a-coffin.life

“Gratitude is the antidote to anxiety.”

As an Alateen, I hated this idea. It felt pedantic to me at 15, 16–like it belonged, in 2006 script, on the wall of a home hosting bible study. Those days were abject misery by default; the moments I was not sad were so scarce, happiness itself felt unfair. It would fade too fast, like it was never meant for me.

My only highlight from high school was a support group, if that explains anything. It was largely self-led by us teens, with literature and older members urging us to think on faith, and forgiveness, and gratitude. It all kind of blurred together after a while, and a lot of it has been paved over in my memory with the rest of those years. You’re meant to take what you like, and leave the rest.

Gratitude was a concept I thought I’d be leaving. At 16, I thought I was meant to see the good in my life as an offset for the bad, and call it all a wash; too much bad was happening to abide. When it was explained as a practice, I never thought about it long enough to get it. I shrugged it off as another hollow virtue I was meant to feign, in service to the assholes who always seemed to win.

It wasn’t until a round of DBT in the spring of 2020 that I learned, desperately, how to habitually see the value in what is mine. It was explained to me not as a test of the heart, but a trick of the mind. Anxiety isn’t a lack of gratitude per se, but the thought patterning of “thank you” is quite difficult to reconcile with “oh no”. Every grateful thought carves a shortcut through the hedge maze of my anxiety. Gratitude is not only virtuous, it’s useful.

Perhaps it’s worth considering, is gratitude even a virtue? Or is it merely a mechanism? It’s Thanksgiving weekend, today’s the day after Black Friday. I’m now wondering what purpose this holiday serves for the collective American psyche, particularly given our growing cognitive dissonance about its origins. Does all this simply prime us for another anxious December, our surplus of thanks drained by New Year’s Day?

I have a procedure next week, and I’m pretty anxious about it. It’s hard to feel thankful for food or time with family, when I’m not afforded much of either one right now. In a few days I’ll be fasting for anesthesia. “Oh no” is all I hear between my ears, and even my seasoned “thank you”s are hard to discern. I say them anyway, chant them like banishing spells until it’s all quiet.