Spring cleaning and emotional dust bunnies
Anxiety is a shapeshifter, adopting any necessary camouflage to protect its human from perceived harm
It’s been so hard for me to write these past few weeks, for reasons that I can’t quite figure. I’ve been spending more Sunday afternoons than I care to admit pouring into my Monday essays from start to finish, procrastination not usually my vice.
I’m proud of myself for still chugging along, and for how this space holds me accountable to my creative goals. Thank you for being here, as always <3
During a mindfulness exercise with my therapist, I described the feeling of embarrassment as a purple dust bunny the size of the palm of my hand.
She had asked me to personify the emotion to help manage my anxiety, and the image of a fibery, dusty little puff ball came quickly without having to think very hard. Embarrassment isn’t threatening or menacing but just enough of a nuisance to make me doubt how I present myself to the world. It’s the gnat of all emotions, buzzing around the back of my brain trying to perfectly curate how I carry myself in public.
Once when I was trudging back to campus after a month-long Christmas break I tripped up the concrete stairs of the College Park Metro Station. My heavy duffle bags splayed on either side of me and headphoned students absentmindedly detoured around the spill.
I remember laying on the cold step for a few seconds longer than necessary and then verbally declaring “Don’t worry, I’m fine” into the noisy abyss. Playing dead for a few moments after a fall was a strategy I’d invented years prior, as someone who never lifts her feet high enough when she walks.
I used to think that I never got embarrassed, but really I was investing so much mental energy to the production value of my life, skirting around situations that might make me want to melt discreetly through the floor.
It’s hard for me to live completely unscripted, especially as a writer and generally anxious person. I imagine conversations in my head so many times that if something similar would ever arise in real life, I would have a list of fallback responses to use. I have accumulated a database of witty one-liners filed away as Jokes Coping Mechanisms that I regularly reference.
This kind of obsessive preparation is clearly a form of anxiety when read on paper, but not as easily identified in practice, especially when my social fears gradually disguise themselves as social confidence in the process, tricking myself and those around me.
Anxiety is a shapeshifter in this way, adopting any necessary camouflage to protect its human from perceived harm. It’s really a compassionate emotion deep down in its core, even if its tactics are misguided.
This is why fighting with it is like fighting with a shadow while wearing 3D glasses, throwing aimless punches at shapeless figures that never quite land. Anxiety is an umbrella emotion that blankets more manageable feelings like fear, embarrassment or overwhelm. Calling them by name relinquishes their power—kind of like casting out a demon.
After sharing a laugh, my therapist encouraged me to ask my dust bunny what it was trying to tell me, and why it was showing up in our conversation. Within a few seconds, I concluded that it wants me to clean up; to get a broom and sweep up the piles of self-criticism, judgment and inadequateness I have laying around my brain space.
Feature Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash