say is ‘hello’!”, the youngest girl says.
“It’s as if she’s been struck dumb!”
In my suffering I am triumphant.
“There’s your proof!”, I would tell my counsellor, "I got your proof right here" . If I still had counselling. If I hadn’t been cured.

I lie on the bed, feeling anxiety in all my limbs, anxiety burning my skin. If I feel a sensation in any part of my body, I picture doing something terrible to that body part. If I feel a twitch in my left eyelid, I have a vivid picture of myself driving a screwdriver into that eye. If I move my left arm, I see myself smashing it with the hammer I know is in the garage. I know I will not do this. I do not move.
This only happens once.
It is the only time anxiety reaches me when I am alone.
It is the reason why I start seeing the cousellor.