Anxiety Levels: All Time High

When they tell you that anxiety and stress throw things off, they’re not kidding. Mentally, emotionally and physically draining, I feel like I’ve been at the bottom of a barrel for the past few weeks. Exercising maybe twice in those few weeks, deciding that sleeping was better than being up on sunny, warm days and not having the energy to be with people for too long, the anxiety that sat in my short breaths and heart palpitations lead to a lack of hunger, appetite and fear that something worse was coming.

I don’t necessarily have an anxiety issue, but I do have bouts of anxiety that make my life a living hell. I don’t know how to do anything when I’m in those situations. From getting shaky without being hypoglycemic to getting nauseous thinking about eating, although hungry, the level that I was experiencing this as, was completely out of hand and something I had never experienced so strongly. I tried to talk to people about it only to get a repeated response of “relax,” or “try to relax.” Trust me. I was trying to relax. I was trying to relax so hard that it pissed me off that I couldn’t.

The worse thing was that my mind started playing tricks on me. I have a very strong and creative mind. I’m imaginative. I started concocting stories about things in my life. It angered me and all I wanted, what I truly wanted was for someone to hug me and tell me that everything was going to be OK. I got it, late. But I got it.

I don’t know if anyone reading this has ever gone through something like that. Heart beating out of your chest. All you want to do is sleep and eating doesn’t interest you. It’s horrendous. It’s relationship damaging. You lose self-confidence. You lose who you are and after the roller coaster has completely made your stomach come out of your ass and your mind is kind of just floating there, making it hard to focus on everything around you, you have to try and piece yourself back together again. Kind of like, trying to remember who you were before this hurricane came at you from out of the dark.

It’s scary. It’s scary to think that no one really cares, that you’ve lost your passion, that you’re not good enough and that what you’ve been working toward isn’t really going to help ANYTHING. It’s literally the most horrible I’ve felt in a long time. Almost like someone died. Even after naps, I would wake up and want to cry because I couldn’t go back to sleep. Ideas, stories, lies were swimming around in my head. Full of uncertainty and myth.

In the mornings, my head would go crazy because I was stuck in reality and in a dream; wishing my realities were my dreams and I would cry because of how I felt. I cried hard. I wonder what the neighbors thought.

I know where it started though. I also know how it started. I started questioning my value. I started questioning my worth, my life and because I couldn’t talk to some of the most important people in my life about it until later, I went through it so hard and longer than I had to. I felt ashamed that I was going through it, especially because I really had no reason for it. This idea of a front really, really throws everything off. Especially since I know how to smile and laugh. Unless you’re close to me, there are very few people that can or ever realize that something is very wrong.

Mind you, I didn’t get suicidal or anything major like that. But I hurt. I came out of it thinking, “What the hell do I even like to do?” Even though I wasn’t eating, my blood sugar never dropped unless I over bolused when I did eat. The stress kept it elevated for me. I felt frail and tired. I slept a lot. There was really no reason why I would want to get up unless I actually had something to do and keeping the mind occupied worked very well, until it wasn’t occupied any longer. The people who I usually talked to about this couldn’t deal, were too far away, didn’t have the time and I didn’t want to force myself upon anyone.

This is how the whole neighborhood ends of finding out your business. The more I talked about it, however, I found that someone had or was going through the same thing I was. But then there were those people who basically, in their own way, were telling me to “get over it,” or keep going or move on or just their watery opinion on my life. I eventually put a cap on it and wrote. I wrote a lot and for a long time while I was trying to figure things out again.

I’m better now. Instead of those bad days, I have good ones. The mediocre ones still take precedence over most, but I can deal with that because my head is in a better place. After a lot of meditation and finally talking to the right people, I feel like I got a grip. Thank you, God.

I’m still trying to figure things out. I’m still in a cloud of nothingness, hence that mediocre feeling. My heart still beats loud when I don’t know what’s going on, however, at the same time I’m finding the will to push forward and do things that used to inspire me. I always think about where I was last year and last year at this point, I feel like I was happy. I was discovering who I was alone and I found that I could do things happily. I need to get back there.

I just have to refocus and put my priorities in order. I know what I want and I know what it’s going to take. Most of all, it’s just going to take time and I do have that.