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Old Apr 18, 2008, 04:10 PM
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Perna Perna is offline
Pandita-in-training
 
Member Since: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 27,289
I would do more physical activity if the jiggling bothers you, wear your body out more so it's tired :-) It's much harder to deal with repressed anything because it's repressed. You don't think of yourself as anxious because "you" aren't, it's unconscious/repressed. Your body has taken up what your mind isn't seeing.

Anxiety and depression are very closely linked; some people get sad because they can't respond to their environment assertively and so take their angers and fears out on themselves. When you joined PC you were talking about how your family "made fun" of you growing up because you seemed geeky/old for your age as if you'd been born for another, earlier era. There isn't a lot you could do with that information, you didn't "fit" but no one was abusing you or doing much negative about it; but there are pressures to fit in, and when we're painters or writers stuck in a family of actuaries or accountants, we feel those pressure keenly and the trying to fit in or trying to make our own way by ourselves can take a toll. If we can't figure out how to do that fast/well enough, leg jiggling is the result :-)

My stepson jiggled his leg, literally, when he was in high school, my husband says. He is extremely tall, over 7 feet, but didn't like sports/basketball, didn't have any hobbies, etc. and it was hard for him to find his place. He got good grades, had friends, etc. but bombed out of college because he hadn't figured out who he was and what he wanted to do/be yet and was still trying to copy his father's example. It took him until his late 20's and meeting his wife and discovering an occupation he could do well and having a family to finally get his ducks in a row.

I wouldn't worry too much about the repressed anxiety? I would maybe pay a little more attention to when I catch myself jiggling my leg or what-not and try to remember what I was thinking about. I know if I get anxious working on a project or reading, etc., I have the crummy habit of finding myself in front of the open refrigerator, looking for something to eat I know that now so can backtrack and see what "sent" me there. But repressed anxiety is just that, little quirks that show up somewhere "else" and can be hard to trace to their source. It doesn't mean you're an anxiety basket case (I use to be :-) just that you are misplacing your anxiety "into" your body instead of discharging it by dealing with whatever is making you anxious.
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