I am a Meerkat
A personal experience of anxiety
This Kafkaesque transformation did not happen overnight, although the nighttime is when it becomes most evident.
No; no magic potion, no exposure to irradiated meerkats, no curse, no hypnosis, no fevered delusion is the cause of my strange state. It is due to one thing, and one thing only.
Anxiety.
I have always been anxious but in the last five years, this anxiety has grown and grown. Over that time, the fur began to grow. My eyes became bright and enlarged. My ears twitched this way and that. My movements became jerky and frantic. Now my disease is full-blown meerkat.
During the day, I can appear in my human form, indistinguishable from the general population except for the occasional telltale widening of the eyes or the sudden shock at loud noises.
It is the night that transforms me into my full were-meerkat form. The slightest sound sees me bolt upright in bed from a sound sleep searching with bright eyes for its source. I hear dripping taps. Natural, you might say. Ah yes, but I hear them in the neighbour’s house. If a dog barks anywhere in a four-block radius, I’m up. We have bubbling fish tanks. Lovely white noise you might say. To me, I hear burst pipes, a coming tsunami on the mountain top on which I live.
At night, it isn’t only the real and present dangers that engage me, I am brought to full hyperarousal by events in the past, shouting out warnings to my ignorant earlier self who goes ahead and blunders into disaster despite my warnings. I peer into the future seeking any signs of danger, manufacturing them if necessary. I make mental warning lists to remind my daytime self to avoid that street, to brake hard at stop signs, to watch for pirates, and to take vitamins to forestall the diseases that I will inevitably get. I imagine pain that I haven’t had yet but dread. I just know I’m going to jam my fingers in a car door, trip over a curb, burn myself on a stove, or stub my toe on furniture.
My blood is nearly all cortisol now. I can take massive doses of sedatives and they don’t affect me. It’s like having a superpower. I am ‘NotGoingToSleep Man’. I’m aroused, but not in a good way.
I do not know what the future holds. (well, I know it will be bad.) Will my transformation from my human self to my Meerkat nature continue until no more of me remains? Will I ever sleep a deep and dreamless sleep all night through again? I doubt it. The Meerkat in me does not believe in hope. The world is a dangerous place and those dangers will come and get you unless you are eternally vigilant. Hope gets you killed.
It’s 3 am and the rest of the house slumbers. But they may rest easy, for I am still on sentry duty, keeping our little world safe.
