My anxiety turns into panic attacks if I can't get a grip on myself. It starts with intense butterflies in my stomach and my throat gets really tight. If I can't talk myself through it and if telling myself that I'm being an idiot doesn't calm myself then the next step is my heart beats so fast that I am breathing like I just sprinted a 5k. I then start to cry, and these are uncontrollable sobs, which doesn't help with the breathing, and I will sob for about 3 minutes and all my muscles and body will be tense and then I'll calm down a little for 5 minutes and stop crying, but my heart is still racing and then another wave of sobs hits me. The longsest this has gone on was about 2 hours one night. It was actually the night before Halloween. I was just having regular stresses over preparing for work tomorrow and all the kids with their costumes and I just fell apart.
I have come to realize that anxiety isn't just a fear of something, it is a huge step further than that. Anxiety isn't just something in your mind. It is physiological as much as psychological. And like depression, it isn't something you can just "suck up" and "shake off". IT IS REAL!
The thing that gets me is when I look back at the panic attacks after they are over I think, why was I freaking out over such a menial thing? When I have to go somewhere and I know there is a bunch of people out there that will ask me how I am doing, or they want to know about my Disease I start to get anxiety. Anything outside of my normal routine I can't handle. Even this blog causes me anxiety. When my mom tells me that I am touching a lot of people with this blog. Or when someone says something to me about it I get anxious because I feel like there is pressure to make another one, sometimes I just say, that's it! This is my 5th and last blog because I just have too much anxiety about all of this. But then I am able to look back a couple hours later or a day later depending on the situation and I think "Why did I freak out about that?" And I can move on.
The anxiety that I feel comes from so much inflammation in my brain. My brain is killing all the bacteria and it is super inflamed and overwhelmed, so things outside of it's norm, or things that put extra stress than what it is already going through cause me to have a panic attack. I am on medication for it now, but I am to the point where anything outside of basketball, work or church I am having some level of anxiety about. And still in the normal things I get anxious over. Every Sunday night I get anxiety about starting another week. Wednesday mornings I am anxious about early out day for all the schools. Fridays I am anxious for the weekend because I think of all the stuff that I should be able to get done, but I know I won't because I will sleep away most of the weekend because of exhaustion. I get anxiety when someone tells me to read a book that will help me. I can't read my favorite books, how can I read some motivational thing? But for some reason it just plagues me and I stress over it.
Anxiety is the bane of my disease right now, at least when it comes to socializing, and the stress it brings me before whatever I am doing. Luckily I am on some better medication so I can hopefully get a hold of myself a little better and if I'm at least gonna have anxiety then hopefully I won't have panic attacks anymore. And that can be one less symptom that is at the party in my brain.
-Lyme Warrior
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