Anxiety
I have had anxiety problems since I was a little kid, especially in instances when I'm left alone. It's why I have to play music loudly and why I need to listen to radio or television shows while doing work. There's certain things that I'll listen to over and over again: certain books on tapes or movies or episodes of TV shows. They're all things that I've listened to so many times, that I know exactly what will happen next, so I don't need to pay attention to speakers too often to know what's going on in the plot. The constant stream of human voices is relaxing, but I also need it. That's right, I'd readily admit, I need to watch Season Two of The Office to stay sane when I'm alone.
When I talk about anxiety, by the way, I don't mean that sense of worry that you get if you might not make a bus and will be late meeting a friend for lunch at Legal Seafood. In recent years, especially since starting college, my anxiety has descended on me as a physical force. I'll be sitting on my bed reading a magazine and minding my own business when I'll suddenly feel cold dripping down my back, like someone just dumped an entire bucket of iced salt-water over my head. I get jittery when the ice flow travels over my stomach. I begin to start shaking, tiny shivers going into larger shivers going into full body quakes that I can't really suppress. Nights like tonight I feel my heart beating fast in my chest and I feel physical pain, especially in my abdominal area, muscles over or around my chest and stomach spasm, sending me into more strange sporadic shivering fits.
This past year has been better. I can't say that I'm constantly crippled every week by a horribly childish fear that I'm going to be abandoned and alone for the rest of my life while trying to buy soft-serve from a fake Mr. Softie or trying on pants at the Gap or somewhere else where having a complete mental breakdown is mortifying and actually really, really weird. It's instances like tonight when I'm cocooned in what seems like twenty down quilts and in pain and tired, exhausted, that I remember that this isn't something that just goes away. But it's gotten better.
When I talk about anxiety, by the way, I don't mean that sense of worry that you get if you might not make a bus and will be late meeting a friend for lunch at Legal Seafood. In recent years, especially since starting college, my anxiety has descended on me as a physical force. I'll be sitting on my bed reading a magazine and minding my own business when I'll suddenly feel cold dripping down my back, like someone just dumped an entire bucket of iced salt-water over my head. I get jittery when the ice flow travels over my stomach. I begin to start shaking, tiny shivers going into larger shivers going into full body quakes that I can't really suppress. Nights like tonight I feel my heart beating fast in my chest and I feel physical pain, especially in my abdominal area, muscles over or around my chest and stomach spasm, sending me into more strange sporadic shivering fits.
This past year has been better. I can't say that I'm constantly crippled every week by a horribly childish fear that I'm going to be abandoned and alone for the rest of my life while trying to buy soft-serve from a fake Mr. Softie or trying on pants at the Gap or somewhere else where having a complete mental breakdown is mortifying and actually really, really weird. It's instances like tonight when I'm cocooned in what seems like twenty down quilts and in pain and tired, exhausted, that I remember that this isn't something that just goes away. But it's gotten better.