The Anxious Writer: Chapter One

Our recent memories are usually the most vivid; you could play them over and over again in your mind. But that is not always the case with certain thoughts and feelings. Sometimes you cannot even recognize how you felt a few months, weeks or even days ago.

For me, some of these thoughts are crystal clear. I can visibly recall the days when falling asleep was a hard task, when the simplest days and tasks were worrying and when I used to reach out for my foot to determine whether or not I was dying.

I spent a bit over a year suffering from something I could not comprehend. A heart condition? An unknown malady? Brain damage? Every time I typed what I felt in the Google search bar, I would get a different type of cancer.

Every night was a new struggle. My heart would pace, my breath would get shorter and my mind would be overwhelmed by a fast stream of intrusive, uncontrollable thoughts.

And I used to ask myself every time if this was the end doe me, after which I would reach out to the tip of my toes to see if they were getting cold to know if I am actually dying.

The worst part of all of this isn’t the range of symptoms, but the uncertainty.

It is like you are walking around with the heaviness of not knowing what you are facing. You are too afraid to ask, to call for help and you are tremendously worried what it could turn out to be.

Various people suggested I should see a therapist, perhaps it is all psychological. But I was “okay”.

At least, this is what I would tell myself. I was an 18-year-old girl who lost her father a year earlier, had various troubled emotional relationships and off to start freshman year. But I was fine.

I decided it was a shot. Turns out that what determined whether or not I was okay wasn’t the fact that I was dealing with my family and friends. It didn’t include crying all day every day or having trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

It just meant I needed help and that my worries and fears were greater than what my mind was able to process.

I walked in the quiet room, facing an old lady with a pen and paper and answered predictable questions.

It all felt like a regular conversation until we uttered the word, “anxiety” and I could suddenly see every moment I thought I was going to die materialize before me. I recalled every time the Google search suggested a different disease.

Mariam Mazhar
Senior Arabic Editor