The Anxiety Dragon
My old frenemy, the Anxiety Dragon, came to town this week and man do I hate this motherfucker. It’s not as sneaky as it used to be. It used to show up unannounced, kick the front door in, and scream in my face, “You suck! And everyone hates you!”
Now, it likes its sneak attacks. You know, creepy phone calls in the middle of the night…
“Did you really say THAT in the meeting?”
“Did you notice how your friend kept checking their phone during dinner?? Bet they were bored. You’re BORING. Why do you talk so much?”
“First Born was quiet tonight. Bet he thinks you suck, too. You are a BAD mother. You’re going to fail at this just like you fail at everything else.”
Those 3 AM phone calls are a real pain in the fucking ass.
The problem with the Anxiety Dragon is that it’s been my constant companion for so long, sometimes I miss it when it’s not around. And I’ve gone through a really long period with only a few random 3AM calls for about two years now.
But I never trust those absences. When I’m feeling really good and I actually notice I’m feeling really good and it’s not a fleeting feeling, it’s a feeling that’s been hanging around for days and I’m ready to conquer any challenge and feel fucking great about myself….that’s when I start to miss my frenemy.
“Huh, where did that dickhead dragon of mine get off to?”
Three guesses who comes to call in a hurry.
I have to say that after three dozen years of dealing with this asshole, I’m really fucking done here. I don’t like it. And this extended visit will be its last.
When you’re hunting dragons, any loyal Tolkien fan will tell you, you have to pierce its heart. That beating heart of fire and filth and fear, that’s its only weakness. Inside that beating heart is a jewel, the seed that created the dragon in the first place. Pierce that, and POOF! No more dragon.
That’s actually just a working theory, I’m not quite sure if special swords or battle-axes are involved. My fantasy knowledge extends through four Tolkien books and the first half of the Thomas Covenant saga. But, it sounds good to me and since this dragon is one of my own creation, I’m going to kill it the way I see fit.
I’ve been so afraid of this dragon of mine for so long, I’ve never gotten close enough to it to really study that heart and figure out what’s making it beat. But now that it’s filling up my house and following me around all day every day after such an extended absence, I’ve gotten a really good look at it and I know exactly what made that Dragon grow in the first place and, more importantly, what’s been keeping it alive all this time.
So, this week, I did something I’ve always been terrified to do: I reached out and touched the heart of my dragon. And it burned and hurt all the way through the core of me, but I didn’t let go. I grasped harder and closed my hand around the seed that grew into the heart that grew into the dragon that has followed me wherever I go since I was about ten.
There were ramifications. My dragon roared. Like fire-breathing roars. Right in my face. But I didn’t let go. I looked inside that seed and saw the source. And now I understand.
Like any seed, an anxiety dragon seed grows roots. And these roots formed the bones and the tendons and the muscles and the skin of the dragon standing over my shoulder right now.
A funny thing happens when you tug one of those roots until you hold the beginning and the end of it in your hand. The dragon gets a little bit smaller. Don’t get me wrong, it hurts like a motherfucker. Like your sternum is going to break in two, but the dragon gets smaller and loses some of its power.
There is a midrash that I have been obsessed with since the first time I read it. It’s so inside my brain that I included it in Until the Devil Weeps and am currently basing an entire novel around it. Here it is as told by Sanger to Q:
Sanger cleared his throat. “Before creation, there was only G-d and His light filled everything so completely, there wasn’t room to create anything else. So, He decided to bottle up His light inside of jars, so He could create our universe.”
“Wait,” Q said, confused. “If G-d’s light filled everything, where did the jars come from?”
“They were heavenly jars…vessels…whatever.”
“Heavenly jars?” she asked, skeptical of the veracity of his story.
“It’s religion, Clementine, don’t try to insert logic into it.”
She took another drink. “Fair point, continue.”
“So, HaShem bottled up all His light and created our universe, and the stars, and the planets, and one particularly beautiful planet where He created us. But while He was admiring His creations, He didn’t notice that the jars were cracking. You see, His light couldn’t be contained, and it shattered the jars; and the shards rained down to earth and they became sorrow and suffering. Our job is to pick up all those shards and put them back together. Then there will be no more sorrow.”
“Easier said than done,” she said, allowing the haze of a scotch and Vicodin buzz to wash over her. “So, what happened to the light?”
“It shattered, too.”
“Light can’t shatter, cowboy, it’s energy.”
“Just listen, will you?” Sanger scolded. “When the light shattered and it fell down to Earth, it became the human soul. So, everyone has a little bit of G-d’s light inside of them. That’s how we see each other. We see G-d in one another. I always figured, though, that the shards weren’t all the same size. When something shatters, some pieces are big, others are so small you can barely see them. Some people, like some of the assholes I arrest, they only have a tiny piece of that light. But Ben, he had a huge piece and it filled him. You could see G-d clearly, being around him. He was so at peace with himself. Avi was like that, too.” His face fell, thinking of his murdered brother.
“You’re like that, Aaron. Must run in your family,” she said, growing drowsy….
And I’m realizing now that my fear is just like the light in that story. It fills so much of my universe that there is little room for anything else. I can’t create anything new because the fear extends everywhere. Just like HaShem in that story, I tried to bottle it up. But something that powerful can’t be contained and eventually, those vessels of mine shattered and the fear spilled out like smoke and reformed my anxiety dragon again and again despite my best efforts to contain it.
You cannot contain what you cannot control. And you cannot control what you don’t understand.
Now that I know the cause of my dragon, I know the cure. I know it will hurt and I know it will be hard and I know I’m going to miss my obnoxious companion just out of pure habit but I know that it’s time for this dragon of mine to go away forever… or at the very least, collapse back into its seed so that I can fit into my pocket or under my shoe where I am the biggest thing in the room and it must bend to my will, not the other way around.
Years ago, when I first started trying to contain my dragon without having the courage to find its source, I memorized the Bene Gesserit litany against fear from Dune:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
While I was memorizing this and incorporating it into my Dragon Containment Program, the line that freaked me out was “Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.”
The nothing terrified me. What would exist in the absence of my fear? What monster would move in to take its space?
But won’t be a monster that fills the void. It will be me. My joy. My hope. My confidence. My worth. All the good that is me. That’s what will remain and be able to flourish because it will have the space to do so.
I don’t know what the world will look like when that dragon seed is in my pocket or gone altogether, but I do know it has to be better than the one I’ve created for myself.
Now if you’ll excuse me, dear reader, I have to kick out a houseguest that has grossly overstayed its welcome.