Anxiety

I don't talk about it a lot, but I don't hide the fact that I suffer from anxiety on occasion, either. I don't believe in staying quiet. Part of what has helped me get better and learn coping skills has been talking about it, knowing that others in the world have the same challenges.

When I look back at College Meg, I often wonder how I functioned sometimes. When things got really stressful, I got hysterical. The crying jags, the feeling of everything being impossible. My dad would tell me, "There's no crying in baseball!" and I'd bravely try to push through...but sometimes, it was just too much. It wasn't until 2007, when I was having a really rough time of it in Antioch, that I talked to my doctor and realized that I had been dealing with anxiety for several years. The catalyst was when I woke up one morning, completely stressed about everything that was going on at work, feeling that if I went to work that day, I might not make it through the day without completely losing control of my emotions. I called an advice nurse, who told me, "You sound like you're having a panic attack. Let me get you in to see your doctor."

Me? Panic attacks? What?

I suppose anxiety manifests itself in different ways for different people. For me, it's a feeling of dread, nervous energy and a strong belief that I simply cannot do what needs to be done. My heart rate accelerates and I have to focus on taking deep breaths to stay calm. After my doctor visit in 2007, I got Xanax to take on an as-needed basis, and that helped stave off the panic attacks.

What has really helped me in the long run (and I'm not saying this would help everyone, but it has worked a lot for me, personally) has been getting into better physical shape. Not just losing the weight, but actually being able to get up and move. In the past couple of years, as I've lost my medical coverage and had to go a lot of things on my own, I've noticed that I can rein myself in from having an all-out panic attack by exercising. When Mom landed in the emergency room this past August with chest pains, I sat in my dining room feeling the shortness of breath and pounding heart coming...but I got up and went to the gym and before long, I wasn't having the symptoms anymore.

I am still the same hyper, emotional Meg I've always been--maybe somewhat reactionary sometimes, even--but since I've achieved a higher fitness level, I'm ever-so-slightly more Zen in how I react to life as it comes at me. Maybe all this running makes me too tired to be bothered getting stressed. Whatever it is, it's a great thing, but I'm always, always aware that being prone to anxiety is just part of who I am and that I have to be ready for it.

Yesterday, I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, after only three or so hours of sleep. I didn't sleep well again before my alarm went off at 6:30 and spent most of the early morning feeling listless and unable to focus on my normal daily tasks. As I drove to the gym to go to yoga class, I felt like crying--I have no idea what I was so upset about, to be honest--and my heart rate started getting faster. I took a few deep breaths, and realized I was near to having a panic attack. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, I don't really know, but I was bothered and out of sorts about it.

Yoga class helped, as did running, to a point. I had a rough day, running-wise. The fatigue and the state of near-panic I was still in made breathing difficult and I started cramping. When my shoelace came untied at the twenty-minute mark, I threw my hands up and said, "That's it." Then I guilted and grumped the whole two miles home, wondering how I'd explain to M. the Reasonable that I hadn't met my goal of thirty minutes.

Today, I'm better. I don't feel like crying, and my breath and my heart rate are normal. I ran on the treadmill to warm up before my appointment, and felt really good. While working with M., I told him about yesterday's bad run. To my relief, he just smiled at me and said, "There will be bad days. Not every day can be a good day." He went on to tell me that he doesn't worry about me because whenever I have a bad day, I go out the next day and push harder to have a great day. I don't have strings of bad days in a row (excepting, of course, the several days of back pain that kept me from running in December) and I don't make excuses.

"You'll go out there today and kick butt."

"I will certainly do my best. I don't quit."

I went on to explain to him that part of the problem yesterday was really just my anxiety. And here's the thing about telling people about anxiety: some people just don't get it. If you haven't had a panic attack, or held one at bay by the sheer force of your stubbornness, it's hard to know exactly what it's like. It's not something that can be fixed with a "Just calm down!" or a hug. But as I told M. what I was going through yesterday, he simply nodded, and then he amazed me by saying, "I suffer from anxiety, too."

He gets it, and that makes all the difference. Yesterday was a rough day--not a day I was going to go out there and kick butt while running. I tried--for myself, for my health--and trying, getting that physical activity, helped me in a lot of ways. I was able to calm down a little. I slept like a log last night. And any worry I had about M.'s reaction to my having a bad run (he did say, "Twenty minutes is actually not bad, you know.") due to anxiety was stamped out by his simple, I've-been-there-too understanding. And for that, I'm so very grateful.

It reminds me that I'm not the only one on this big revolving planet who deals with this stuff. None of us are ever really alone.