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. 

Anxiety

- The Battle that Rages in My Head - 

My whole life, I never thought I had a problem. I had little things that bothered me, but I never let it get too out of hand. Sure, I worried about a bunch of stuff, but I thought everyone did. We all have normal worries - money, jobs, family, friends, etc. That's what I worried about too. 

Well, in Oct. 2014, we lost my uncle suddenly to a heart attack, and then everyone went on high alert. It was a kind of wake up call for my family to pay attention to their health. Now, I've only been to a doctor a few times in my 26 years and I was a relatively healthy person. Sure, I was bigger, but I never had any issues. I also didn't have any health insurance. 

One day in February, I felt weird. I don't really know how else to describe it, just plain weird. Throughout the day, it kept getting worse, but I had to work that night for a city council meeting so I just ignored it. Not every day is a great day. On the way there, I felt this pain in my chest and my left arm. 

Well, I panicked. The more I panicked, the worse it got. I made it to my meeting, sat in my seat and thought I was actually going to die. The left side of my face, by my mouth, went numb and tingly and in that moment, I knew that was it. I was going to pass out and die in the council chambers. I kept feeling my pulse, and it was erratic. I even had to excuse myself to the bathroom and checked the symptoms of a stroke - it was that bad. This heat came from my chest and through my face, and everything felt like it was on fire. I was hyperventilating - it got pretty bad.  

Somehow, I made it through the council meeting and drove home. I couldn't figure out how I wasn't dead yet, but I kept praying that I would be okay, while worrying the whole entire time that each moment was my last, just like my uncle. One minute he was bowling, the next - gone. 

I got home, wrote my story and went to bed. Well, when I said went to bed, I layed in my bed freaking out. I kept thinking to myself, I won't wake up tomorrow morning. This is my last day to be alive, and I was on the verge of tears. The pain in my chest wouldn't go away, and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to sleep - you know, with that fear of dying going through my head, that was pretty much impossible. 

I asked my roommate to take me to the ER, despite the fact that I didn't have insurance. I knew that no matter what, I had to get this looked at or I was going to explode. I wanted to see my family and friends again, find love, live my life, and I thought if I didn't go to the hospital, then that wasn't going to happen. 

I told the people in the ER I thought I was having a heart attack. They didn't look at me like I was crazy, they were so nice to me. They hooked me up to an EKG, took an x-ray, and my blood pressure. My blood pressure was 225/120. Uh, that's a little high. 

I spent the night in observation, and was finally released around 3:30 the next day. It took them that long to get my blood pressure to a normal level. My doctor, who I now love and as soon as I get insurance, she will be my permanent doctor, told me I more than likely had high blood pressure, which caused the pain, and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was having a  heart attack and I thought I was dying, which led to my anxiety attack. 

The high blood pressure makes sense. I know me and my family history, so I get it. But anxiety? I've never had an anxiety attack in my life. People have told me I'm the most laid back and calmest person they know. I don't get angry much and don't let a lot of things get to me. Yeah, I worry, but who doesn't? 

I've done some research in the month I've been out of the ER, and I figured out that most people who experience their first panic attack often feel like they're having a heart attack or stroke, and end up in the ER. That was reassuring. 

I've been anxious since then, and I've felt those same symptoms, but without the intense chest pain. But now I know what it is, and I can work through it. 

One of the most recent incidents was today and this last week. I've had a tooth ache, and I can't go see a dentist until my dental insurance kicks in (which is soon, thank God). But until then, I'm stuck with this pain. Well, in my head, I keep thinking the worst - I have infection, and it's going to spread to my eyes and blind me. It's going to spread to my brain. To my ears. To my heart. I'm going to die. I have an abscess and it's going to kill me. This pain will never go away. 

With those thoughts, I've been constantly checking my temperature because I know that when you're body fights an infection, you have a fever. The worrying is exhausting. 

This morning I woke up and I didn't feel the greatest, but nothing to weird. Just sorta tired, but I thought that made sense because I went to sleep at like 2:30 a.m. But then I took my temperature a few hours later. It was 96.9. I immediately freaked out. That's too low. What does that mean? Then I did something that I've been doing a lot of recently and it only freaks me out and makes it worse - Googled it. It's something that I've got to stop doing because it doesn't do any good. 

About an hour ago, it finally hit me. My face got super warm, I felt tingly-ness in my arm and face, and felt a pain in my arm and shoulder. I checked my blood pressure, which I do regularly now and it's always normal now that I have medication, and it was really high. Not as high as the ER night, but high enough to know what was going on. I was having another panic attack. 

I've taught myself some tricks in the month since the ER, stuff I've learned from my research. My doctor gave me a prescription that I was only to take if I felt anxious, and this was certainly the case. I took it, then practiced my relaxation techniques - breathing, walking around, listening to calming music, anything I could to help me calm down and realize that there was nothing seriously wrong with me. 

I don't panic about life things - job, money, etc., but I panic about my health. Losing my uncle so suddenly just freaks me out that it could happen at any time, to anyone. That is always going through my mind, and I think that's what triggers my panic attacks, not only about my health but the health and lives of my loved ones. The attacks are absolutely terrifying.  I have to learn to get out of my own head, and that's my problem. I look calm, cool and collected on the outside, but inside my head, things are chaos. I think too much, worry too much and then this happens. 

It's not something that I'm going to let take over my life. I know I've got a good life - good job, great friends and family, great things to look forward to throughout the upcoming year, so I know that life is going to be okay. But I get these moments where I think it's all coming to an end, and it's scary.

As I sit here, much calmer but with an ice pack to my face because I feel like it's on fire (though my temp and BP is normal - seriously, someone needs to take medical equipment away from me), I know that everything is going to be okay. I just have to keep telling myself that. 

One of the ways I've read that helps calm your anxiety is writing it out. Well, this is what I'm doing, and it actually has helped. The websites tell me that the most useful thing you can do to combat stress and anxiety is to keep a running record of your thoughts on paper. There's simply no better way to learn about your thought processes than to write them down. Writing it down and reading back my thoughts helps me understand why I'm thinking the things I am and doing the things I do. Seriously, writing is therapy. 


Some articles I've found to help me curb my attacks: 
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/articles/healthanxiety
http://www.wikihow.com/Calm-Yourself-During-an-Anxiety-Attack