Fuck. I always forget I still have this site, and it is the perfect place to write things like I'm about to write.  No one reads this, but I can write it and maybe someone will.  Isn't that why graffiti exists?

I've never really been an anxious person.  Part of my charm was my openness and my 'so what' approach to life.  I once had a boyfriend state that was the primary reason he was attracted to me - as he was a damn chicken with his head cut off for most of his life.  I never understood that.

They say ignorance is bliss, and maybe that was it.  Perhaps I was open and laid back because I just didn't care enough?  Nope, that doesn't sound right at all.

I'm not sure when I started to shift.  I suppose I began to turn in on myself as a protective measure against all the small nicks and cuts of life - aging parents, love and loss, and all the weird petty things we wrap ourselves in.  It was a gradual process that felt like safety, but it's only now that I realize that protection sometimes means isolation - not safety.

While I can't point to one event that altered my approach to life, I can point to one event that made me realize I was not, in fact, in a healthy mental place, and it was this.  This was my hometown and my family's house was in the lock down area.  My aunt, a nurse, was working at the hospital when the lockdown happened.  She spent the night in her car, and spent a night at her recently-divorved ex-husband's house until she was able to return home.  For that first night, we did not know where she was and we could not get a hold of her.  I spent hours obsessively refreshing Twitter.  I would think about my house (which was vacant - my parents were thankfully at their camp when all this happened), the neighbours, and could feel the fear they no doubt were feeling.  I sat at my desk with tears streaming down my face at my office as I watched the live stream of the funeral, listening to that dog howling throughout the ceremony. 

People know how the story ends.  Life went on.  Worked started to amp up, which involved lots of traveling and facilitating.  Two weeks after the event, on my birthday, I was facilitating to a group about trauma.  I began telling them about how when someone experiences a trauma, their view of the world changes.  They now live in a world -

A lump in my throat.

- a world that is no longer safe.

A shallow breath.  I look at the police officer who is participating in my training, perhaps a bit too long.

I continue.  It's likely no one noticed a thing, but that should have been a clue, in hindsight, that I was burying too much, for too long, too close to the surface.

More training, more work.  At this point, I am clearly burned out.  To. A. Crisp.  But I soldier on (as I do).  Meanwhile, I am feeling terrifying sensations in my body.  My left shoulder hurts.  My chest hurts.   I keep feeling these "surges" (as I was then describing them).

maybeit'smyheartitmustbemyheartohgodi'mscared

It was a Friday.  We are facilitating again, this time to the health centre of a local university.  I finish out the day (barely) and go home.  I eat, and sit on the couch, looking at the television.

whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif

I can't really think.  I'm scared.  I go up to my room and lay down, thinking I can nap my way out of this one.  More surges.  More scary thoughts.

I walk down to the kitchen.  I barely have a few words out -

I think there's something wrong 

- before I break down into an ugly cry.  MW (Update: He is still wonderful) holds me, confused.  I tell him my chest is sore and I'm worried there's something wrong with my heart but I don't know what to do.  We sit on the couch, and I go back and forth about whether or not I should go to the hospital.  After much back and forth, I go.

I walk into triage and break down into tears again.  They do my vitals - my pulse and blood pressure were both high - and get me a room fairly quickly (by Canadian ER standards).  They do a series of tests, and we wait around.  They do my vitals again.

Everything is fine.  It's anxiety.

What.

It was anxiety.  You were experiencing a panic attack.  Your pulse and BP are back to normal, which is what we like to see.  Here is some Ativan you can take home with you.

What.

Anxiety.  Panic?  I wasn't hyperventilating.  I wasn't hysterical.  That doesn't seem like anything I've heard about anxiety or panic.  It doesn't make sense.  But what about the chest pain?  The SURGES?

Muscle tension.  Adrenaline.

Oh.

So off I go with my nerve pills like a 50s housewife.  Not going to lie, I was a little embarrassed.  I come from a long line of nurses, and I've learned to not abuse our health care system for trivial things, and while heart concerns aren't trivial, I felt like my brain let me down.

