A vice-like grip on my stomach: self doubt is back
It happened again. I’m not sure when precisely it happened. It snuck up on me as it does, but yesterday I was gripped, slowly as the day unfolded by doubt. The old self-doubt reared its head again. A feeling I normally keep to a low murmur, but yesterday that creeping sensation worked around my body til it had a settled, vice like grip on my stomach.
Let’s backtrack a moment. It dawned on my sometime before Christmas that I struggle to get going on a Monday, forcing it just doesn’t work. I’m a freelance writer, so I plan my day, my week to match my rhythm. Client meetings dotted into the week, with plenty of breathing time either side for thinking, writing and emptying the head.
But yesterday? I don’t know why it happened yesterday, I guess that’s what I’m trying to work out here. I went to HiT in the morning as usual, walking down the hill, watching the low, beautiful full moon hanging just above the town. I was feeling pretty positive even though I knew I was in for 30 minutes of intense, lung busting exercise. I’d been the previous week and survived the dreaded first post-Christmas work outs.
But it turns out my body had other ideas. It just didn’t want to play ball. It didn’t want to move. I felt heavy. Clunky. It was frustrating, but it happens and I just kept going, jumping around the room, moving, keeping that heart rate up.
Maybe that was the first sign. I grabbed a take-out flat white to power me back up the hill home to find my husband there. He’s normally in the office on a Monday with the real people but some of the roads around Manchester had been closed due to a security incident. So, he was home.
Monday. The one day of the week where I have the house to myself. Space to breathe. Kitchen left in the same state I left it in. No extra mugs of tea to make. Just me.
I figure the big mistake I made was sitting at my desk after walking the dog. I had an email to send, something I’d meant to do before the weekend and wanted to tick off my to-do list. But before I did that, I made the fatal error of clicking on social media. I’ll just see what’s going on, what people are talking about. Vaguely aware it was ‘blue Monday’.
I thought I had a post I wanted to share. I dug it out, but it didn’t feel right. So, I started tweaking, and still, it didn’t feel right. I kept bashing out the words, the more I typed, the more muddled my thinking became. The words didn’t make sense, I wasn’t sure what point I was making. What was I doing?
I know that no one cares if I post today or not, and yet here I am paying far too much attention to some words and phrases that, in all likelihood will mostly be ignored. I posted and deleted.
I started scrolling, ‘looking for inspiration’ but in reality, alternating between increasing levels of ‘why didn’t I think to post that’ and ‘what can I post without looking like an idiot’.
I fiddled around, dropping back into the safer waters of Instagram, the creative crowd I turn to for reassurance. But the feeling in my stomach was there. I felt jittery, did the take-out coffee have extra shots in it?
The feeling was still there as the afternoon went on. Popping out to see a local artist helped to pause the questions that had started circling in my head, with increasing speed.
Ideas for posts. Ideas for client posts. Thoughts, observations, half written sentences and phrases jostling for position. None landing. I can’t write. I can’t do it. I’m no good. Classic imposter syndrome. Who am I to tell other people how to write?
I’d agreed to go to my first in-person work related event in the evening. A group of local business owners who meet, periodically and have a healthy WhatsApp group that I mostly lurk in. Not entirely sure whether I fit.
But the chance to sit and chat with other people was tempting. Normally I’d say no on a Monday evening, knowing my head wouldn’t be in the right place.
A lovely evening, chatting about life generally, and a more focused discussion on how our behaviour as consumers changed during Covid and what that means for our businesses.
I tried to ignore the tension in my knotted stomach as I tried to sit upright on a slippery banquet, body twisted, so I could see the rest of the group. Occasional sips of my sauvignon blanc, hot flushes just about kept at bay. All the while trying to listen, understand and process what others were saying.
The growing feeling that I didn’t know what I was doing there. What could I add? Shallow breathing. Furrowed brow.
Where did this all come from?
I didn’t feel that way last week or over the weekend? It hasn’t come from anyone else. This is coming from me. Paralysed with indecision. Ideas for articles vanishing into thin air whenever I try to put pen to paper.
The words are there but they just don’t stack up. I don’t know that what I want to say makes sense. And that’s important to me. I want to know that what I write and say makes sense, stacks up, flows, engages, stimulates a thought. A conversation.
The pressure I’m putting on myself is immense. I try to write while trying to engage with client work, but the words skitter across the screen. I read them; they don’t land. I read them again. They still don’t land.
I deliberately said no to work last autumn. I think another client won’t be renewing. And even though I understand both these decisions and honestly, I’m not sure I’m right for either of these pieces of work but still I panic.
No work. I have no work. Which, once my breathing is calmed, I know isn’t true. But this panic, this tension feels so very, very real.
I couldn’t sleep last night, stomach churning, tight short breaths. Trying to come up with answers, with words and sentences I could drop into articles to publish. Trying to make decisions whilst also summoning the pictures I use in my relaxation prompt to help get me off to sleep.
Eventually. I sleep. But today, the feeling is still there. My stomach. Knotted.
