Living with Anxiety and Depression: What It Has Taught Me about Myself

Sometime a couple of months ago, after a long, satisfying day of work, I was hit by a sledgehammer deep inside. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't bear to be alone. I couldn't bear to be with people. I couldn't talk. And the more I kept quiet, I felt like howling, except the sound just wouldn't form inside my mouth.

The most vivid physical feeling I remember is of being naked. Exposed to harm. Like the soldier in No Man's Land lying on a land mine, with the inevitability of being blown to smithereens at the slightest twitch of a muscle.

I imagined I was a fish floating up on the surface of the water, fated to be choked by a giant net. I was a hostage locked up in a cell with an open door, except on the other side of the door lay my captors: faceless demons sharpening their teeth on a saw, waiting just for me to attempt an escape so their fangs could feast on me.

For the past 10 months, I have been working from home. Thankfully, because what was to follow that initial insurgency left me with neither the will nor the life force to travel anywhere beyond the drawing room for my meals and the occasional mindless soiree with Netflix. I didn't realise when the demons left their post at the cell door and moved in with me. Now, they slept with me, brushed with me, bathed with me, ate with me. They had grown fond of me. They wouldn't let go. I tried to scratch and scrub and tear my skin and my scalp and my eyes and my mouth and my hair and my legs and my stomach free of them. But they had made me their home.

After a few exhausting weeks of doing battle with me, the demons left. Just like that. And something else took their place. A misty void with a heavy, viscous, leaden centre. While the demons were sharp and jagged, they hurt me by a thousand cuts, this new beast just sat on me. It just sat there, on my head, on my shoulders, on my chest. It wouldn't bite or thrash its limbs about. It crushed. It squeezed me like a ketchup satchet till I cried out in agony. In the morning, well fed on my nightmares, its weight is particularly unbearable. It is sitting on me right now, its feet coiled around me. Unlike the demons, I don't think I can grind this one out by pushing back and fighting. I have to find a different strategy.

When panic or anxiety switches to depression, you don't know whether to be thankful -- because you are not constantly afraid and short of breath, or resentful -- because being afraid at least signals life, while this leaves you feeling limp and lifeless. I have no answers yet to why any of this is happening to me. I have left the job of finding answers to professionals. But even in this very confusing time, I have found a sharp new kind of clarity.

First, I have not become dysfunctional. There is a strong core inside me that allows me to work and be a professional, albeit one who needs frequent retreats and recharges and the licence to be silent for vast swathes of the day. Some of my most fertile ideas have come in this period, although in absolute volumes/word count I may have got less work done per day. I understand that not everyone who goes through this is able to or has to retain this sense of functionality. But I can and I need to, and I am thankful for it. That's why I decided to write about this on LinkedIn and not on my personal blog.

Second, I have realised the true power of vulnerability. I have discovered that my "network" is not just a utilitarian baggage of business cards but a pulsating, very human web, which has broken my fall many a time when I have mustered up the courage to talk to them. I have not held back, and I have only gotten support and understanding. No one has stopped giving me work or calling me for meetings or started looking at me funny because I am "not well". Everyone has respected boundaries and my need to heal while not abandoning me. For this vote of confidence (you know who you are), I am thankful.

Third, by enforcing a sort of "digital detox" on me, this phase has taught me what is truly important. I now sleep with my mobile switched off, and sometimes I even step out of the house without the mobile, and it feels good. I don't tweet. I have in fact deleted the Twitter app from my phone, an unthinkable declaration of intent if you know me. I read a lot, but I don't participate in conversations online. I cannot take the noise, and for the first time in a long time, I realise that I really have nothing to say. I have no illusion of grandeur left. No longer do I feel that without my two bits, the world will be a dumber place. I am not desperate to get my voice in. It doesn't matter. I don't know how long this phase will last, but I hope that even if I do make a comeback, I will never let the desire to be heard consume me ever again.

Finally, that old cliche called "family and friends". Being afraid and unhappy has brought me closer to them in a way that being carefree and mirthful never could. It shouldn't have to be this way, but the end in this case more than justifies the means.