It’s always checkmate. Before you even know how to play your pieces, it has you cornered. Three moves ahead of you and ready to take more pieces. No matter how hard you try and think your way out of the corner that you have been pushed into, it has you in checkmate. It would be so simple to just move the pieces out of the way into safety, but its queen looms above your pawn and the pawn cowers and awaits the damage to be done. There is nowhere to hide. Certain doom. It’s all certain doom so why even try?
This is how it feels to have anxiety. I try over and over again to explain what it feels like to be in a constant state of alarm, but maybe some people have suffered hearing loss because no one seems to hear what I am saying. “Just think of something else,” “you’re overreacting,” “that would NEVER happen,” “where the heck did you get that idea from?,” “just distract yourself.” The “cures” for my ongoing problem seem to stack above me like the Empire State Building. So many obvious answers that I must be incapable of seeing. Ah, of course, why not think about something else?! If only it were that simple. Make the thoughts go away and shove them into a small vacation home in Cancun. Hasta luego. In theory, that seems so easy and so doable...if you, of course, don’t have anxiety.
Anxiety, as defined by the dictionary, is “feelings of anxiety and fear, where anxiety is a worry about future events and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a racing heart and shakiness.” People with anxiety disorders feel constantly on edge, even when there is no present danger. I can’t just “think away” the thoughts. They come again and again and again, and I fear the worst. Somedays it’s so bad that I want to lay in bed all day and avoid people and leaving the house. And even worse than the anxiety is the panic attack that might accompany it. It comes when you’re so stressed and anxious over something that you feel like your chest has been closed up. Your stomach turns over and over like how you turn in your sleep at night because the thoughts make it hard to sleep. You throw up and shake and can’t think clearly because all you can focus on is that terrible thing that is going to happen.
I don’t even know when it exactly started. I’ve always been a bit high strung, but when I started having issues eating, sleeping, and focusing, I knew I had a problem. Yet, anxiety isn’t treated with the same concern that other disorders are. If I told my boss that I had the flu, they would have me stay home immediately. If I call in and say I’m having anxiety, I’m expected to suck it up and come to work. It’s not something that I can just turn off. I can make myself look calm on the outside, but on the inside the tornado of “what if's” is spinning viciously and eating up whatever positivity I have left. Small waves of problems grow into giant tsunamis, growing power over me as they come closer to the surface. A helpless bystander, I stand along the shore, waiting for the destruction that is to come my way. A self-fulfilling prophecy. But at least if I see it coming, it’ll hurt less, right?
