Making sense of it.

I’ve had some wine tonight, so maybe that will help me finally write this.

I started writing a blog post about everything concerning my anxiety disorder back in May, but never felt like I could finish writing it. It was an extremely personal topic, and I felt myself constantly reading over what I wrote and thinking, “Is this too personal? Too much detail than I should share? Do I want everybody knowing about this?”

But I had a conversation the other week when I saw my best friend in Nashville. We were having a stressful day, but laughing about it. I apologized though, saying, “I feel like I was a total disaster when you last saw me too, and I guess at least it’s not as bad as last time, but I’m sorry!”

But we talked about that, and how I’m definitely doing much better now in terms of my anxiety disorder. I’m past that point in life where I’m having daily and nightly panic and anxiety attacks. And part of that is simply because even though I’m still battling with my anxiety, I’m at least no longer spending every day thinking that I’m dying.

I’m not going to go into specifics about every event leading up to my diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, nor will I go into too much detail about my struggles post-diagnosis.

But what I will say is that I did a lot of research. I found that it’s extremely common in GAD to have these frequent anxiety & panic attacks in relation to HEALTH, and even DEATH.

To quickly sum it up for you, I spent about two & a half months spending every day thinking that something was severely wrong with me that would quickly lead to death. I never once had thoughts of suicide, but I often had concerns about just dying suddenly. Sometimes it would be something as small as tingly fingers that turned into the belief that I was about to having a heart attack. Other times, it was a lump in my throat that prevented me from taking a deep breath that I was convinced would stop my breathing. I spent MONTHS going to the doctor. From eye appointments to neurologist appointments, I wanted to be fully checked out. I spent so much money on doctors visits, to which I’m still paying off now. But I felt I needed these.

Despite having an EEG and MRI done, I still felt crippled by this fear of death. I had issues on and off anxiety medication, but one thing remained consistent: I spent almost every day for two and a half months convinced that I was about to die.

I know it sounds incredibly silly, but it was out of my control. My anxiety took over, and I even spent my entire graduation ceremony convinced that I might die directly before I walked across that stage, or directly after. I felt more worried than excited about graduating because I felt I wouldn’t live through the ceremony.

Once again, I know — it sounds silly. But I was in full-blown-uncontrollable-panic that was extremely hard to control.

At that time, I also had a hard time being alone. I truly needed to have people around me at all times because I was convinced that if I was alone, I would die.

I took a walk around my neighborhood tonight by myself. Although I’ve been thinking of it often, tonight’s walk was a reminder of how different life is now:

I’m no longer spending each day with anxiety or panic attacks. I’m no longer spending each day convinced I’m about to die. I’m no longer at that point of feeling as though my anxiety is so crippling and overpowering that I can’t be alone or control it by myself.

I guess that I don’t have much to say at this point about how I got to where I am, or what helped me turn around those thoughts. I mostly think it was time, family, and possibly distraction through my art.

I read a quote today that in an odd way, gave me some good perspective from my whole situation.

“Death is always in the process of incubating new life, even when one’s existence has been cut down to the bones.”

I can’t necessarily tell you why, and it doesn’t necessarily make me fear death less, but I feel as though it shined a light in an area that I needed. And I’m glad.

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