Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Aaahh...I'm Not Crazy, It's Just Anxiety. Right?

I'm going to write about a topic that I really haven't tackled since I started on this adventure we call blogging. It was a topic that I have written about personally in my journals and shared with some family and friends. The topic is anxiety. This week, I have felt my anxiety issues flare up a bit, and thought that instead of taking to my journal and getting through this anxiety, I would write about it on my blog. Initially, I thought this would be one post about my anxiety. As I began writing about this subject, I realized that one post would just be way too long. I have broken up the post into a series of posts for readability.


For a little over two years now, I have dealt with anxiety. When it first started, the anxiety hit me really heavy - kind of like a piano falling on my head. For weeks, I had problems sleeping because that's when my anxiety would kick up. Apparently, that little hamster running on the wheel in my head didn't like to sleep at night. Thoughts would race and race through my head. One minute I would be peacefully sleeping, the next minute I would be lying there completely paralyzed with thoughts of fear and doubt running through my mind. My anxiety seemed to be worse at night because I actually had time to slow down enough for everything to hit me and come crashing down on me.

This affected me for weeks. I couldn't sleep through the night. My muscles were cramping and tightening making me feel like I was having a heart attack or stroke. I actually had Chas take me to the hospital at 2 am because I was convinced something was wrong. The ER doc passed me with a good bill of health (except for needing to lose some weight) and treated me for a pulled muscle in my neck. The more my anxiety would bother me, the more my body would react to it. The more my body would react to the anxiety, the worse the anxiety would get. On top of all of that, the start of my new job coincided with the onset of this anxiety.

At times I thought I was going crazy. The darkness seemed to envelop me. How could my job be so high-paced and busy during the day and yet I still wasn't sleeping well enough at night to keep anxiety away? I didn't know what to do. Anxiety attacks night after night were really beginning to take their toll on me. I didn't know where to begin. Would I ever get over this anxiety? What was making me this anxious? Would I ever sleep through the night again? There had to be some sort of relief somewhere.

Check back tomorrow as I share how I recognized what triggered my anxiety.

2 comments:

  1. First of all... I love the picture on this post! Second, thank you for your honesty. I said a prayer for you this morning...

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  2. Thank you! Prayers are always graciously accepted and appreciated. Blessings!

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