Anxiety hits like a storm the weather forecasters never anticipated.

It’s never predictable.

On days like these I leave my safe space without an umbrella, unaware of my impending doom. It’s not immediate, not right away, not the moment I step outside. It’s eventual. Somewhere down the line, I feel the sky falling upon me but I’m not talking fluffy clouds billowing down like pillows caressing my shoulders and softly filling the space around me.

No.

It’s collision.

It’s destruction.

It’s thunderstorms with lightning strikes that burn cities to the ground and tornadoes with no agenda other than total annihilation of the communities they touch and hurricanes that swirl and spiral and swivel like a spinning top that never stops.

The plot twist here is that the chaos is not outdoors. When panic sets in, the storm is inside me and it rattles my bones. My rib cage becomes a man-made barrier too weak to withstand nature’s course. My heart is an ocean with depth beyond imagination. It evolves into a tidal wave whose strength is powered by my innate ability to feel absolutely everything to a more intense degree than necessary. This earthquake within me reaches a magnitude meteorologists have yet to invent. It hurts to sit up straight as if my body is caving in from the pressure of the winds because in the battle between man and nature the latter always triumphs.

When they hit, I enter a frenzy. I scan my surroundings for somewhere to hide, the way a convertible with its top down might stop under an overpass until the weather lightens up. No matter where I am when anxiety strikes my instinct is to search the premises for a tunnel to shelter me from the rain but the only tunnel of sorts I come in contact with is tunnel vision. Everything around me blurs and my head spins. The world plays tricks with my eyes. It’s hazy and unfocused and dreamy.

And I question if I’m real,

if anything is real,

if anyone is real,

if the moment is real,

until real doesn’t sound like a word anymore.

I try with all my might to not focus on the palpitations of my heart because when I do so, my mind acts up. Paranoia sets in with racing ideas like oh god am I stroking out and what if this never ends because in the moment it feels that these raindrops will not recede and the thunder will never subside. My hands and feet go cold the way too much time spent playing in the snow causes a drop in overall body temperature. All I can think about at that point is I should have worn wool socks and grabbed my gloves…but unlike actual blizzards, you cannot plan for panic attacks. They happen when they happen and you make do with what you have.

But the thing to remember is that everything ends. In the midst of a panic attack I almost want to believe in a god because finiteness is a savior that brings heaven to earth when the anxious tendencies settle down. I fight the intrusive thoughts with I’m here and I’m real, I’m here and I’m real, I’m here and I’m real over and over again until I see clear skies. The thunderous boom, boom, boom quiets down over time. The sunshine pushes its way through the clouds and the resulting rainbow reminds me that salvation can come from even the darkest of times. The rays of the universe’s brightest star radiate my surroundings and I feel warmth at my core. The winds eventually slow down and my heart is back in sync with the ticking of my internal clock.

It’s been said that there is always calm prior to a storm but I promise the tranquility that follows in its aftermath is far more comforting than anything that comes before. I’ve drawn a parallel between anxiety and natural disasters for the entirety of this analogy but there is an important distinction between the two.

Anxiety is natural, but it doesn’t make you a disaster.

Even the stormiest of moments cannot destroy someone who perseveres.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You survived the tumultuous weather this time.

You always will.