A-N-X-I-E-T-Y

My world came crashing down due to a 7 letter word, a word that most people experience at some point in their lives, Anxiety. The most common type of anxiety is generalized anxiety, there is also social anxiety, severe anxiety and the one I get to claim as my own, chemical anxiety. Chemical anxiety is anxiety caused due to an imbalance in your bodies chemicals or hormones. Anxiety destroyed my life. I have now suffered with this type of anxiety for seven years, SEVEN whole years. While looking back I have had anxiety my whole life, but it didn’t affect me the way it does now. I have seen the same therapist since I was 11 years old, at the time I was misdiagnosed with bipolar. So I was seeing my therapist for bipolar, but over the years, I started to question my diagnosis as did she. When I was a freshman in high school I was told i had anxiety, at that point I wasn’t medicated because I could still function at that point outside of some minor anxiety attacks, I remember sleeping in my dads bed for two months due to anxiety at 15 years old! My senior year of high school stated as every other year did, I had lots of friends and a boyfriend. As time went on I started to get sick, at that time I had several stomach ulcers, guess what caused those ulcers…..you guessed it anxiety. I was so sick to my stomach a mixture of anxiety and ulcers, I could not attend school. I lost almost all my friends, the hardest part was wanting to have my friends in my life but also not feeling like socializing (which was extremely rare for me, I was your topical social butterfly) it also hurt that my friends didn’t try to keep in contact with me. My high school was great especially one women who went above and beyond to help me graduate. Things stated to look up, they were able to cure the ulcers and get my anxiety and depression under control by using a drug in the antihistamine drug class. vistril. A few short months after graduation, I got diagnosed with agoraphobia, and major manic depressive disorder, along with suicidal tendencies. I refused to take any medication in the benzodiazepines category for several years. My anxiety got so bad and not your normal symptoms, I had exhausted my options and started Pristq, Wellbutrin, Vistril and Xanax. I call this my happy cocktail. I was so against medication but I had no other choice, my therapist and I tried to find the triggers and causes for my anxiety with none being found, that’s when my psychiatrist told me that I had a chemical imbalances and the only way to fix it was medication. I stopped drinking caffeine and chewing gum, because those worked for other people. Nope not me. My chemicals were off balance, it had nothing todo with diet or caffeine. To this day I still don’t drink caffeine. I started chewing gum again because it Helped with the symptoms from my anxiety which we will get to soon. I tried for months to accept that I had to take medications, I was embarrassed and felt people would look down on me. I couldn’t even talk about that seven letter word. I didn’t want anyone to know I was screwed up. When I say anxiety people would just say to me stop worrying and learn to breathe, the most famous words were “you’ll be fine, your not dying” I would think to myself, WHAT? How could you say that? Have you ever had a panic attack? Have you ever felt life you were dying of a panic attack? How could you judge me when you haven’t felt what I felt? People seem to think panic attacks are hyperventilating and worrying, little do they know that is only your standard symptoms of a panic attack. What people don’t know is that panic attacks affect each person differently based on the severity and other conditions that join in on the panic attack. I have have a severe, severe phobia of throw up, like severe. Absolutely, positively afraid of throw up. Can you guess what my first symptom is when I get a panic attack, yup throwing up, nausea and dry heaves. My body temperature begins to rise, I feel like I’m on fire. Sweating bullets, while shaking, my skin is clammy and cold to the touch. My sense of smell becomes stronger and smells bother me. I feel heat waves rushing through my body, while shaking inside and out. My hands tingle and my breathing is labored, blood rushes from my toes to my head and back. sometimes I don’t think I’m breathing at all, my heart is either beating so fast I think it’s going to go into shock or skipping every other beat. My mouth waters, sometimes I even cry. Most times my body becomes so weak I can barley stand. My vision becomes cloudy and sometimes, I don’t know what’s going on around me. My head feels like it’s going to explode, I’m lightheaded, am I going to pass out, my words are broke and out of sort, chest pains, irritability, I lose all control. I can’t even think of everything I feel during a panic attack or how to put It all in words. In that very moment I want to die for all I know I am dying. Just typing this makes me a little queasy, I have had this happen in public and people stare, as I take multiple sips of water, push on my stomach so maybe it will stop hurting. Fight or flight, my body always asks and for the longest time my reaction was take flight now. I have left shopping carts full of stuff and ran out. I avoided movies and restaurants because leaving wasn’t as easy. I avoided going to far from home, home was my safe zone most of the time. When it wasn’t at least at home I was alone. I suffered theses panic attacks for the last seven years sometimes multiple times a day. Around 2 years ago my husband and I started to work on my anxiety. When I started to get a panic attack I would Work on my fight sense, “so what if I throw up in the store” we started going to restaurants, we would just ask for the bill when we got our food and To go containers, in case I had to leave, I had my services dogs with me Incase it happened. Finally my medications work together, I have my service dogs and I have a grip for now on my panic attacks, one thing I learned is that anxiety will never leave you and sometimes you can fight it and sometimes it’s going to knock you back down, it’s all about how you deal with it, get back up, don’t give up the fight. I will never be a prisoner to anxiety again. I know it’s going to come back but I’m prepared. Here now in 2019 I have very minimal panic attacks that are severe. I still have then but I’m not scared of them anymore. I have more anxiety attacks which are way less severe. They are apart of me, of who I am. I have accepted that and you should too, as Anna Clendening says with panic attacks I am never alone. Keep fighting, remember your not alone. Sometimes the people we think are the strongest hide the biggest secrets I was one of those people. You might be too! Talk about it, tell the world, telling my story not only has helped others but helped me accept what I can not change.

-Brittany