7 Comments
Oct 18, 2022Liked by Jesse Meadows

I can't recommend talking about anxiety highly enough. It may have saved my life to just start telling people what was happening for me. the weight of covering was drowning me

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Stunned by this newsletter. Everything, articulated. This is such a comfort, it speaks to possibility everything I’d hoped for when deciding I couldn’t stay on medication. Facing the wilderness and fear will be worth it for me if I can keep creating art. Now I know I’m not alone in this and it takes so much weight off of me already. Thank you thank you for this.

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Oct 17, 2022Liked by Jesse Meadows

I made the dubious choice of stopping my anti-depressants pretty suddenly and withdrawals have my anxiety majorly spiking. This piece of writing was really really helpful to me. Thank you

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I started describing when my anxiety starts to spin up and out into the stratosphere as walking towards a cliff knowing that I was going to fall if I don’t stop, and not being able to stop so just walking straight off to a plummet. Once I started thinking of it that way, one day I remembered sliding down a shale slope while backpacking, and I simply sat down and dug my feet in to find purchase and stopped myself from going over. So I literally just sat on the ground and pictured sitting down at the edge of a cliff instead of careening over it. And it helped! I think the physical act of sitting down is now my version of saying it out loud. It gets me to the point where I can talk about it, because before that point I don’t have words.

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I felt everything here! Before I knew what anxiety really was, I used to just call it an incredible imagination. It's nice to read this perspective where they aren't particularly separate.

Also loved reading about the unasked questions, though its something i dread sometimes bc it can be hard to stay focused with all of them floating around in there.

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Wow, Jesse, you truly have a gift. Seeing others relating to your words brings me to tears. You never cease to amaze me. ILY

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thank you for this!!! sometimes I'm reading an article and I start crying when I read something that I see in myself, and this was one of them. thank you for coming up with the words.

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