Anxiety sucks. I am lucky enough to not deal with constant anxiety or have it at the level where I need medication to control it (I have been tested). My doctor says it is not bad enough to be considered clinical. But sometimes I do have problems, more often in the past 6 months or so than ever before.
It sucks having problems in public. Due to the fact that I look much younger than my age, I get treated like a child. Afterwards I just feel stupid and embarrassed. I had a particularly embarrassing panic attack when I was having my first wisdom teeth surgery. I was spoken to and treated like a little girl afraid of needles. Also acted like I was stupid for getting so worked up and scared. They kept asking if I needed anyone and insisted on bringing in the person that was my ride (the most unhelpful person ever). People treat you like you're crazy. Hell, my own family treats me like I'm crazy every single time I have a panic attack or when I make the mistake of telling them that I couldn't sleep because of it. I have even overheard certain people talking about me, about the subject insisting something is wrong with me. If you have anxiety: you're not crazy. If you have a loved one that suffers from anxiety do not treat them like they are crazy. Give them comfort and try to help. If you yell at them to calm down (this is the shit I often have to deal with) it will only make it worse.
My anxiety usually kicks in when I get very stressed or something causes me to panic, I will then have panic attacks. It is always triggered by something, I don't have my attacks without reason. They aren't often enough to be worrisome or a gigantic issue. Most of the time, I am okay. As I am writing this, I am fighting one off. But also as I am writing and keeping my mind busy I am calming down. I have been having a significant amount of anxiety since Friday night, it did subside until an hour or so ago [Note: at time of writing, I write my posts on my phone ahead of posting] when something else made me very anxious, which then turned to me panicking a bit.
Sometimes it can be over something small, others big. Everyone's symptoms vary, and even do with the magnitude of the stress. My typical symptoms start with my heart beat becoming rapid, accompanied by breathing becoming a little difficult, sweaty palms and of course an overwhelming amount of panic and loss of control.
The worst panic attack I have ever had was strangely not due to losing my dad. For those that don't know, I lost my dad to cancer in 2012. I will most likely do a post discussing it eventually. The worst panic attack I have ever had lasted on and off for about 2 days. I count it as a whole one because literally I would be fine for a few minutes and talked myself down but then the panic would start again.
It started at night around the time I was going to go to bed, some time last year. I had found a strange lump/bump on my body in a place that scared me to death. Until I was able to get it checked out, I was convinced it was a tumor or something. Luckily it was absolutely nothing alarming but at the time I was terrified. Could anyone truly blame me? Anyone that has lost a loved one to cancer would feel that nervous at anything even remotely alarming towards it. I literally felt like I was going to die that night, due to the severity of my anxiety. My heart would not stop racing even after a few hours, I could hardly breathe. I was shaking uncontrollably which brought along the feeling of being cold. I also could not stop crying. When I have a bad attack, the shaking comes and it sucks, it can be to the point where I can't stand still and have to stay sitting. I started feeling like I was going to throw up and/or pass out. I slept maybe two hours that night with the symptoms carrying on and off through the next day until I knew there was no need to panic anymore. Ones like this are very rare for me. If you have never experienced anything like that, you are very lucky because it is not a fun feeling.
I started having anxiety, which I didn't even remember until recently when I was a little kid. There was an incident that for me was pretty traumatic where I fell down 2 flights of stairs and the people I was with didn't do anything to help me. I was hurt and in a lot of pain but they refused to take me to a hospital and didn't even tell my parents. That caused horrible anxiety to the point where I constantly panicked and was afraid of everything. That luckily went away! I honestly think I repressed the entire thing for a while. But when my dad died, my anxiety problems (though way less severe) returned and I've been having issues ever since.
What really surprised me to discover when I started having problems again was the aftermath of attacks. That is something you don't hear about a lot. It differs from person to person. For me, I just feel mentally and physically drained, achy and very tired. Right now, I'm exhausted and a bit shaky [at time of writing]. It for me will last a day to a week depending on the severity.
There are tons of ways you can calm down from an attack or try to keep one away. I usually will listen to music and keep my mind busy. Writing for this blog has been helping me a lot. There is an app I have on my ipod called Breathe2Relax that is a life saver. It helps you to breathe deeply and relax. It also has relaxing images and music. Rain Free is another app, it contains rain sounds. You can control how long you want it to play and there is a huge variety of sounds. It helps me sleep when I can't for whatever reason and it's very relaxing.
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| This is a screen shot of what both apps look like, from my ipod touch. |
You can pick up a hobby such as knitting or crocheting, something to keep your hands and mind busy. I like to draw or paint. It can be very therapeutic. I find that really good books (fictional) can help you to escape and relax. I spent all day yesterday reading Kakashi (my favorite anime character, I'm a major fangirl for him. He's from Naruto) fanfiction to calm my nerves. Even keep a favorite book accessible that you can turn to for comfort, I normally will turn to the Harry Potter books.
I often will try to talk myself down as well, it eventually helps. I will ask myself why I am panicking? Why should I be so nervous/stressed over this. I will tell myself that it is okay that it will pass and really I can't change the situation. My favorite thing to do is pampering. I will take a nice long shower while listening to music. I use my favorite soaps and lotions. Use my favorite shampoo, do a deep conditioning of my hair. Do a face mask and apply my best skincare products. Put on one of my favorite perfumes/body sprays. Paint my nails and put on my bathrobe and comfiest PJs. It's all about using the things that comfort you.
This is one of the more personal topics I will discuss. I am a person that tends to not put things all out there so it took a lot for me to be able to post this and be so open. It actually made me sort of nervous to post this, thinking people may night like it. I hope that some of you at least do or maybe can relate.
Thank you for reading! As I stated in the beginning, my intentions behind this post were to educate and help others suffering from anxiety. I hope that my personal story can help someone, remember you're not alone!!
Xoxo
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