I Understand My Anxiety

I suppose I do indeed have mild PTSD from the lifelong trauma derived from the amount of my life spent suffering and the number of times I thought I had escaped that suffering only to find myself back in a period of profound suffering quite shortly thereafter. However, I do not believe faith in God will turn out to be a fruitless endeavor like my previous “solutions” to my lack of confidence in myself. Regardless of what happens, my faith is what matters. Forgive me for my weakness of faith, my Lord, my God. Even Jesus had his moment of doubt on the cross and asked His father in heaven, "Why God, has thou forsaken me?" Why did Jesus choose to do that? What does it mean? To me, at least, it means it's okay that suffering sometimes causes us to question God's benevolence so long as we come back to our senses. Even Jesus Christ had a crisis of faith born from extreme pain; but it only faith that can sustain you through so that much pain. I just have had a long life very much defined by pain, so I would really like it if the pain could just stop now. Perhaps the rest of my life can be defined by success and fulfillment and serenity? Maybe? Maybe not? We will see how I feel to

I did not realize it had affected me quite so profoundly. Though, again, if I was taking my anti-anxiety supplements as I should have been, these emotions would not really have bothered me. So if I was bothered by these feelings at all when taking my supplements, they would have at least been about 90% less intense... so... ya know, manageable. Hmm... so I can look at my trauma and anxiety from both a spiritual and a practical, neurochemical perspective? Well, yes. I think that might be quite redundant since spiritual experiences actually manifest measurable and profound changes in the structure and neurochemistry of the brain. So, yeah, a spiritual experience has real-world neurological ramifications that even pharmaceutical drugs cannot compete with in terms of how profound the changes are. 

That is one reason it can produce such profound changes in a human being. Why would one not wish to tap into something that powerful? Something that is solely benevolent? Spiritual experieences have not really changed me as a person... it just made me more of who I truly am inside, more of my ideal self. I think that's true of anyone who undergoes a spiritual experience. It's not like joing a cult... unless you just really love dogma. Then, yeah, Christians can come off as cult-like. I ran into that problem before. That is why I like my non-denominational church where no one tells me what theological beliefs I must hold in order to belong there. More on that subject later.

Oh okay, I understand why I am having crippling anxiety: it is my fear born from the fact that things are going too well for me, since every single time in the past that things start going to good for me, something would fuck up my life real bad. It is my old fear that "I am cursed" to where my life can never be good enough such that I am happy but never bad enough such that I reason to kill myself. It is my fear that I am stuck in that awful, existential, evil prison for the rest of my pathetic and disgusting existence. It is an irrational fear, but one that my subconscious formed based on the entirety of its existence. While I know logically that people can eventually turn their lives around, my subconscious believes that God or the Universe or Fate or something is hostile to me and will always prevent me from being content and living up to my full potential... which I only want to do so that I can alleviate as much unnecessary human suffering as possible, which is my life purpose. Perhaps I need a new life purpose? At least for a time?

Regardless, I’ll leave you with some of the more boring insights into how spirituality changes your brain. They get a lot more exciting than this:

How spiritual practices change the brain

Increased gray matter: Meditation has been shown to increase the amount of gray matter in parts of the brain associated with learning, memory, and emotion regulation.

Thicker cortex: Regular spiritual practices can thicken the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for foresight, decision-making, and behavioral change. It can also thicken other regions like the parietal and occipital lobes. 

Decreased brain reactivity: Meditation can decrease the size of the amygdala, which helps reduce the brain's reactivity to stress.

Changes in brain activity:

Reduced self-awareness: Spiritual experiences are associated with decreased activity in the parietal lobe, which is linked to your sense of self and spatial awareness. This may be what creates a feeling of oneness or unity.

Increased connection: Spiritual practices can increase activity in brain regions responsible for connection with others.

Enhanced attention: The frontal lobes, which handle focused attention, light up during peak meditative or prayer experiences.