Anxiety.

I saw this picture while scrolling through instagram the other day.  It made me think of how often someone's experiences can comfort someone else.  It can make someone feel normal.  It can make someone feel not alone.  It can ease someone's fear.

If you know me, you know that I am NOT private.  I do NOT get embarrassed. I am the FIRST one to make fun of myself and my "issues".  And I am QUITE the oversharer.

Well.  I found the one thing that I DO get embarrassed by.  Anxiety attacks.

If you are rolling your eyes or thinking I am being overdramatic, then this post isn't for you.  I already worry about people talking about my writing and thinking I'm being dumb.  Just don't read it then.

While this is not necessarily a post about adoption, a lot of people going through the adoption process deal with quite a bit of anxiety.  I've dealt with anxiety since I was in college.  I've only had a few anxiety attacks in my life.  To someone without anxiety, I know how it sounds.  "Just calm down, it's not that bad."  "Take a deep breath." "Don't be so dramatic, everything is fine."  If it were that easy, we would just do that.

A little over a month ago, I had the worst two anxiety attacks I've had in my life.  While I was going through them, I googled everything I could think of to find someone with the same symptoms:  "what does an anxiety attack feel like?" "anxiety attack for no reason."  "Walk me through an anxiety attack."  I found plenty of scientific responses and medical responses, but not many stories I could relate to.  I am hoping to be someone's story to relate to.  I'm just going to write this as best I can.

For a few days; I was having shortness of breath, chest pain, and some tingling in my left arm.  Obviously this worried me.  It wasn't bad enough that I felt like I needed to go to the ER, so I talked to my mom and a friend of mine who both deal with anxiety.  They assured me that's what it was.  The problem with having anxiety is that those symptoms are the same symptoms that happen during an anxiety attack.  In the past, I could pinpoint exactly why I was having an anxiety attack.  That's what seemed weird about this one - I didn't feel stressed or anxious about anything in particular - except for my symptoms now. Over the next few days, everything started feeling worse.  And one evening, this is what happened.

This is the really embarrassing part for me..... the things I was thinking that sound absurd.  Here are the thoughts that went through my head:  Am I going to be that rare case of a 34 year old who dies of a heart attack?  Should I go to the ER?  Alice is going to live without a mother because I didn't go to the ER.  If I go to the ER, will they think I am dumb?  I am 98% sure that I am having an anxiety attack, but what if it's not?!  If someone could tell me for sure it was anxiety, I would feel better.  Mike is out of town, so if I die in my sleep, no one will be here and Alice will find me.

This is where I don't think people that don't have anxiety understand.  As I type that, it sounds stupid to me in THIS moment.  But when your body is acting out of the ordinary and you're scared, all of those thoughts are 100% real and absolutely terrifying.

Well, as you can imagine, thinking those thoughts makes everything worse.  I couldn't catch my breath, I was crying, and my heart was beating out of my chest.  I called a friend to take me to the ER.  Luckily, they didn't make me feel stupid.  They tested everything as if I was having a heart attack.  They gave me some medicines to calm me down and ease my anxiety.  About an hour later, I was much calmer.  They ran all kinds of labs to be SURE it was anxiety.  They also recommended I see a cardiologist, just to be safe (or to ease my anxiety - not sure which).  I went home and took more medication to continue easing my anxiety and went to bed.

The next evening, the same exact thing happened again.  The same thoughts:  What id they missed something at the ER?  What if it's really a heart attack this time?  

Again, I was terrified and hysterical.

But this time, I was able to have a friend come over to take my blood pressure and pulse and help take care of Alice while I took medication to feel better.  She ensured me that I was okay and nothing was wrong with my heart and, again, it was anxiety.

So what did cause these?  I still don't know.  It could be from ongoing trauma/depression from our failed adoption situation in March that I was unaware was even there.  It could be from the stress of waiting for our second adoption.  It could have nothing to do with adoption at all.  I have no idea.

Since both of these attacks happened, I have tried to take care of myself as best I can.  I think that tends to be the problem with anxiety sometimes.  People think they are being stupid and, in retrospect, maybe don't see it as big of a deal.  So, they don't get help.  They don't get medication.  And when it happens again, it's worse.  

I am not ashamed to say that I take anxiety medicine every day.  It's such a taboo thing in society, and people are so worried about being seen as weak or stupid or dramatic (including me).  It needs to not be.  

I hope that someone who needs to read this finds it.  If I could have found a blog like this, it might have helped me.  Or it might not have.  But I would have known I was not alone.

Again,  I didn't write this to be dramatic.  I didn't write this for anyone to even tell me they read it.  I wrote the story of the mountain I climbed (am climbing) in hopes to be a page in someone's survival guide.