Notes From The Smoking Area

I hadn’t seen my flatmate in a few weeks.

Holidays, work and funerals kept us separated for a while.

When I finally arrived back to our flat, I was alone (again).

He was just at work but at this point I started to question whether he was just a made up voice in my head.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

But as I made my way through our flat again, I started seeing what I have now begun to describe as ‘signs of life’.

A mug in the sink.

A towel drying on the back of the bathroom door.

A bottle of BBQ sauce that just seems to live on our dining room table now.

Evidence that life had continued whilst I had been away.

While this isn’t exactly groundbreaking information for you reader, for me, it was a substantial development.

Not because I didn’t know we had BBQ sauce- I bought it- but because I have been someone who has spent much of his life scanning for signs of danger, not signs of life.

It’s funny, not funny HA HA but more funny when you think about it, how my anxiety has changed forms throughout the years.

As a young boy I had what in retrospect I can now identify as social anxiety but at the time I just thought everyone got a sore tummy before seeing friends.

It actually felt quite debilitating and I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it because well I was 8.

Then as a teenager I would obsess over how liked I was.

It wasn’t enough to be liked, I had to be the most liked and if I wasn’t well that didn’t even bear thinking about.

As a young adult, it has taken a few forms.

From not wanting to leave the flat to being convinced the people at the train station secretly wanted to push me onto the tracks.

But regardless of what I tried so it remained.

I am not 100% sure where my anxiety actually stems from.

One would assume the generalised anxiety disorder but I also know that my surroundings can affect it greatly.

In order to feel like I was in control of my anxiety I would try to get out ahead of it.

So I spent so much time scanning for danger.

At first it was simple things like raised voices, stern looks or my ex calling me “fucking mental”. But what I realised by this point it was too late, the thing that would cause my anxiety was already here and that thing was someone being upset with me.

So I got smarter and I worked harder.

No longer was it something as obvious as being called fucking mental- I could sense it from tone, a text left unreplied, a phone call not answered, an expression too harsh- all signs of danger.

I remember at one point going to someone to explain to them why I thought they were annoyed with me and by the end of the conversation I had done such a good job at convincing them I had annoyed them they didn’t speak to me for 2 weeks.

News flash- this didn’t get me very far.

Sometimes it would mean I would be chasing my own tail admonishing myself for something that hadn’t actually happened.

Wearing people down until they just said the thing that was on their mind rather than waiting until they were ready because I simply couldn’t sit in the discomfort of not knowing.

Even just thinking about it now is exhausting.

I did this, I shit you not up until June this year.

I now have time to live my life at a slower pace, experience things I haven’t before and actually have been able to have a thought without some bastard coming in and interrupting to ask if we sell jock straps (still don’t miss retail).

Rather than scanning the room for danger, I was looking at a life.

So now, when I receive at text that my spidey senses tell me is off I have the following conversation with myself:

“did they actually say that?”
“Is it the end of the world if they did?”
“Are we creating stories to feed the beast?”

The beast is how I refer to my anxiety now.

9.9/10 the answers look like this

“No they didn’t”
“Probably not no”
“Of course we are”

Because I now have this pattern recognition, I can stop the loop in real time.

The stories that our anxiety tells us is often if not always veered toward self loathing.

Of course YOU are the worst.

Of course they would hate YOU.

But in reality, how much time do you spend doing that, thinking of people like that?

Although it may be my default to scan for danger I have enjoyed scanning for signs of life.

Most long lasting healthy relationships are not built on emergencies.

They are built on Tuesdays.

So now I notice when there are signs of life everywhere I go.

The worn down table at a cafe showing how many people have sat there and had an infinite number of experiences.

The books shelves rammed with tat from holidays and days spent in town.

Nicknames.

Tan lines.

Cupboard doors left open.

All signs of life being lived.

If you continue to spend your life scanning for danger and only danger you are going to be an observer of life, like I was, rather than an active participant.

And I don’t know if you heard, but we only live once, so go put your phone down and live your life- that’s what it is there for.

If you spend all your life scanning for signs of danger- you’ll miss all the signs of life happening right under your nose.