Observing My Own Body
ANXIETY and ACADEMIA.
I am pretty sure that these two go together like pumpkin and pie (except sour and gross not delicious). But the craziness of grad school, reserach alone abroad, and writing a thesis turned into true and terrifying anxiety. I began to notice that year two of my MA program was way way more emotionally and physically taxing than year one. I was running less, dancing less, going to the mountains less, and being concerned about my health and my soul a whole lot more. And it has taken over alot of my brain power and thought space.
This year life threw a tidal wave of "mean" at me:
Quarter 1 started with two root canals.
Quarter 2 started with burned fingers and the ER and weeks of typing my thesis with one hand.
Quarter 3 started with a parent in the hospital, anxiety symptoms that resembled a heart attack, and a lot of doctor appointments.
The list goes on and on. But I am not here to complain about how hard life is. Depite frustration and fear, my life remains filled with so much beauty, more in the pain than some people ever get to see. My friendships and familal relationships are incredible, the sun still shines pretty much everyday through my apartment creating utter magic, my thesis feels real and important, and so much more.
What I am here to discuss is the experience of observing my own body. And how I am trying to take an anthropological lens to myself in order to heal.
My therapist tells me: to notice, not judge, just notice. Wait ten minutes, do I need to act?
Wait ten minutes...
I am good at the noticing, bad at the not judging. Look through my phone's camera role and you will see pictures of every part of my body-- I notice EVERY change, every pimple, bruise, bit of pain, and I take a picture. In this I hope to have evidence when I am at the doctor, etc. But in this (obsession?) I find that I cannot not notice. I am hyper aware of my body. Every single piece of my body screams out to me. I cannot let that continue, I am sure of that much.
How does my therapist's advice blend with an anthropological approach to observation?
In one sense, noticing the finer details.
In another, let those remain what what they are, as they are, in context of what and where they are.
In a third, taking notes, documenting, but then moving on.
My new goal: If I take all my images and notes about my body and its pain and code them for themes I find some of my triggers (not all, that's a journey I have just begun) but I have found some of them. These themes than can become guide posts for how I can approach my anxiety and further research (in myself) for the roots that tie these themes all together.
Maybe I am crazy for deciding to approach the observation of my body and my anxiety as if it were an ethnography I was researching to write about -- but to me I feel hope. Hope that I won't have to google my symptoms and spend my nights in fear. Hope that I can find themes and thus find solutions to growing into those eery, echoey, and hallow places within me.
I am no doctor, I don't have solutions for anxiety-- but I think understanding how you think about the world and yourself and using that as your starting point is vital to recovery. WHO'S TO SAY IF THIS WILL WORK? But taking something unhealthy I cannot stop doing (documenting my skin and body with every ache or change) and instead making it something that I am darn good at (coding for themes from observations) seems like a productive use of my time.
My only adivce, is talk about what you feel, especially if you're in school-- but also any time during your life at all. Anxiety is way more than being nervous, it impacts how you move through the day and how you think about your future. Share. Remember that being in graduate school or academia, or working some cool but hard job doesn't keep you from the grips of mental health. Nor does it mean that you have to be strong and ignore it. Talk. Share. Love. Hope. And (I think/pray) it gets better.
To being open. To growing into ourselves.
Em
p.s. please share your thoughts and struggles and needs and hopes in the comments if you want. Part of me writing this was a. to honor the life a friend who lost her life while doing the sport she loved most, and who spent her short 22 years sharing her struggles in encouragement for others and b. as a belief that the stigma and invisibility of mental health needs to be shattered, and there is no better place to start that disruption than from within the book-covered walls of graduate schools and spaces that are meant to seem strong and perfect.
