Living with Anxiety

Panic attack: a noun. a sudden feeling of acute and disabling anxiety

My current state. 

I can't even describe how I feel. It happened at work. This might sound weird, but I've been thinking a lot recently about the first time I was in the ER with a panic attack. It was over a year ago, last February. I think that maybe thinking about it triggered another one. 

I've been feeling kind of off for the past couple days, feeling the same kind of things I felt a year ago. The same pangs of discomfort, but nothing of consequence. 

Tonight, though. Tonight it happened. It must be a Monday thing. A city council meeting thing. This time, it waited until after the meeting was over. 

I was sitting at my desk, typing my story. Minding my own business. 

Then it hit. I felt this overwhelming feeling of panic. That I was dying. I felt this discomfort in my chest the same exact way it happened last year. I still feel it. 

I felt like I was choking, like I was going to pass out. Like my head weight 100 pounds. Like I was going to throw up. All at once. I got up, walked around the office. Sat back down and still felt that discomfort. No pain, just this uncomfortable feeling in my chest. 

Instead of freaking out, I tried some breathing exercises. Ones that I researched after last year's experience that I will never forget. 

It's that overwhelming feeling that I'm going to die. As I sit here in my bed, I'm thinking about dying. What would happen if I did die. What would my family do. I have plans tomorrow with my mom and sister. I have to go to work. I have to do all of this stuff. But I'd be dead. 

These are the kind of thoughts that run through my head when I feel this way. It makes me want to hide away in my room and never come out. Never talk to another person again. Hide under my covers and cry myself to sleep. 

Yeah, that's intense, I know. I still feel the discomfort in my chest. I'm still taking breaks from typing and taking deep, slow breaths. But it helps me to write when these things happen. I don't know what triggers them. I have no idea where they come from. But it's just completely out of the blue. And it's terrifying. But I'm glad that I know what is happening to me, and I can work with it. I can fight through it. 

I might not get much sleep tonight, but I have to tell myself that I'll wake up tomorrow. That's the hardest part. I'm afraid to sleep because I'm afraid I won't wake up in the morning. That is exactly what went through my head this time last year, and I made my roommate take me to the ER. I was there overnight for observation. Not a fun experience. 

I just don't know where these come from and why. Anxiety is the suckiest thing, and yes I made suckiest a word. 

Breath in. Breath out. Repeat.