It reaches in my chest and grabs my heart, forcing it to pump harder and louder. All due to a fear of something I can’t control and likely won’t even happen. In those moments I have to focus on my breath and remember that by just breathing in and out I can calm myself. That one breath in and one breath out – that is what I can control. That is what it is real. And as I breathe, I tell myself to let go of whatever I am thinking about because it will be okay. And even if it does end up bad – I will deal with it. I reason with myself and ask questions – like what if I’m wrong? What if everything works out? And I breathe – deeply and deliberately.
My anxiety comes and goes. Stress definitely triggers it. But my mind – this beautiful, creative, God-given gift of mine that allows me to make up stories and scenarios and string words together – also can go places with the stories and scenarios it creates and puts together. I think about situations randomly that may never come true. I have to talk myself out of over-thinking a situation because if not I will damn near obsess over it. I can be fine one minute and then my mind will go somewhere into that deep land of “what if” and I have to have my own therapy session in my head to remind myself that this fear is irrational.
And yet you’d never know it. No one ever sees it. Yet, I am but one face of the reportedly 31.1% of adults in the United States that will experience an anxiety disorder of some sort at one point in their life. (National Institute of Mental Health).
I handle it – or I try to anyway. I talk about it calmly. My voice tries to soothe the war waging inside. I take pride in not using it as a crutch, but at the same time acknowledge that I’m blessed that mine is not as crippling as others is. And even when it comes, creeping up to overwhelm and disturb any peace I may have, I find gratitude in the strategies that therapy has taught me to manage mine.
But I don’t really have it all under control. I know that part of my pep talks to myself to stop thinking about certain things has been extended to avoid thinking about some topics altogether. As someone whose writing is often triggered by thoughts and conversations I have – some good and some bad – it’s not always a good thing to be quieting and avoiding thinking about not-so-good stuff. I confess that this past year my writing practice severely faltered, partly because I’ve been avoiding thinking about things that I know I should have been getting down on paper. All to avoid that heart-pounding, suffocating, feeling that goes down to the pit of my stomach.
My mother jokes that I’m going to give myself an ulcer with all this over-thinking and stressing I do. When I’m in the midst of an attack I often wonder about that. What toll is this taking on my body? Can I run it or punch it or meditate and namaste’ it away? I hope so. I don’t want anxiety to be what takes me out.
