Beat Anxiety. Carry a Labrador in Your Handbag.

My husband, the human mood stabilizer.
If only I could carry him in my purse...

   I frequently engage in a fun diversion I like to call, "Being Freakishly Uncoordinated." In layperson's terms, this imposing moniker simply means that I trip and fall and bonk my head on stuff. Continually. The world, as seen from my perspective, is always lying in wait to lasso my legs and pull them out from under me.

   "What," you are naturally wondering, "does this have to do with anxiety, phobia, panic attacks, or the most somber topic of all, tabloid magazines?" I will arrive at the answer to that query soon enough, but I am the author of this nonsensical blog, and I will get around to answering my own questions when I feel ready.


   As I am not currently doing anything useful, I suppose now is as good a time as any. (I can visualize you all waiting with baited breath.) The similarity between my tendency to fall on my head physically and to fall apart emotionally is that both are very, very funny. I would never think of laughing at someone else's pain, but giggling at my own gaffes is certainly allowed. In fact, it is mandatory. And I encourage you all to do likewise, because chances are that you share the annoying, but beatable, challenge of panic attacks. They are like an infestation of lice. Except, obviously, that head-shaving is not the cure but just another fascinating symptom.


 

Click graphic to learn more about anxiety.

   Without the willingness to find the humor in my own pain, I would find my life unbearably... well, painful. Case in point:  My house sits at the top of an insanely steep driveway. (The reason has to do with home construction delays, building codes, etc. And there is simply nothing funny about codes. So, don't laugh at my driveway. It doubles as a fabulous ski slope. Incidentally, all this has nothing whatsoever to do with the agony of life, so let's try to stay on topic for once.) When I try to exit my sweet minivan, gravity does what it is supposed to do, and slams my door on my face. I repeat this ritual over and over, because I do not easily learn from many mistakes.

   As a master psychotherapist, by which I mean I took an impressive three psychology courses in college, I have discovered the one mistake we all must avoid, in order to survive. I refer to the unproductive practice of becoming angry and mortified (Were any neighbors watching this inanimate object pummel me? For the fifth time? Today?) at such incidents, and letting the golden moments of slapstick humor pass us by.

 

Playing "dress-up" with your dog can alleviate stress.
Doesn't Lucy look pretty?

  The same mandate applies, but even more so, to getting our heads slammed in the minivan door of mental illness. (That was the all-time worst metaphor anybody has ever created in the history of writing, and I am not too humble to admit how proud I am right now.) Mark Twain once stated that "Comedy is a grave minivan injury plus time." Ha! I am really on a roll today. In reality, he of course famously asserted that "Comedy is tragedy plus time."

    I agree enthusiastically, but I am not waiting for the "time" variable of that equation. I refuse to allow a proper number of days to pass before I laugh at my own tragedy, for fear it is "too soon." It's my anxiety/panic/depression/claustrophobia/etc./etc., and I'll laugh if I want to. I suggest you do the same for yourselves.

   By the way, an odd side effect of giggling when I begin losing my mind, is that I often suddenly find it. It's like a free tranquilizer that requires no long wait in the pharmacy line. And that, my friends, is my prescription for today.

Happy panicking!