I hate anxiety. Or whatever this is that I am dealing with, that I have been dealing with on and off for what seems to be my whole life. I am hoping that one day I can look back at this and know that I have overcome it for once and all, but as I write that a slight sinking in my stomach precedes the thought that this will never truly end. The thought then triggers my rational brain to identify this as a “negative thought pattern.” This is so tiring.
What is this thing I am calling anxiety? Sometimes it is when I wake up around 12:30am to go to the bathroom and I get a sense, an aura almost, that it is about to get bad. “Surely not,” I think. “Why would I panic now? I have had a wonderful day, nothing bad happened, and I don’t feel worried about anything.” No matter my internal dismissal, suddenly IT is upon me. Like a dementor from a Harry Potter movie, it has chosen me to suck all good things out of. Immediately my stomach sinks to the floor and a cold chill starts to work its way down my spine. The sense that the whole world is terrible, that nothing will ever be good again, that not one single second of pleasure or happiness will ever exist, that I could die in the next breath, that I will never, ever be okay slams into every other thought and process going on in my brain. This is my animal brain coming through and it is time for fight or flight. All around me is quiet. Every other person and animal in the house is sound asleep, but in my mind the world is crumbling, my thoughts are racing, literal images are flashing so quickly that I have to focus on something to ground myself and assure myself that I am still real, though I don’t exactly feel real.

10 seconds have passed. I know there is a good 10 to 20 more minutes before this phase passes.
Thankfully, that is the most extreme version. Sometimes it comes more slowly, and sneaks in without me even recognizing it. For example, when I wake up and don’t quite feel good. I still feel tired, even though I slept over 8 hours. I go ahead and start to get ready for the day. I think about what could be causing this feeling. “Certainly not anxiety,” I think, since I have not had any symptoms lately and I can’t think of anything bothering me. Instead, I think that I may just be getting a cold or allergy symptoms. An hour or two later, I suddenly feel like I can’t hold my head up. I’m extremely fatigued and think, “yep, I must be coming down with something.” I even feel like I've been running a low-grade fever. I feel achy all over, my stomach doesn’t feel great. If the symptoms are severe, I may even decide it’s time to go to the doctor. I go home, take some meds, and hunker down on the couch and quickly fall asleep. When I wake up, I realize I don’t feel any better. I’m still fatigued, my other symptoms are still there, but very vague, and the best way I can describe how I feel is, “I just don’t feel good.” My loved ones give me that look. I know what that look is asking. “Is it your anxiety?” Whether they voice it or not, I know that is what they are thinking, and the fact that someone else is thinking it means I better give it a thought too. I start to ask myself questions to determine my diagnosis. Do I feel anxious? Do I feel overwhelmed? Do I feel like crying? Before I know it, I am all tears, realizing that IT has gotten me again. And then comes the questioning. “Am I just crazy? How am I going to live like this? How will I provide for my family if I can’t work because of this? What are my co-workers and friends going to think about me missing work so much? And the biggest question: why? Why????!!!! Why do I suffer, and why right now? Was there a trigger? Do I have some unknown disease or syndrome that is causing this?” Naturally, it is now time to start googling symptoms. After diagnosing myself with a number of different ailments, I feel better. For a little while. I mentally exhaust myself by questioning how I feel, trying to decide what could have caused this attack, and making contingency plans for what to do if I can’t get better. I cry. I cry until I can hardly breathe. I pray. I reach out to my friends and loved ones to pray for me, because IT has me again. I go to therapy, where I am reassured that I am not crazy, that this will end, and I will feel better. I learn little ways to cope and to make it through each agonizing wave. I start to put my life back together. Distraction helps. I go to work and have a pretty good day, but as I drive home, IT waves hello! “You thought I was gone?!” It laughs and tells me it will always be there waiting. “You are a liar,” I tell it. “I’ve felt good before. I have gone years without you before.” And that teeny tiny hope is all that gets me through the low that I feel upon ITs return. Eventually the checking to see how I feel every few minutes slows. I find myself going days without really thinking about IT. I take my medicine and hope that it will keep the anxiety away. I keep going to therapy, and I even wonder if I should still go, but I continue to work on myself. I reach out to my online group, which makes me feel normal. I feel sorry for the member going through a rough patch, because I have been there before, and it may not be long before I am back.
That’s how it is sometimes.