So, yeah I’ve got Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It is something that is an everyday battle between all possible anxiety one can have at any given point.

With this post I would like to begin to share some of my poetry writings. I have written about Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD for short).

Every day is a new adventure. Will today be depression, calmness, fun, claustrophobic ending in several panic attacks, OCD, Overwhelming leading to embarrassing anger spurts, crying from the smallest memories entering my head? The feeling of loss at all times, disappointments, always trying to make good on something you might have done when younger, and always looking for apologies or apologizing yourself. Looking for acceptance, then being a loner, wanting someone around to comfort you, then feeling like an alien.
I am in constant fear. Fear those I love are going to get hurt at any given moment. The scenarios constantly play in your head.
So, i’m guessing no one would be surprised that I’ve had numerous “small to rather serious nervous breakdowns” throughout the years.

I’ve had these moments since I was a child, I would try to mask away all of the fears and emotions with overindulging, overcompensated, overanalyzing, just overdoing it!
There has been breaking moments as a child (when I realized that everyone eventually dies), at 18 when I lost my last 2 grandparents, and then subsequently leaving College after only a couple of months.
There have been moments at 24/25, 29 after a dramatic episode that left me with PTSD in which I was taken advantage of, harassed, and forced by threats of violence by an unbalanced woman.
Again, in my early 30’s adjusting to not living alone after 12 years of doing so when I got married.
Then the fears of becoming a father, and learning to be a good husband.
At 36 I lost my father to ALS, My body was numb for months for long periods of time. I fell into some old habits, and had to re-evaluate how to be a human again.
Then just recently in the last few weeks at 39. The seasonal depression, the overbearing Social Anxiety that has gotten worse as of late, the memories of my father, financial worries, possible pending medical dilemmas have broken my mind once again. The holiday season is a hard one to digest, my father’s birthday is in December, I lost him on Christmas night 3 years ago.

So in the moments I can escape to watch my children smile, look at my beautiful wife, watch a wrestling match or basketball game, listen to some Comedy Podcasts, and of course writing. These are what I life for when everything else feels like an everyday prison hovering over your bones.

ANXIETY DANCES

Riding blind like a trapped voice
Stuck to the corners –
of the echoed walls
The Blue waves of light-
travels through my visual acuity
Swallowing all the memories,
what was easy?
I cannot forget however –
the ripping of my flesh,

Like night over day
To reveal anxiety dances –
on the nerve pores
I can remember
everything that you wish –
I’d lose

(c) David L O’Nan in the book “Reflections”
Image is (c) Hillesha O’Nan