My Anxiety

I'm all too familiar with anxiety, but I still felt the need to look up a definition before I began writing about it. See, I'm a bit hypocritical when it comes to mental health. There's this horrible stigma around discussing mental illness. People don't talk about it and act like it's a thing to be kept hidden and locked away in a box. However, there's nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to a person's mental health and it can sometimes be very beneficial to discuss it. Some of my favorite books, The Bell Jar and It's Kind of a Funny Story to name a few, are my favorites because of their openness and honesty when it comes to mental health. Yet, while I know and appreciate an open dialogue on mental illness, I don't like to throw my own voice into the mix. I'd rather keep my mental health hidden in a box. But that isn't healthy; I'm instead feeding the stigma and making myself more miserable by not being honest with anyone around me. So, here it goes. Here goes the first step towards being honest about my mental health.

Mental illness, especially depression, runs in my family, and I know genetics can play a part in someone's mental health. From a young age, I've seen mental illness immobilize family members and harm relationships and people. I always understood the severity of mental illness. I was never one to think that depression was just "sadness" people could "snap out of." It's a very real thing. I was, however, a mentally healthy child and teenager. Then, I hit my 20s. I had my first panic attack when I was 21 years old, the day after I graduated college. A boy had discovered my true feelings for him and, when he addressed it, it felt like my lungs had collapsed. I was gasping and not gaining any oxygen. I couldn't focus on anything but the dread. The dread and the uncertainty and the vulnerability. It filled me up so fully that I couldn't even focus on breathing. When I was finally able to pull myself out of the attack, I wasn't even sure what had happened at first. I only realized later, after talking with a friend, that I'd had a panic attack.

It's been over two years since that first panic attack. And the first was not my last. I have an anxiety or panic attack every three or four months. Sometimes they're on a small scale and sometimes they're overwhelming. Sometimes I recover quickly and sometimes I'm burdened all day by feeling it coming and the aftershocks when it ends. I had an anxiety attack yesterday and traces of it are still lingering today.

My anxiety fluctuates. It's manageable and then, suddenly, it isn't. There is sometimes a thing happening in my life that will set it off, but other times it just arrives. The latter is what happened this past Sunday. I'd had a relaxing Sunday and had every reason to be excited for the week ahead. Instead, I felt very anxious. For me, anxiety feels like I've only had coffee all day and no food. My heart rate feels accelerated and its pounding feels forceful in my chest. I feel slightly short of breath but not to the point that it actually affects my breathing. It instead just makes me unsettled and paranoid. A lump forms at the base of my throat. These feelings will last for hours, days. It makes me uncomfortable in my own skin and my brain remains on overdrive trying to find the source of my anxiety or to rationalize it if I know the source. That's my anxiety.

So, I went into yesterday already struggling with my anxiety, even though I had nothing to blame for it. Then, I was informed a part on my car needed to be repaired. It would cost almost $600. This has been one of a few expensive repairs and routine fixes my car has needed in the past few months. I don't make enough to be financially stable with these added expenses. Not even close. Learning of the new cost pushed my anxiety over the edge. The lump in my throat rose higher and I actually was struggling to breathe. And then the tears came. I wasn't in a place I could let tears fall freely, so I had to compose myself rather quickly (and luckily I've learned some tactics to push through an attack, like counting in my head, making lists to help me sort through my thoughts, or really focusing on my breathing). The rush of anxiety that came with the attack left me physically lethargic. The intensity of the worry and unease I had felt had shot through all my energy.

While this attack came from a source, some of my anxiety doesn't (like how I felt on Sunday and still today). Since anxiety is something I've only been dealing with over the past few years, I still find it very difficult to validate to myself or others. I've had friends actually tell me in the past that I wasn't as "fucked up" as they were, which is a horrible thing to say because it left me very insecure about the validity of my feelings and mental health. However, the friend had a point. I've seen how dark anxiety and depression can be, and I'm not in that deep... yet. Mental illness is an illness. Left untreated or ignored, it can get worse. And that's why I also find it difficult to talk about with friends and family or admit to myself: I'm scared. I know how serious it can be. I don't want this; I want to be mentally healthy. But I can't become mentally healthy until I'm admit that I need to do something about my anxiety.

So, there. I've put it in writing. I'm struggling with anxiety. This can be the first step towards working through it because I still have progress to make. I could be honest with my friends and family. I could seek professional help (something I haven't done equally out of fear and financial reasons). I can keep learning ways to cope and set aside more time for self-care. All I know is I want to be stronger than the anxiety. There's a lot of uncertainty in my life right now as a young 20something starting her career and adult life. That uncertainty has definitely fed the worry, nervousness and unease. As the definition states, these feelings normally arise from "something with an uncertain outcome." My whole life is uncertain. But I will make it through this time in my life. Some things will become more certain. So, I just need to remember that when the anxiety is trying to swallow my insides. And if I can't, I need to be brave enough to ask for help because my mental health is important. My anxiety doesn't have to control me, and I won't let it.