Rant: Coulda Woulda Shoulda

words Revathie Dhanabalan

Let me preface this rant with a simple thought process that I go through every time I would head out to meet people.

Here I am packing up for a nice night out with a couple of friends. And ever so casually, a simple tiny thought sprouts like a seed inside my head as an inner monologue. “You’re going out tonight?” that tiny seed of thought begins. But the inner monologue drawls on, as though observations and thoughts are simple and my brain is just stating the obvious.

“Yes,” I answer back. My brain replies, “are there going to be a big lot of people?”

“Well,” I continue. “Five of them, but I should be okay”.

And, from this moment, the thought shoots and grows into tangled thorny vines till it suffocates everything else. My brain – the part of myself that I like to think is logical and rational – tries to keep it under control, but can’t. The inner monologue has taken over. My inner monologue is riddled with anxiety.

The rational side that is my brain tries to help me out. “You will be fine! You can talk to people because you do know how to talk to people. You do it all the time, just keep doing that!” But in the background, that thought keeps rumbling. “What if I say the wrong thing? Did I remember what I needed to do? What If I’m awkward and they pick up on it?” it whispers over and over and over again.

By the time I get on the bus and I’m heading to where I’m going, there’s this weight on my chest. I usually feel a full rainbow shade of awkwardness mixed in with a tinge of reluctance to be there. And I start to overcompensate, tip right over while my heart races all the while I’m trying to maintain some level of sanity in front of these people. My inner monologue starts leading towards something catastrophic. On some level, I know that what I’m feeling is irrational and useless but brains and ideas don’t always make sense. Sometimes they just make anxiety.

And these become imaginary handcuffs restraining me, from being me.

At some point, we have all experienced anxiety – right before a job interview or an enormous amount of shyness before a date or even getting on the bus to get yourself to work. It is that fluttery feeling you get in the pit of your stomach that either aids or debilitate.

If you haven’t quite gotten the gist of this, it’s all about anxiety - or perhaps a rant about anxiety.

For me, it takes a lot to faze me but the smallest things can become the biggest trigger: dinners, meetings, crowds - situations without a clear escape. The heart palpitations kick in and my stomach will rage and gurgle like a squally sea. And this is what I hate. Why do we have the capability to understand the irrational side of it all and yet get stumped along the way?

When these feelings start, I want nothing more than to just sleep. Many times I have wished that I had the ability to teleport so I can just disappear, up and away without having to get past people. But on some level I always know that I should stay – that I need to – because if I give in I will continue doing that for everything. Everything will just get worse. Anxiety is just a pill I have to swallow so that I can carry on with my life.

It took me a long time to deal with what was wrong. I couldn’t deal with the coulda woulda shouldas of life. I wanted to handle anxiety on my own terms and not with positive thinking or high-fives. But I couldn’t. Why? Because anxiety has this knack of drawing you in and holding you tight. And for me, it held on so tight, it was comfortable. I couldn’t just shake it off so I appealed to some internal fear-mongering - the fear of missing out or FOMO rather. I had to come to terms with my own anxiety and rework the concept of taking the leap of faith. I had to accept that I was emotional but I can use that to my advantage. I had to accept that I could have irrational thoughts and continue on with life. Most importantly, I also had to accept that I am okay.

Now, with some hidden courage, I am able to silence that inner monologue (at times) and put it to good use a.k.a writing this rant. This experience of shutting down anxiety has been quietly satisfying, but anxiety is a true stalker, just waiting to resurface. All I have to do is to give that presentation or I’m out on a casual walk, and out peaks its ugly head. Despite the pain of it all, I figured out what weighs on me more and used that to my advantage. These days that can be difficult and tiring, but every day I remind myself of the coulda woulda shouldas in my life.

Does anyone relate to this? Or what’s your trick to deal with that weird stalker, anxiety?