[repost] jwermont rocks

[firecat]

I'm reposting this because the original mistakenly quoted a friends-locked post. The post has now been made public.

My sweetie jwermont made a really moving, compassionate post about living with chronic anxiety. Excerpt:

This was the message I took away from childhood, and it's still lurking there, in the corner of my mind, waiting to hear validation from the outside world. And, this being a macho, bravado-brandishing culture, it never has to wait long. Fear - and especially, taking care of oneself around fear - is profoundly disrespected.

I think what the disrespecters don't realize is how much energy it takes to deal with those feelings when they are constant noise in your head. If a person needs to take a rest after pushing furniture around for hours, or running a marathon, then there should be no shame in a person's taking a rest from holding chronic anxiety at bay for long enough to participate in ordinary life.

Comments

I agree

[xf85goblin.livejournal.com]

Problem is employment....it takes a lot of very high quality cheese between one's ears to get forgiveness for that. My condition is kind of like that. Under stress, my brain floats away in a bucket. There was no bidding war for my particular four pounds of gorgonzola. So, I await disability. It isn't so much macho worshipping as the fact that the job market wants perfect employees for minimum wage for all positions. Its an imperfection, as such the gods of market forces must be paid.