Queen of Indecision Land

Contrary to what people seem to think about me, I am not a particularly indecisive person.  In fact, indecision kind of frustrates me.  I can be patient for hours and days if I need to be.  If someone is learning, or takes a long time to do things...or in just about any situation, I can wait and wait and be perfectly content.  But give me a group of people who can't decide on something, and I will be the one to come up with a plan of action and execute it, quickly and decisively.  This is not true for discussions or process -- if we're having a good discussion, or "something is happening" in the process of the discussion, I'm totally okay.  I'm talking about the "what should happen next?" "what should we do?" "where should we go?" "what's going to happen now?" type of moments.  I'm just not good at sitting with it.  I'm not proud of this.  I wish I could tolerate the ambiguity, but I can't.  I want a plan, and I want to move forward.  We haven't got all day.

That being said, it is particularly frustrating when, for one reason or another, I suddenly become Queen of Indecision Land.  It's not a common occurrence, but when it happens, it's awful.  It's usually linked to some pretty intense anxiety, and then the indecision itself causes anxiety, and then just because I'm cool, I get anxious over the fact that I have anxiety.

Bow down to the Queen of Indecision Land.  It's been a rough couple days.

The problem with the decisions I am trying to make -- as with most decisions -- is that I am going to have to live with the outcome.  The issue with that is that both choices are going to leave me with anxiety and feeling like I made the wrong choice in the short term.  In the long term, it probably won't affect me that much one way or the other. 

Everybody always says, "make the decision that is right for you."  Or, "take care of yourself.  Make the decision that is right for you right now."  They, apparently, don't realize that it's just not that easy.  The "right decision for me" is not that easy or apparent.  The road to self-care is also not easy or apparent.

Have you found this, too?  For the past several years, I've noticed that the choice that is the "right" decision is never the one that feels "right" or good in the moment.  The right decision is always the one that is hard, that evokes this anxiety and indecision.  Will there ever be a choice where the "right" thing ends up being what feels "right" then? 

The old anxiety demons have been having parades and parties for the past several days.  They thrive on me being indecisive.  They seize the opportunity to jump on every insecurity and parade it around, and they keep inviting their friends and family, including relatives I have not seen for a very long time.  Anxiety demons can smell insecurity and indecision from miles away.  Based on the intensity of both of these things right now, I probably stink to high heaven.  No wonder they're gathering in swarms.

Right now?  I'm trying to cope by running away from it...and we all know that's decidedly NOT helpful. 

I wish I could write something profound about anxiety right now, and about this tension I feel, but I can't.  It's this deep sense of being completely off-kilter, of being unsure; it's a sense of foreboding that crawls right under your skin, into your stomach, at the base of your spine, and sits there spinning into a barely real sensation that is so real, you feel like you must be crazy.  It's your mind working so quickly it feels out of your control, but you can't put your finger on any of the thoughts, so you grasp and grab at anything you can find, only to find scraps of thoughts that can't be put together into anything of value.  It's hoping for a moment where it all settles down, just so you can find a peaceful space in your soul to breathe for a moment, in hopes of opening a window in your mind, if only to let it some air.

That's not it, but it's as close as I can get right now.

I don't agree with everything she says in this poem, but I love the last lines, quoted below.  They come pretty darn close to explaining it:

"These people who fight through every day like fucking gladiators who fight demons worse than you and I can dream of, just because they want so badly to live. To hold on. To love. Because you can’t be this afraid of losing everything if you don’t love everything first, because you have to have a soul-crushing hope that things will get better to be this afraid of missing it." -- Catalina Ferro, "Anxiety Group"