________  ________  ________
   2017-11-21                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   I heard  a pretty good analogy  not  long  /        _/         /         /
back,  for  how  living  life  with  anxiety  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
feels;   they   likened   it   to  exercise,    /        \/        \/    /   \
imagining anxiety as a weight. Everyone gets   /        _/         /_       _/
stressed  out   now  and  then,  anxious  or  /-        /        _/         /
worried or  even  just "has a  bad day", but  \________/\________/\___/____/
for  people  without an anxiety disorder the
weight is picked  up and  put down and  then they carry on. For people with an
anxiety disorder, although the weight is the same the action is  more akin  to
isometric exercise, the weight is lifted and held.

   And held.

   And held.

   It really resonated with the way I feel. I think overall I deal with stress
pretty good but I never  STOP dealing  with it,  even  if the problem is gone.
It's always there, sometimes just a mild unease and sometimes working me up to
laser-focussed  nausea  about  things  I  can't  possibly change  because they
happened a million years ago or, in some cases never happened at all.

   One of my biggest triggers is  social situations, every conversation  feels
like a job interview, every gathering feels like a trial.  It makes employment
hard but luckily I've had a  run of  really good managers  who I could talk to
about my  limitations  and knew  that what I asked for  in exemption from  the
social aspects  of my role  would  be  paid back three-fold in the amount  and
quality of work I do.

   Twice a year the broader team gathers for a half-day or more for  an event,
to celebrate our success, reconnect as a team and make sure we're  all aligned
for what comes next. I've been at  the company almost seven years  and I think
I've  managed to  make it  to one of  these but  left  half way  because I was
getting  too worked up, I hadn't tried again since, but when the next one came
up  and my manager asked if I'd be  an  apology  I said no  and that I'd do my
best.

   I was  around  two weeks into microdosing at the time and had faith  it was
going to be my magic bullet, the event was on a dose day and would be a pretty
good stress test to see how much I could stand under the LSD.

   The event  was  a  half day yesterday and let me tell ya, friends; I wasn't
ready hahaha!

   Leading  up  to it I  was kind of  stressed but it  was under control. Even
Monday morning I was doing ok,  I wouldn't say I was looking forward to it but
I felt  like it was just  an inconvenience rather than a  terror,  and then  I
walked  into the venue and saw  the chairs arranged into little  group circles
and it was like  walking  into a brick wall, anxiety went  from  3 to 11 in  a
nanosecond. I found somewhere to sit and started rehearsing excuses to leave.

   To my relief some people I get along  pretty well with  arrived and they're
chatty too so I could just smile and nod for a while.

   The event got  started with some videos and talks and then we had our first
activity, which was to  use a comic  book style template thing to tell a story
about a win we had  during the previous year. I was still stressed out but the
group worked well and I was content to just hover  until the boss came and sat
next to me to see how we were going. Not my boss, mind, THE boss. Head of.

   Ok.

   Then she asked me to tell my story.

   Not ok.

   So I did my best and she  said that  they're  going  to ask  each  team  to
present  one of  their  stories and  she liked mine the best so we should  use
that.

   Very not ok.

   The  fuck  was I going  to say? "No, sorry boss of my boss's  boss. I don't
feel like talking in front of everyone please."

   Holy shit.

   So that happened and I was shaking so bad but I guess  I did ok, managed to
blurt out  my bit  without  too much  muddling and I  didn't throw up,  that's
always a good thing. I was shaking so  bad though, but when I spoke to my boss
and  co-worker  a little  later and they said didn't notice it  at all. We had
another,  similar activity after  that but  mercifully I could just nod  along
with that one, then another speaker  and a much-needed break and I was able to
get some air.

   My  boss did  ask me  at that point whether I was going to  go back  to the
office or stick it out and  might have been a little surprised when I said I'd
see it through. To  be  honest, I  was actually feeling  slightly confident at
this point, that I attended at  all and didn't bail at the last minute already
felt  good but that the incident in the  first  activity only left me rattled,
not broken felt like a real success.

   After we resume there were more activities, some more stressful than others
but none that really made me feel on the spot, one was actually pretty fun and
the other did have  me one-on-one with people I didn't  know but it was  noisy
and  chaotic so  I  could slink back and catch my breath. It did  end  with me
sitting one-on-one  with someone I really don't get along with  though so that
was kind of uncomfortable.

   Then the head-of spoke  and then we wrapped it up. They put on lunch but  I
left out  the back  so I could be alone a little bit and let my guard drop and
it was then that I really  felt the stress of it, that isometric exercise, new
weight piled on to what I already carry at arms-length every day of my life.

   I think  I  did well and I think the microdosing helped, if nothing else it
was enough to get me to try and not just dismiss the idea completely.



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