by Anna Blackmon Moore
commentary
When I was 16, I was watching a sitcom on my 8-inch black and white TV. Outside my bedroom window, the sun had set. At the start of a commercial, it occurred to me that I was wracked with fear and dread. By the commercial’s end, the dread had anchored itself inside my body— my chest, my limbs, my temples.
I wasn’t better the following day; I wasn’t better the following week. Anxiety became incapacitating. Two months later, I was taking a now ancient antidepressant, beginning what would become a lifelong path of medication and treatment.
Over all these decades, therapy has been crucial in my recovering from neglect and abuse and countering a deep sense of failure. The issues and illness I confront require consistent strength and will to overpower the monsters in my brain — but relief has always been accessible. I can take my pill. I can unpack personal despair, understand that feelings can be distortions. I can meditate. In short, I can change. Serenity isn’t easy or always achievable, but the tools are there. It will never be too late to use them.