The Highway of Worries
By Jesse B. Donahue © 2019
Neuronal pathways that run deep, deepening, and widening are so easily triggered. I sit, and my head, my being aches with a horrible sense of worry that builds to such an ongoing peak, a crescendo of pathology in a long chronic moment, hours into days. What the hell is so wrong? What have I done that is so horrible that it unleashes such a radiating distress, and on and on it goes? My God, make it stop! I crave drugs, anything to dim my lights now permeated with such a deep neuron worn, worry, GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder).
That is what I think now, prompting me to sit and write this. I have done things wrong, and I fear things might be wrong or something terribly consequential might happen to get me in ‘trouble.’ Just fantasizing about a bad event taking place unleashes such brutal WORRYING. It is as if the experience of a gut-wrenching transgression against the law or against my mother, the first law enforcer I have ever known, takes on a fantastical character. It is as if I have worried and worried throughout my life to the point that my neurons have established a highway for my inner emotional storehouse of traumas to come undone and break out all at once. Let out the rabbit and the wounded pack of greyhound dogs come racing through my head all at once. Each animal represents a bad misdeed, or even an imagined misdeed, which had to stay hidden out of fear of God’s (my mother’s/father’s/the church’s) un-forgiving condemnation. The dogs of hell.
They see and feel the cringes of fear brewing in me
Interesting. The beasts of each of my past sins run their madness through my brain, establishing a canine neuron network, growing ever more inclusive to all the anger, resentments, fears, worries, and shameful deeds I have ever done over a lifetime. Doesn’t it make sense when I fear something I have done or something fearful I think about (like not being accepted)? The thought quickly revs up to seventy miles an hour on the ever-widening interstate in my mind. When one dog begins its race in my head, the other dogs take chase, now in mass like greyhounds racing after the mechanical rabbit at a racetrack (now there is an outdated “sport,” greyhound racing). They see and feel the cringes of fear brewing in me, and all awaken to come out and run the track, filling the massive, ingrained road with their radiating emotional shame. I have been driven as a child and throughout my life to indulge, to distract from the painful moment at hand (self-medicating). The list of offenses and transgressions to fear the consequences includes being raised Catholic. The list of misdeeds becomes amplified two hundred-fold by the fact that one’s thoughts are every bit of an offense as one’s deeds. God is infiltrating my mind and watching my every thought with a switch in one hand and a list of sinful deeds in the other, like a constant observer of the racetrack in my mind, apparently a Greyhound fan.
One’s thoughts are every bit of an offense as one’s deeds
Furthermore, each dog represents a real or imagined past event or a feared future event. Each of those dogs, having been whipped and traumatized, brings the sting of their separate experiences to the gooey, emotionally troubling highway of worry in my mind. Another way of phrasing what I am trying to say here is, my God, I have learned how to worry! More than just a habit, I have it down to an art. I am so darn good at it. No wonder I find starting, sustaining interest in, or just doing things difficult. The worrying uses up all the energy that otherwise might have been put to good use: learning, focusing or concentrating on things, paying attention, and the like. Whatever happened to waking to see and feel a wonderful day at hand upon rising? Those days are long gone. No wonder I struggle so terribly to remember things. I am so busy worrying everything else becomes a foggy thought, instantly fading, evaporating from view and recollection, overridden by the fog bank engulfing the freeway of my mind, the dogs all coming out to chase the forever elusive, proverbial rabbit. There are so many dogs on such a crowded, burgeoning highway.
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
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** Copyright notice. All of my writings are copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress.
My name is Jesse Donahue. In 2015, at the age of 58, I took up writing, and since then I’ve written two novels, poems, and essays about my journey struggling with CPTSD. The essays, 50+, were an adjunct to journaling in therapy to amplify my learning and self-understanding.
My writings, which include therapy notes, poems, novels, and essays, are all a part of my ongoing personal therapy. Many of my essays are in a stream-of-consciousness style, unleashing, sharing, and delving into energies that continuously process in my subconscious. My writings, initially, geared for me and my therapist’s eyes only, began with my exposing my thoughts, fears, and feelings (or the lack of) onto paper… a journal of therapy notes. Then, with fear overcome and via a personal decision of choice, I shared them here with the readers. My essays, most all, originate from my weekly therapy notes. My intent and desire is to encourage readers to recognize traits in themselves and find a therapist if they are willing and able to do so. If you are in therapy, ask your therapist to read them and discuss what pertains to you. For some, it can be a long and difficult process over extensive periods to awaken to the unconscious issues that have us acting out in life. Our behavior can seem like dancing to a buried, invisible energy that we are not able to directly see or confront. It is my sincere hope that my insights will assist the reader in the process toward reaching a deeper self-understanding. Bringing the unconscious out into the light of self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance fosters self-love and the process of change.
My published writings with the CPTSD foundation: *The Hidden Bugaboo. The Beganning. Twelve Days Without Coffee. Learned Helplessness. Cast Out of Eden by Toxic Shame. The Crumbs and The Banquet. What an Outside Appearance may Not Show. Obedience to the Light – Bombs or Love. Stepping Into the Shoes of Who You Are. Personal Honor, Integrity, Dignity, Honesty. Inspirational Tugging – Teachers. Codependency – Overriding the Monster of Self Hate. Surfing the Light Through the Darkness. We are but Storytellers. A Writer’s Brain – The Gift. The Highway of Worries. The Emptiness of Yesterday.
