How does it feel?

Your heart is fluttering – it feels as if it is beating a little harder, a little faster than normal. This only happens when something goes wrong, something you forgot to do, something you forgot to say. You have to figure out what it is or else something bad could happen! What could it be!? Let’s think..

Did you remember to close the garage? Lock the front door? Turn off the stove? – Yes, yes, and yes!

Well, what about that research report, did you re-read it again for the umpteenth time to check for any passive sentences? You know your advisor hates it when you have passive sentences! How do you NOT learn?!
*Heart starts beating even harder now*
Don’t give it to him yet, turn it in late, look for those grammar errors. Maybe he won’t remember that you said you will give it to him today. Yeah, do that, read it again.
*mentally changing topic to hopefully stop the heart fluttering* And I can’t believe you stupidly ate the last of the hummus. Phillip was looking for it last night and you ate.it.all. How could you eat it all?! That’s so mean! He didn’t get any of it. You deprived him of eating the hummus.
*heart now feels heavy*
You ate all the hummus and your writing sucks. You suck.”
*no more fluttering – for now*

Welcome to a normal start to a normal day.

I ask myself: This is normal right? Everyone thinks like this and they all seem to cope with it. Just ignore it and stop worrying so much.
Stop it.
Stop thinking..STOP..

It wasn’t until grad school, 3rd year, right after I bombed the biggest test of my entire graduate career – the Quals Exam – did I learn about it.

Doctor: You have generalized anxiety disorder.
Me: I do? I just worry a lot, that is all. It’s just the heart palpitations..if you can make it stop..
Doctor: Do you first plan every possible scenario of a situation? Is it hard to fall asleep sometimes because you can’t stop thinking? Does your heart feel like it is always racing? Do you worry about things out of your control? Is it hard to stop worrying about these things?
Me: *laughing sigh* Yeah, I do, but I thought it’s normal.
Doctor: Yes, but not when it is excessive and disrupts your life.

Here I thought everyone had these feelings — I guess not.

And this is where awareness of “what is anxiety in my life?” started.

I’ve been coping with it all my life, giving into the worry, fueling the fire. Since this doctor’s visit I was given medication to help with the palpitations, to help with the worry, to help me learn to constructively cope. Somedays are better than others but it is always there, it always comes back to poke me, to taunt me.

It is always there.

In starting this blog, I write down my thoughts, my worries, my darkness within. This is 100% new to me and it is scary to write down my innermost anxieties — the side no one ever sees. But I’ve found writing down my thoughts helps me to hear that tiny voice that’s rooting for me which gets drowned out by that loud anxious voice inside my head. It helps me see the positive and that everything is okay. I now write it down here for you, that maybe this will help you too – to know that you’re not alone in your negative thoughts, worries, and heart fluttering’s, and that you have a friend. I do not have all the answers or any for that matter – I am trying to figure this out just like you so be there for me and I will be there for you.

I imagine myself running through a field of wheat,
chasing after the bird of my anxiety,
trying to catch it, grasp it, hold it tight,
to stop the fluttering, to stop the fleeting fright,
to understand it, to absorb it, to make the worrying cease,
till one day I soar with it, and bring myself some peace.

This is my life. This is my story.

This is my anxiety.