My Shaking Leg
My first anxiety attack forced me to the ground. It grasped hold of my body with angry hands and refused to let go; I was no longer in control, terror was.
It ripped my breath away and scared the absolute shit out of me. I remember collapsing on the floor and curling up in the fetal position, trying my hardest to breathe but feeling like the harder I tried, the more evading that precious oxygen was.
My trembling hands clutched at my head because of the agony from a splitting headache. I sobbed harder than I ever had in my entire life, and that, mixed with the dizziness from inhaling zero oxygen, made me feel like knives were slicing through my skull. My mind was cloudy with worry and I couldn’t wave the fog clear. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. I felt like I was going to die, the terror was that profound.
I remember spitting livid words at myself.
“You are worthless. Take control of yourself. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Sadly enough, telling myself I was worthless was quite the regular occurrence, so it didn’t even register as an insult. These sentences swirled through my brain on an endless loop due to equal parts depression and anxiety.
Even when I was not actively having an anxiety attack, my anxiety made me forget reasons for living.
The intense emotional turmoil that bleeds from anxiety makes me forget everything but pain: emotional, mental, and physical.
Even today, when I can say that my anxiety attacks are more of a distant memory than a recent one, you will be hard-pressed to see me without my right leg shaking, especially in public. People will point it out to me and ask me to stop, and I wish I could, but I can’t. Undoubtedly, two minutes after forcing myself to stop, My leg will start rattling again.
How do I tell my body to stop moving when it has been in a near constant state of fight or flight for three years?
Interestingly, my body is basically in a constant state of truth. I can’t hide how comfortable I am in any given situation. If I am completely relaxed and calm, my leg will possibly stop shaking on good days. If it stops, I have convinced my body it is safe, at least for the immediate moment. On the flip side, there are times when I actually literally have to look at my leg while it is shaking and tell it to calm down for it to finally stop.
Other times, if I feel like there might me a threat, my body will be unable to calm down, and the shaking becomes adamant.
When I was in the throes of anxiety and depression, I hated my mind. My depression made me think almost exclusively self-degrading thoughts, and my anxiety made me continuously mull and worry over those “facts” about myself every single waking moment. I couldn’t even find solace in sleep because I would have these awful dreams about my rapists hauling me back into that same awful room.
When anxiety and depression were co-inhabiting my mind, it made life excruciatingly difficult. I am glad that I was given the resources I needed to help gain more control of both, and had family that was willing to be understanding and patient. I honestly could not have done it without you guys, so to you, I offer a sincere and ginormous “Thank You.” It has been a long journey, and I couldn’t have gotten this far if I hadn’t taken that first step with your help.
