My hands sweat and I feel it: the tear and tug in my chest as I try to control my breathing. Heat builds up inside me and I feel dizzy as I try to stay standing. My body trembles, especially my hands, and then I start thinking. The world seemed to shift around me. Inhale and exhale around me. Yet I stood still. Fear and worry consumed my mind and I wondered if I would ever be able to move, or if I would always be stuck there. Just…standing. At the same time, I wondered what happened.
How could I be fine one minute and scared out of my mind the next? It sounds terrible, but I secretly hoped something did happen. I wished someone had yelled at me, insulted me, or pushed me, by accident or not, because then I would I have an excuse to be like this. Without an excuse, I’m just panicking for no reason. I know people have it worse, so when nothing happened to me I feel even more guilty. I criticize myself more than anyone else could. Millions of insults, worries, and thoughts run around my mind. Like in an episode of Spongebob, when tons of Spongebobs were racing around his mind, throwing papers, setting fires, and screaming. However, this is nothing compared to the physical effects.
I’m surprised no one shouted, “She has a gun!” Since my hands were sweating bullets and my twitching body must have looked insane. I felt as if my skin was on fire, despite the fact that I usually wore only one layer of clothing. That one layer of clothing was light and I should’ve felt as free as a bird in it, but for some reason I felt like a prisoner.
My hands attached themselves around my throbbing neck. Unfortunately, my neck wasn’t the only thing in pain. I knew what was happening, because this always happened. A knot would start in my stomach and my mind would try to brush it off, as if I ate something bad, but in the back of my mind, alarms were going off because I could sense what was coming. Next, the knot would tighten and travel up to my chest, setting off a burning, tingling feeling. Soon enough the tightness in my chest would spread up to my neck, tricking my mind into thinking I can’t breathe, and forcing my hands to latch onto my throat.
If you‘re thinking I’m exaggerating, I’m not. If you think I’m being dramatic, I most certainly am. My mind always knew better, I always knew I was freaking out for little or no reason. Most of the time, I wasn’t in any real danger, yet my mindset would switch to the “fight or flight” mode and my stomach would start to twist. I knew. I knew. I knew and I know that I was always being dramatic.
Yet that solves nothing. Knowing, simply isn’t enough. Knowing it’ll be okay, knowing I’m fine, knowing I’m safe…does nothing. Yes, it’s good to know these things but it does nothing more. After a while, knowing these things backfires. It becomes annoying to know you’re okay, but to have a body that’s too stubborn to change its ways. I start to feel guilty for feeling any and every emotion, because I end up thinking I shouldn’t have the right to feel them. Just because I’m technically “okay”.
I’ve barely brushed the surface of this – and I’m only describing my view. People love to assume, to guess, and don’t bother to see if they’re right or wrong, because they’ll just assume they’re right. However, I can tolerate this. What I can’t stand is when people sling their arm around me as I’m internally screaming, and they say, “I know exactly what you’re feeling,” but they show absolutely no signs of that being true. I want to curse at them, ask them how. “How could you possibly know?” I want to see their jaw drop as they try to come up with an answer. I want to shake my fists at them and glare with teary eyes.
But I don’t. I don’t do any of this and I never had. Instead, I usually just nod my head because I can hardly form a single sentence at this state. By now, I can say I feel like I’m dying. Logically, I know that this isn’t true, but then again, knowing this doesn’t aid me in anyway. Therefore, I am stuck. Stuck in one place with fear tugging on my sleeve, trying to think of what to do, if I could do anything at all by myself.
Eventually, I would wipe my hands on my jeans, and stand up if I was sitting. Eventually, I would be able to ignore my screaming brain and I would walk away. Maybe a person or two would reach out to me, most of them care, but there are some people who just don’t understand and sometimes I can’t blame them.
Although, even if I walk, run, or sprint, the feeling is always there. That tremble in my hands, that pit in my stomach, and that aching pain in my muscles. I’ve learned to get used to the feeling of nausea and clammy hands, but I can never just ignore it. Sure, I’ll lie to myself and say I feel nothing, but the constant worry is there, glaring holes in the back of my head as it watches me, even as I write this. The ever so quiet dread that would hang over me is always there, pulling me down, refusing to let me step out of my house and forcing me to cancel whatever plans I had. The nervousness, that most people get when standing on stage, meeting a celebrity, or giving a speech is there too. However, my nervousness is like the Big Bad Wolf, with large claws and enormous teeth. The nervousness is the doubt, the fear, and the guilt.
The nervousness is anxiety, and this is what it feels like when it attacks me.
Sinnamon Tongue 