A letter to Panic

Dear Anxiety,

I know you think you're 'helping' me. I understand that you are an essential, primitive force that we owe our very evolution and existence to. You have been able to keep us safe by telling our bodies 'something is wrong' for approximately 200,000 years.

Perhaps, I guess, you're still right about that. Something is wrong. I just didn't realise and I tried to ignore it. But you didn't let me.

Instead I am now subject to your infamous daily bouts of dizziness, light handedness, disorientation, mood swings, nausea and hypochondria to name a few. My job is at risk, subsequently my livelihood because for some reason you don't think it's a good idea' to leave the house and, when we do, you make it such an ordeal that really, I wish i hadn't.

I also have the sole responsibility of raising my 3 year old daughter which you make almost unbearable with my inability to focus on being with her in the moment, as I try and distract myself from the physical and physiological warfare you have created for me.

I also now understand that it's not your fault. I actually asked you to come into my life. It's crazy isn't it? with every negative thought I entertained. Negative thoughts mostly about myself and less than ideal life circumstances that I felt were a direct reflection on me as a human being and subsequently my self worth.

In the end I just switched off from it all. It became too hard....too difficult to bare and instead, I focused on the sick feeling in my stomach that never went away. I focused on the tiredness in my bones, in my head and in my heart. Complete exhaustion at the prospect of being so alone with so much to battle.

Having a baby as a single mother wasn't the only reason I was alone,  it was also because I had shut myself off from the rest of the world. I had shut myself off from my feelings and so I no longer existed as an active participant in the world around me. The rabbit hole began to get bigger and deeper.

I get it. How could you not have thought something was wrong?

You're now lending me the physical chemistry to battle my enemy but I can't find them. I am literally unable to locate what I should be fighting or running from.

Every day I'm suffocating. I can't breath. I hurry to take another breath to ensure that it comes to me just as the last but by doing so I then begin to hyperventilate.  I am on edge, my nerves as as electrified as a lightening bolt and with the hint of anything stimulating, my senses interpret it as 'harmful'. Noise, commotion, bustling streets, bright lights have all become fear inducing and are to be avoided at all costs.

Sincerely
Elizabeth