Learning to trust

The opposite of anxiety isn’t calm, it is trust.

I no longer remember where I read that, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it over the past few weeks.

For me, anxiety feels like a need to leave. Like I can’t sit still, like I need to be outside of my body, or at the very least somewhere else, fast.

When I was younger, it sometimes felt like I literally wouldn’t be able to breathe unless I got far, far away from where I was. At the time, I processed the impetus to leave as an error-message: a sign that something was wrong, but also not necessarily accurate. I would find physical ways to anchor myself in the present. I got a cat, because cats need to get fed and cared for, and so I couldn’t leave. I’d rush to make plans I couldn’t break for 2-3 days, so that I was compelled to stay. And once or twice, when I really, really felt the need to leave, I drove my car to a road-side bar, had a drink, and then slept in the car. I don’t drink and drive, ever, not even a little bit, so driving to a bar and drinking alcohol is the most concrete way I could think of, of forcing myself to stay put.

These days, I rarely feel a need to leave. At least not in that urgent, can’t--stay-in-my-body way.

I only recently realized that the difference is trust.

Trust in my own ability to generate the change I need. Trust in the community I have built. Trust that whatever happens is a consequence of our joint decisions, and therefore, however messed up, something we can solve together too.