Anxiety

Do you ever get that twisted heaviness in your gut and chest?

Like you’ve swallowed lead and your lungs can’t seem to get air?

Your heart is suddenly out of control — not just fast, but urgent.

You can feel it in your whole body. You are at once floating, spinning and intensely aware of the throbbing in your throat. Breathing is like a physical stutter trying to finish the breath you just can’t get.

And you’re raw. Nerves overloaded and stretched so thin you KNOW at any moment you’re about to just fucking snap and lose it.

On the outside you’ve suddenly got the ‘mask’ on.

Maybe you’re smiling. You may even be laughing or telling a joke. But suddenly your internal world is spiraling into chaos. Your mouth is dry. The edges of reality are hazy, blurry.

You’re watching yourself from the outside.

Watching yourself wearing the mask.

And while the marionette of you keeps performing to the room, YOU are now somehow stuck outside the theater of your own mind.

Laughter is hollow.

Colors are grayscale.

Somebody just accidentally mentioned your worst fear, your deepest insecurity, and now you know that it was somehow a message about you. Or perhaps you can feel ‘that’ pain again. It’s still there and despite what anyone says, you fucking know it’s bad.

Your internal narrative has taken over.

You’re stuck in the trenches again, plodding and churning the shit-infested mud of your thoughts, the same ones you’ve trodden a million times before and now you can’t even think properly. You can’t think of anything else.

There’s no escape. How do you run from the inside your own head? How do you stop thoughts? Why are you so fucking broken?

You suddenly realize that there will never be an escape, an end to this.

The snare tightens.

Another wave hits.

You feel that whole body flush anew — like someone pulled a plug on reality and you’re draining from face down through your toes.

Before you know it, you’re stepping backwards out of your own body, don’t even feel like you’re attached to yourself. You’re about to die. Can’t breathe. Need to run. To escape. You’re sure everyone can tell you’re about to freak out but you’re trapped. The puppet you is still dancing, but the part of you who’s watching is wondering who’s pulling the strings? Who’s running the show?

Eventually the waves of panic pass.

Depending on how bad it was, you might be left mopping up the consequences, explaining, rationalizing — cheeks burning. But at least this episode is over.

Yet even when the ‘attack’ has gone, you’re still stuck in a nightmare. You’re sure it’s just going to happen again because deep down you know it’s inevitable, maybe you even deserve it. That fundamentally you’re just shit and God or the Universe is about to punish you somehow. And that dread just never leaves you. It’s killing you, one little slice at a time.

Ever felt something like that?

The words are still inadequate, a poor interpretation that can’t possibly do justice to the experience for someone who doesn’t suffer from an anxiety disorder or hasn’t experienced panic attacks.

If you’ve never experienced it, you will probably struggle to understand how anxiety can pick the pocket of your life until all the shiny and joyful things are gone — until all that’s left amongst the lint and empty fabric or your life are either bleak heavy dark things, or pointy sharp ones, waiting to cut and bite.

It’s very very destructive and at its extreme, it’s downright dangerous.

And the evidence is pretty clear: we are currently in an anxiety epidemic.

Suffering from anxiety isn’t just a transient feeling. An anxiety disorder is a persistent, pervasive, dysfunctional and self-sustaining algorithm played out between our thoughts and our emotions without our knowing why.

Once it takes hold, it creates debilitating symptoms that keep us trapped in a seemingly inescapable feedback loop. It is a relentless storm, a specter that haunts every corner of existence. Yet, despite its invasive nature, it remains one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized conditions of our time. Somehow, despite the huge numbers of other people suffering from this insidious affliction, it is almost always hidden and we almost always face it alone.

Why? Why are we so reluctant to reach out? To get help? This lack of understanding is a key element of the stigma that perpetuates a cycle of suffering, silence, shame, guilt and often, unbearable loneliness.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, your anxiety can’t be healed while it remains hidden. And I promise you, it CAN get better.

But the first step in recovering from anxiety, in my view, before any practical advice and behavioral hacks, is emotionally connecting with three important statements:

1. You are not alone.

2. It’s not your fault.

3. You can get better.

If nothing else resonates with what I’ve written, let that last one be your mantra of the day. You CAN get better.

How do I know this? Because I’m a recovering fearaholic. I’ve spent years suffering through perpetual anxiety — just like the last line of that opening poem, ‘life not lived, little deaths’.

And while I still sometimes get anxious, it no longer consumes my life. If I get anxious, I now have the tools to manage it — well maybe 98% of the time anyway.

In future articles I will explore my journey, thoughts, lessons and methods I’ve used to help with managing anxiety. But for now, remember — you’re not alone. Your anxiety is valid. And most importantly, there’s hope.

Allow yourself to face the shadows, to seek help, to reach out and step by step, move towards a future where the weight of anxiety is lifted. Not by the erasure of its existence, but by removing the stigmas and distorted beliefs that give your anxiety a place to hide.

Knowledge is power, and understanding your secret and hidden relationship to your anxiety and how to break out of that pattern is the key to recovery.

Suffering from panic attacks and anxiety right now?

Why not try one of my favorite ‘go-to’ meditations when panic starts to overwhelm you. Find somewhere quiet and put on some headphones while Stephan Pende Wormland guides you to a safe space on Insight Timer: Emergency Meditation For Panic Attacks