Anxiety

Descriptive Essay Draft – Composition II

I feel it coming on again.  Anxiety always hits me like a wave.  Some days when the tide is low, it washes over me slowly, soaking every inch of my skin, leaving me susceptible to the cold piercing wind from the sea.  I am careful where I step, tiptoeing, avoiding shells that are sharp as knives and the painful sting of jellyfish washing up on the shore.  I don’t want to lose my balance and be pulled down by the waves.   

On other days, when it’s stormy or the tide has risen beyond the beach, it hits me like a wave crashing into a cliff wall, slamming into me so hard my lungs fill with water and I start to drown.  A thousand needles dig into my sternum, the pulse of the waves pushing them deeper every time I try to force the water from my lungs to breathe again.  I grasp at my chest to pull the needles out, but there is nothing; the needles are already too deep in my flesh.  The heat of my body melts them into liquid form, and they travel through the veins just below my skin, expanding all the while.  These liquefied needles of despair, rage, helplessness, sadness, and loss grow larger until it feels like every inch of my skin is going to burst like a balloon with too much air.  I want to claw open my skin and release the pressure, but I’ve learned from experience that it doesn’t work that way. 

            I hunch over and clutch my chest, and try to focus on what my therapist has told me.  Where do you feel the anxiety the most?  What does it look like?  I feel it deep in my chest, glowing green and blue, spinning clockwise like a cloud or galaxy, faster and faster.  Take control, slow it down, and try to make it spin the other way.  I try to take slow breaths, slowing the motion of the cloud with each exhale.  This cloud is a part of me, and I control of myself.  I can do this.  It can’t take over me.

            The cloud slows, not reversing as planned, but slowed down is better than spinning out of control.  The waves are subsiding, the sea calming until it looks as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the moon shining through the parting clouds.  The liquid needles release with a hiss from my lips, and I draw in the largest breath I can manage, finally filling my lungs with air instead of water.  The faint taste of salt lingers in my dry mouth, from the sea and my own tears.  But I’m okay.  The storm has passed.