Not wanting to take anxiety for an answer, I visited another GP who ran more tests, all with the same results.  I'm crazy.  More Ativan.  This time with directions "Just don't come asking for more in a week.  These fuckers are addictive."

I took him at his word and resigned myself to dealing with this as though it was anxiety (even if about 30% of me still had my doubts).  I went into counselling, started practicing yin yoga, and began learning how to meditate.  I still had some rough days, but ultimately I was doing okay.  

And so, fast forward a year and a half later.  I still have about 15 of the original 30 Ativan in a neon green pill bottle on my bedside table (as well as 3 in another bottle I keep in my purse for emergencies).   Generally speaking, I feel in control of my anxiety.

Generally speaking.

About a month ago, after an intense period of stress, followed by a lot of negative self talk, followed by some completely anxiety-free days, I started to feel off again.  Physical symptoms resurfaced, but different from before.  A feeling would come and go like I was just about to go down the highest peak of a roller coaster.  And I was terrified again.

I would have intrusive thoughts and pictures pop into my head.  I could see myself clutching at my chest, yelling for MW to call an ambulance.  I'd carry around aspirin because I read somewhere that's what you should take if you're having a heart attack.  I was terrified to move, to walk.  Anywhere.  I would feel panicked even walking to my bus stop.   I felt like the next step would do me in.  I was thankful for a stretch of rainy weather so that I could walk with my large umbrella like a cane.  Suddenly, I was 87. 

I felt like I was in a deep dark hole that no one could see.  I was surviving life, day by day, hour by hour, thankful that I didn't die.  But I was not living.  I felt, in the truest sense of the term - mentally ill.  I was thinking in circles, believing that if I just sat still and brooded over this issue enough, I could think my way out of it. 

Why does my chest hurt.
Maybe it's my heart.
It's muscle tension, girl.  You got big ol' titties.
Yes but WHAT IF.
You've been checked out.  You're fine.
But what if something new developed.  That was a year ago.  Heart disease is in my family.
Fine, then go see a doctor.
I can't because I'm terrified of what they will say. Or worse, they'll think I'm crazy.
Maybe it'll go away.
But what if it doesn't.

And around and around it went.  I kept sinking deeper into the hole, becoming more worn down, more depressed, and more isolated.  Finally, I had a breakdown with a coworker.  (While the pay is terrible, there is some benefit to working with professional counsellors.)   I was so tired.  So frustrated.  So scared.  We talked, and she helped book me an appointment with a great new doctor in town, and I made an appointment to see my counsellor again. 

Now, I'm one counselling session in, and anxiously waiting for the doctor's appointment next week.  I have been trying not to obsess what I will say or ask at that appointment, but of course I do.  Health anxiety is such a difficult thing to navigate.  In our health obsessed world, do you 'honour your body' and demand that hundreds of tests be run because something might be wrong?  Or do you live in the uncertainty of life and accept that sometimes odd physical sensations are normal and that they're nothing to get worked up about?  This is essentially what it all boils down to, and I would not wish that mindfuck on my worst enemy.

And so, in the meantime, I have had a valuable revelation.  I can have health anxiety, but I cannot live in an unhealthy way that only serves to feed my anxieties.  Basically, if it was fun or bad for me, it went into my mouth.  So, enough of that.  Eat a fucking vegetable once in a while.  Cut the caffeine, the booze, the pints of ice cream and bags of chocolate I'd secretly eat after work.  Though I'm not being an asshole about it - occasional indulgences are okay, but for now I am ending each day knowing that I did my best with that day.

Has it erased my anxiety?  Nope, not by a long shot.  But it has increased my confidence - in my sense of affecting positive change on my health.  I could still have a goddamned piano on me tomorrow, but at least I went knowing I was taking care of myself. 

Maybe I'll always have anxiety, and may my body will always do weird things.  Maybe I'll get sick, maybe I will have a fucking heart attack and die someday - my family history says that's not outside the realm of possibility.  Maybe.  All those things may happen in the future, but those things can no longer dictate how I live today.