The BO(d)Y Who Cries Wolf
The crippling effects of Chronic Anxiety
It’s another usual tropical day where I live in Sri Lanka. The Sun is out and the rays are steaming through the White clouds in a stunning Blue sky background, the Birds are busy chirping and flying around looking for food or just that one Lucky well dressed executive to crap on, People on the roads getting from or to one place or the other, looking important while trying to accomplish the day’s tasks as quickly as possible, vehicles with drivers who are preoccupied with the many thoughts ranging from what to eat for breakfast and what did I eat last night to how am I going to pay the lease this month and why is that guy looking at me.
Overall, it’s a pretty ordinary day and I too am going about my day, working at job that I have come to hate but have to keep because I need the money, listening to my boss micromanage everything at office from the Biscuits and the Bar stools to the cash flow and recruitment, keeping myself from telling some of the people I work with how fucking stupid they are…only to realise that…I have become one of them over the past 3 years. I nod here, I smile there, make some small talk and try to settle down in my seat for the day, because my office is now an open office with hot seating. I open up the laptop, open my email and start jotting down my ‘to do’ list for the day.
And then BAM! Simultaneously out of nowhere and also building up gradually, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of unease, my neck feels stiff, my throat feels tight, my muscles start tingling and my stomach feels like its going to dissolve. And when I have just managed to track down most of the physical symptoms the brain fog starts moving in, clouding my vision both literally and figuratively. It feels like a curtain in closing in front of me, preventing me from observing all those things that I described before. Just when I think that things can’t get any worse the heart palpitations kick in, as if to remind me that ‘no matter whatever the fuck is going on, if my heart stops, its all fucked!’. All this happens in a matter of seconds and I am now sitting, staring aimlessly into space with Two fingers on my wrist, waiting for my pulse to stop any moment now.
If you have not guessed it by now, I was having another one of my ‘Anxiety episodes’, and yes I call them episodes because they have been recurring. Unfortunately, unlike the ones I watch on Netflix, I don’t enjoy whatever the fuck this series is about. I hate this feeling of being helpless as to what I am feeling and not being able to figure out what is going on and what to do, to make it all stop. The physicality of the episodes are so intense, I feel like its all just going to end at any moment and that I need to say goodbye to my Mother and my Dog and my Girlfriend and to whatever is left on my ‘give a fuck’ list, and mind you this is a very short list now. I have been to the Emergency room or the OPD so many times during the last couple of months, because I was convinced that I was having a heart attack or some other kind of serious issue that needed immediate medical attention, or I would Die.
The thing with anxiety and panic attacks is, the brains does not know the difference between the actual thing and the imagination. So it does what its supposed to do, which is get into a fight or flight mode. And because my anxiety triggers so many different sensations in my body I guess the brain has no option other than to shut things down, in order to protect itself from overheating (I am not an expert on this shit, I am just expressing how it all feels). Every little sensation both physical and mental is so damn intense that it makes everything else around you disappear and irrelevant, all that matters in that moment is my survival…or what I have discovered, the survival of my Ego.
..this Ego trip is another aritcle, for another day. For now, let me just sit through my anxiety…trying to take slow and deep breaths to calm my nerves…while thinking about when the next episode will strike…
