Blind anxiety

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I don't recall ever being asked about my attributes, my interests, my aspirations. The program for a blind life was dictated to me. Through all this I kept silent, not knowing how I was going to cope. I was 13.

That's when it really began; the anxiety.

Adults were very encouraging, telling me I was brave. It was a sharp turn from being considered an impish little smart arse.

I learnt to sprout a diatribe that would get me through when I was cornered. Pressed for answers: 'How did you go blind?' How do I answer that? There are times when I just don't want to drag myself through all those painful emotions. The coma, the shock. Just too painful.

Blindness and anxiety isn't a great cocktail. Once I got the two confused. Nowadays it's easier; I know how to separate them. Blindness I can manage but I admit that anxiety can screw me up. It's then that I need time on my own. Time to rebuild self esteem. I can be comfortably blind by myself and do all the usual blind-isms: systematic searching with my hands, stopping when I'm disorientated, thinking my way out of it.

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At school, anxiety gave way to abandonment. No one's fault.

People rallied. Everyone was compassionate but they had their able-bodied adolescence to be busy with. As teenagers they were evolving capacities of physical mobility, whereas I had to learn about idleness and how to be still. Slowly adjusting to the lower revs of blindness. My body was programmed for running and jumping and didn't want stillness. When movement failed me I took to repetitive, obsessive behaviour — counting the keys on my brailler, even chewing the inside of my mouth. Anything but stillness.

Guys ran past in the playground, yelling out to each other. Then gone. I called out to a fella. He stopped and said, 'What?'

I had nothing to say.

Calling out was instinctive, but he was off to play a game I was no longer part of. I just felt I could no longer count on friendship.

Inside I ached for it.

Me; the lame creature; the person who had the misfortune to be blinded.

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It's not a complaint; I do enjoy my life.

I don't want to complain, but I do want to be honest with myself.

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Then I'll gag emotionally in social situations. Anxious again. The visual cues that mediate conversation are gone, so halfway through a sentence confidence evaporates. I'm convinced they're not interested, or I think I hear them stifling a yawn. Why did I ever start to talk?

Or my nervous enthusiasm squeezes out a raving, an impatience to connect. I'm not sure where to stop and start sentences. Simply can't stop talking. Enthusiasm and anxiety pumps my larynx and I just rave on, then get so bloody embarrassed I walk away and cringe.

I still go through phases of blabbering.

Few people understand blindness; my blindness. I manoeuvre through a conversation, trying to remain true to myself, while not undermining their assumptions and stereotypes. They love to hear of blind people doing amazing things. The super-crip. The legend. But that's not me. I'm not all that amazing and can overwhelm myself with the pressure to perform.

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I'm never comfortable with anger, but it happens.

I'm anxious enough already in environments I don't control: the neighbourhood or someone else's house. So if I go crashing into a carelessly parked car or a half open door, it can wind me right up.

I've learnt to talk myself through it. I keep telling myself, 'Most people do care, most people are thoughtful, most people get it'.

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Anxiety is the Grapes of Depression.

Stealthily, sadness and anxiety rot away my self-belief and the ability to trust my senses and act on visceral impulses. Gradually I lose the intangible awareness of which way to choose. It gnaws away at my sense of self and renders me immobile. The thread that links day to day evaporates. I can't string a few wins together. Time weighs heavily on me. I learn to dread the future.

Then the emotional turbine slowly winds up into nervousness, mild mania, frustration and a sense of futility, and finally, fatally, the descent into depression. Everything gets confused. One thing dribbles and spills into the other. It slowly surges out of my belly: all the repressed anger and injustice, the nightmare of it all. It full-on hits me like a wrecking ball. Instant karma. I'm staggered every time.

How the hell did I get back here?

I lock up feelings inside. I know no other way. Sadness rises and falls in me on most days of my life and I have this unhealthy habit of beating up on myself for not being able to predict situations and avoid the humiliation of losing my temper.

Or of crying in public.

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Anxiety!

Is it chronic pain, lack of sleep, loneliness? Is it being pushed to my limit? Is it the cone of silence that forbids speaking about sadness?

Or is it this ghost that resides in me? A ghost of myself. Hanging out in my muscles and bones. Something that can't die. A passenger. Frustrated. Trying to get out when I'm sleeping, trying to fly, trying to escape its mortal entrapment.

Something that takes me over when I am weak and full of yearning. It can't speak; but it stirs when I'm demanding to be heard. Inexplicable flashes of visual imagery: a tantalising colour or the flowing Dandenong Ranges.

The past becomes the anxious present. Constantly reminding me that it once controlled this organism ...

... and may do so again ...