http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/expose?q=expose
Panic--
absolute panic-- throws a bag over my head, ties it tight enough so that if I
move, striving to ease the tug, it gathers tighter still and there is no moving
air. I lose vision and light. My head is removed from my body and I'm
forced to choose between staying in my head or feeling what's in my body. I've spent too much time in my head. I've felt too many things I don't like in my
body-- particularly the ones that send mixed 'like/don't like' messages. I don't want to be in my head. I don't want to be in my body. I don't like either option.
My
hands shake, my shoulders twitch. The
tip of my nose and fingers are suddenly cold. Pale and flush come with each
other. I'm picturing myself--an old
poem--crumpled into a tight ball.
Blinking ceases with the cessation of movement from any other visible
part of my body. My pulse pounds in my
neck, my toes, my forearms, along my spine, and from its normal
pledge-of-allegiance location. I'm
certain bystanders would be able to see the pounding if they were close enough.
The
feeling of exposure and the state of panicked anxiety bus beside each other,
from stop to stop, and have for years.
Depression either squishes into the same seat or sits very close behind,
resting its head on the seat-back, waiting for the shaking to stop long enough
to wiggle in. It sneaks in where there’s
stillness--when I've stopped singing in the car, when I no longer wish to talk,
when I watch people and things move around and, quite possibly, pass through me
without affecting anything.
I
am afraid.
I'd
been on a high two Fridays ago, riding on synchronicity. The snowflakes, growing larger in fifteen
minute intervals, convinced me that going home rather than to the gym was the
best plan. In the quiet of the house and
snow, the coming down from the high landed me higher than where I'd been
previously. The day--the week, really- was wonderful. Dinner was warm, filling, comforting, and
healthy.
Later
that evening, I had a call with my new health coach. I was pleased with how I'd done over the
course of the week-- I’d eaten healthier, the new gym membership was
established and I'd had the chance to try it out the day before. We talked about a number of focus places for
the coming week and some strategies for sneaking in gym time when time was
short. One suggestion, one that makes
absolute sense, was to do some on-machine/off-machine interval work for closer
to 30 minutes than the typical 45-60 I'm there-- so, treadmill for 2 minutes, followed
by something like squats or weights for a minute...rinse and repeat.
I felt the panic. As soon as I named the panic as a fear of feeling/being exposed, I moved into full-blown anxiety.
I
try to self-protect and do not expect protection from anyone or anything
outside of myself. I'm not sure I'd want
that, even if I believed it could be.
The issues I have conversing with people and letting words and
eye-contact coexist, while they've improved, haven't gone. I don't expect they will. I'm afraid of being seen--someone else
recognizing the evil bred and fostered within me. I'm afraid my bad will leak out and be
absorbed by someone else. I'm afraid of
seeing that same evil in someone else.
I'm afraid of anything someone else sees in me as a positive standing
out. I'm afraid of attention because I
don't want to be an obvious target. I am
the classroom student refusing to look at the teacher who's asked a question,
knowing eye contact means I'll be called on.
I'm
afraid of being visible--afraid of the child-sized person lost somewhere under
the nearly 300 pound fat costume and the 30 or so years of 'stuff.' I am and am not this person. I'm afraid of the fat costume and I'm afraid
to take it off. I'm afraid to keep the
'stuff' and afraid to let it go. I'm
scared to try to integrate all of it, if choosing between one and the other
isn't healthy.
What
do I "make visible by uncovering" me?
If it's more vulnerability-- if it's more risk-- if it's more
opportunity to be left unprotected, I cannot be exposed. I still expect to be hurt. I try to trust that my expectation and
reality aren't one in the same.
When
I'm here, more hurt feels right. I might
eat horribly bad food in mass quantities. I might force myself to read
something that disturbs me or think about something that falls in line with how
I'm feeling. I might imagine ways out--
develop plans ranging from simple to complex--worrying Google with the suicide
search. I might watch large trees,
ditches, or rock cliffs as I drive, trying to imagine heading straight at
them. I recognize that this is
wrong.
Do I listen to the head in the bag or to the body I hate? If I have to pick, what should I listen to? I can't trust deep enough to move elsewhere. And I'm still shaking-- still feeling off-- still feeling exposed and silly for writing or thinking I can write or breathe or expose myself to the light I'm told exists...though I've felt it, unexpectedly, at various times, I still try to forget. I've known it is out there and that a present moment can warm my need out of crumpling--out of folding in--out of hiding.
I
am an anxious photographer, trying to compose images, determining if there is
an amount of exposure--a correct exposure--an over or under--capable of turning
the vision into the picture. I don't
want this overexposure continually washing me out...I don't want underexposure
leaving me lost in shadows.
I
want control of my shutter speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment