Fear & Other Things That Go Bump in the Night

I have a quote on my refrigerator (actually my refrigerator contains more wisdom than food, in hopes that I might ingest some, I suppose):

Approach what you find repulsive; help the ones you think you cannot help; and go to places that scare you....  from some Tibetan monk I never heard of

     I've taken this as a general kind of guide to self improvement and living a life less self-centered. Although I once interpreted it to mean travel by myself to a foreign country where I did not speak the language and to eat foods of unknown content and origin.
     There are times, however, when this quote takes on a radically different meaning.
     Did you ever startle awake in the middle of the night for no good reason, gripped by a sweating, heart-pounding feeling of doom - that either this is the big one or else all the awful mistakes you have made in your entire life have gotten together and decided to perform an intervention while you slept? 
     I have, and it usually signifies that the Fear and Anxiety twins have come to pay me a visit for as long as, oh well, as long as they care to stay. They are old acquaintances of mine, but they are unwelcome.
     The problem is that when they visit, they wrap themselves around your head; clutch at your throat; twist up inside your stomach; suck up your energy, and they won't let go until it thunders.
     Your home becomes house-arrest, and the still-pajama-clad creature watching yet another re-run of "What Not to Wear" at 2 p.m. is you: the repulsive thing you can't approach. The place that scares you is the shower; and you are the one you think you cannot help - beyond force-feeding your way to the bottom of a full bag of empty calories. 
    You could do something about this, but you feel, profoundly, that any non-essential movement would split your entire self into a thousand, ungatherable pieces, and that would be that.
    You never felt like this? Hmmm, imagine that.
    After years of hosting the Fear and Anxiety twins at varying intervals and for varying lengths of time, I've learned one, and only one, important coping tip. Remind yourself that it won't last. They will move on.
     So you spend a day or two posing as a lazy, overweight, unmotivated slug, and then you approach that place that scares you. You take a shower; put on some clean clothes, and take a break. Then you do something else; make coffee, maybe make up the bed.
     Funny, the twins have an aversion to clean clothes and made beds; they'll begin to pack up and move out.
     Last night, I went to another place that scared me. I rode my bike through the marsh walk, something I had never tried before. I left the twins back at the house. I enjoyed the ride, and when I returned there was nothing to do but clean up the dregs they'd left behind.
   I'm told this is National Mental Health Week (Month?). Depression gets to most of us sooner or later, but it won't last.