A loud mind in a small boat
Everyone tells anxious people to slow down yet very few people ask what they find when they finally do
I haven’t written in a while. It felt as if I had a few boxes full of thoughts in my head, but once I opened them, there wasn’t much left inside. You could go around with a broom and sweep up the crumbs left in the corners, but it’s hard to gather enough for a meaningful piece of writing.
Maybe this is just the result of my c-ptsd mind. It has these peak periods when I become the person who can do anything and seems to have all the answers—a total machine. Without bragging, I also have a pretty good sense of humor. I’m funny, I think at least one step ahead, and I have an answer ready for a question that hasn’t even been asked yet. A proper witch, really. I can write a project brief, track deadlines, risks, and budgets, and cook a three-course dinner all at the same time.
Then, after a while, the lights go out.
What follows is an empty head filled with blank spaces and drifting clouds. There’s a thought here and there, but nowhere near enough even to process – let alone express – what I’m feeling. During those periods, I get up in the morning, make some coffee, change my pajamas into something equally pajama-like to hide in, and watch TV shows I definitely won’t remember afterward.
The second, highly probable reason for the emptiness in my head is my current “full-time job” – trying to communicate with the Norwegian social welfare system (NAV). Honestly, for someone with chronic anxiety, it feels like skydiving without knowing what’s inside the backpack strapped to your back.
There are moments – no, not even moments, just brief flashes – when I try to put myself in their shoes. I imagine the chaos they work in, with people carrying every possible problem constantly asking for help. Then I imagine there are twenty more people just like me waiting in line, and, strangely enough, I end up feeling a little sorry for them.
My doctor and my therapist both tell me that NAV will help me. They say it’s their job, and I genuinely want to believe them because the system here is designed to support people. What feels strange to me is how everything is done strictly by the book. No improvisation, no side advice, no personal touch. You’re simply another case, another confused person trying to understand a system that seems to speak a language of its own.
What triggers my anxiety the most is having absolutely no control over anything – not over deadlines, not over questions, and certainly not over the answers. If I ask two questions, I usually get half an answer to one of them, which somehow leaves me even more confused than before.
And then comes the ultimate paradox: if every time I needed genuine support someone had told me the classic Norwegian “ut på tur,” and I had actually listened, I would have reached the South Pole on foot by now.
When the administrative fog mixes with the one already inside my own head, the result is a complete mental blockade. To find something – anything – to hold on to, I repeat the usual clichés to myself: “It’s okay. You’re learning to live more slowly. There isn’t a deadline. Breathe.” The kind of mantras everyone knows.
That’s how I discovered the Japanese concept of yutori – creating space for yourself within yourself, allowing a little more time, a little more air.
People talk about slowing down as if it’s a destination anyone can simply choose.
But they rarely talk about what happens when you finally become still. For some of us, stillness isn’t peaceful.
It’s where anxiety gets the loudest. The problem is that living slowly isn’t easy for an anxious mind.
If I simply let the day unfold and leave an empty space in my head, she sneaks in—my favorite, my best friend, and the lifelong companion I’ve never managed to get rid of: anxiety.
Honestly, no one has spent more time with me than she has.
She absolutely adores empty spaces. She has an incredible talent for slipping into them and filling every corner without waiting for an invitation. She walks right in, makes herself at home, and then it’s up to me to figure out how to live with the guest I never invited.
My relationship with yutori is still a little awkward, but what can I do? I’m learning. Trial and error, as always.
As I write this, I glance to the side and an image suddenly appears in my mind. I see myself sitting alone in a small boat in the middle of the open sea. Just like in a dream – except my eyes are open.
A wave lifts me high enough for me to catch a glimpse of the horizon. Somewhere in the distance, there’s an island where I know happiness, peace, and sunshine exist. Then the boat drops sharply into the next trough, and suddenly all I can see is a wall of water. The island disappears. The sun disappears. Everything disappears except the waiting for the next wave to lift me again, the fear that the boat might capsize, and the familiar beginnings of another panic attack.
Anxiety has always excelled at worst-case scenarios.
In the end, the battle I’m fighting is between the fear of losing control, the panic of feeling trapped, and the slow, stubborn effort to learn patience.
Maybe that’s what slow living really means.
Not rushing to escape the darkness, but allowing yourself enough inner space to breathe while you’re still inside it. Trusting that the wall of water surrounding you will eventually pass, that another wave will come, and that, little by little, it will carry you closer to your island.
Because the island isn’t simply a destination. It’s movement.
After all, that’s why it’s called living. It’s a verb. Something unfinished. Something that doesn’t need to be completed today or tomorrow. I’m slowly learning that life isn’t a project waiting to be handed in.
Sometimes, it’s simply about making it through the next second.
And as long as the boat keeps moving – even through the darkest water – the journey isn’t over.
Which means the lights will come back on.
