What are some archetypes for the healing gesture of de-pathologizing the wrongly accused phenoms out there? You do that so well. This is some of your finest de-pathologizing work here, and you're generous with your inspiring reframes. They read as a garden of archetypal delights.
I love reading this; the ending paragraph moves me deeply. Anxiety felt like an ingrained identity for many years, until medication finally tempered it. "You are right about how wide open and therefore potentially frightening it all is" felt debilitating at times, and I think medication replaced "frightening" with a new, less debilitating adjective here. The world felt more open after, and indeed full of potential to create and make things happen. Which, interestingly enough, is the thesis of your essay's latter part. So I wonder if embracing the power of anxiety is really embracing not only the frightening, but also the soothing and the amazing. Anxiety doesn't need to become a choke hold.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Ruika! It takes so much courage to endure anxiety's more difficult valences to also realize her potential gifts. I am so glad you found a path forward to make it manageable, and perhaps get to experience that energy is energy -- and can sometimes show up in spontaneous, creative ways. Thank you for reading!
What are some archetypes for the healing gesture of de-pathologizing the wrongly accused phenoms out there? You do that so well. This is some of your finest de-pathologizing work here, and you're generous with your inspiring reframes. They read as a garden of archetypal delights.
Who knew anxiety could be rendered into "a garden of archetypal delights!" What a wonderful phrase. Writers run in the family... <3 Love!
I love reading this; the ending paragraph moves me deeply. Anxiety felt like an ingrained identity for many years, until medication finally tempered it. "You are right about how wide open and therefore potentially frightening it all is" felt debilitating at times, and I think medication replaced "frightening" with a new, less debilitating adjective here. The world felt more open after, and indeed full of potential to create and make things happen. Which, interestingly enough, is the thesis of your essay's latter part. So I wonder if embracing the power of anxiety is really embracing not only the frightening, but also the soothing and the amazing. Anxiety doesn't need to become a choke hold.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Ruika! It takes so much courage to endure anxiety's more difficult valences to also realize her potential gifts. I am so glad you found a path forward to make it manageable, and perhaps get to experience that energy is energy -- and can sometimes show up in spontaneous, creative ways. Thank you for reading!