A Bedtime Story for the Anxious Heart

chay tea, 2012; emo kid at heart

Staring up at an empty stage, waiting for Lucero to bring the warmth of southern charm I had fallen in love with to the chilly San Francisco Bay, I waded through the boozy air. I bought these tickets months ago for my then-bf's Christmas present, and it was imperative that we enjoy ourselves tonight. I remember that I wasn't feeling too well and I got a PBR to drink, thinking that I could make it through the night if I kept it light.

If I had known my body better then, I could have recognized the tightness in my legs and the beating of my heart as cries for help. But back then, their screams made no sound.

I took two sips of my already watery beer, and my head lifted off my shoulders. I felt shaky all of a sudden. I mumbled something about going to the bathroom and I wandered toward the back, stumbling like a drunk but I frowned, knowing that wasn't right.

What little color I could see began to grey at the edges of my vision, and like the cartoon circle closing, my grey vision began to blur and darken completely from the outside in. I reached for the bar like a drowning girl and managed thickly, "Can..I get a glass of water?" realizing full well that they would assume I was drunk, the social faux-pas further pressing my heart to lose control. Before anyone could argue with me for cutting them in line, I was falling.

Some pretty badass women must have caught me because they had to have climbed under the bar as I was falling to keep me from hurting myself. I had blacked out and while sitting outside in the cool city air soothed my blood flow, my heart still hung heavily in my chest.

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Fast forward, a few months later.

Sitting in my car, waiting for the feeling to pass. My chest feels as though it's been pressed in with bricks. I've called the advice nurse and she says that I might be having a heart attack, which only makes it drum harder against cement walls. I can't be having one, I tell myself. That can't be right.

I decide to go. Driving back from a lovely day out with my best friend from high school (her wedding dress fitting) I hadn't felt so much joy in a long time; I felt so honored to be with her that day. And yet, the overwhelming tightness in my chest. Maybe I am having a heart attack. My leg starts to seize up as though it has a cramp, my breath caught in my chest, and I choke on the tears that I'm forcing back down. I ask myself if I should pull over on the freeway. What's wrong with me??

My first panic attack.

Luckily, I managed to take the slow lane on the freeway all the way home without getting hurt. In fact, the tension buzzing in my limbs dulled into a static as soon as I killed the engine to my car. It took me months to figure out that what was going on in my body reflected the chaos across my brain.

It's different for everyone, but for me, my release came to me after eventually letting go of a long, complicated relationship in which we were both suffocating. I began to find the parts of myself I had buried underneath it. The more I gave myself credit to feel how I was feeling, to give myself the chance to be right and be valuable, the more I found my voice. And the panic attacks and fainting spells disappeared.

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I wish I had stories of the little things that happened before these two moments in my life. 

I wish I could show you that this doesn't happen overnight. 

The breaths I held, the furrowed brows, the tears I stuffed down, the glazed over blips in conversations, the fielded insults pretending to be encouragements, the music I put away, the shaded replies, the frantic arguments, the crazed conversations with myself to "get your shit together", the deafening silences. 

You would never be able to see it from the outside; not unless you were looking for it.
I wish I could even tell you that this was the end of my anxiety, and that I am free - but even now while I'm typing, I noticed I'm pressing my feet so hard into the ground I can't feel them anymore; an unconscious reaction to the reality that sharing my story with the world leaves me vulnerable to the open air. 

I wish I could compile for you, moment by moment, neuron by neuron, the daily struggle of anxiety that I know has been built up over the course of my childhood and my adult life. If we knew how they all added up, we could save ourselves all the trouble; it would be easier to unravel the tangled web constricting us each day.

I wish these things because I want you to know that someone else out there understands; someone else in the world has felt how you feel; and I want you to know that it can get better.
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Note: I want to be clear that anxiety comes in many forms, and this is my story, only one in a sea of millions affected each day. Some forms of anxiety are much more intense, and some are more subtle. I do not want to belittle the experiences of those living with diagnosed anxiety as something easily defeated because it is not.