Tears For Fears

Alex Hubert, Angel Tears

Tonight I ckecked my bank account on line. I got paid. Usually I don't get much but this time I got an even thinner pay. 230 euros to pay the rent, bills, and eventually eat something. 
I'm not the girl who spends around every cent she doesn't own. I'm just a person filled with anxieties and fears of all kinds, the biggest of all being running out of money and have no roof above my head. So I called my Dad in tears and asked him to lend me some money. I could feel that big ugly guilt in my tears. The ugly guilt of not being perfect. The far-rooted guilt that makes you feel like a criminal. And the degrading guilt of having to beg.

I'm usually very careful with money. Cause I know I own so little. Rent, bills, food, laundrette and there's nothing left. I know I shouldn't digress from the path of budget if I dont want my head to be held underwater. But one day I got ill. Anxiety. My anxiety became stronger and stronger until it turned into dread and into panic. I simply couldn't anymore.

 I have a treatment for all these anxieties. I have regular appointments with my psychiatrist. We talk, he asks me questions I try to answer, he gives me clues to handle day-to-day life in spite of my psychic disorder. I'm on the road to recovery. Or so I think.

But what is tricky about these fears is that they come without warning. They push you to the ground and hold you there for hours or days. Then they release the pressure, and you can be back to "normal" again. You can get up, use the bathroom, you can fix your breakfast. You can make plans, you can go to the doctor and explain to him that you spent the last three days in bed, afraid of anything, afraid of everything. Too afraid to move a limb. Too afraid to go to work. He signs the sick leave form for you. And the next week you resume work.

Except that one night, anxieties come back. You weep, you cry, you sob. You wait for the morning, praying to get some sleep. You get some at 6 am, when you're supposed to get up for work. And you just can't. And you manage to call the doctor again, because all the thoughts you think terrorize you: "Pills...Take a whole lotta them. Endless sleep and you're done with sufferings, Sweetie. Pills. You have enough of them to die peacefully".

Doctor again. His warm voice tells you to rest, for "insomnia is the worst thing". He gives you more pills.

"See you in a week Miss". He signs the sick leave form.

Pills are working remarkably well and I sleep like a baby. But I feel sad because my best friend met a girl. Then I feel awfully sad because he dates her. Then I feel obsessed with his having a girlfriend and I'm scared to death he might forsake me and I can't take that out of my mind and I'm so desperate I don't go to work.

"Doctor?" I tell him my story and he gently scolds me when I ask for the sick leave form. "This is the very last time I sign that paper for you. You must go to work. Work is good for you. Work prevents obssesive thoughts from turning over endlessly. Work is real, and you need reality. And work gives you money, Miss. No one can live without. So I want you back there next week."

He's right. Work gives me the reassuring life I need. A roof over my head, pastas in my plate, paid bills and money left in the bank. I have to face the demons that come in the early hours and make me stay in bed because I can hear them and feel them hovering over me. I know these demons are only myself. I know I have to fight myself and win the battle if I don't want to be a pennyless madwoman for the rest of my life.

Wish me luck, next week begins tomorrow.