Anxiety is for the birds...and apparently me

First your heart starts speeding up as if your jogging, even though youre standing still. Your hands and forehead start sweating as if you just stepped into the bathroom after somone has taken a long hot shower. Your heart gets faster, and faster until your mind can no longer keep up with its' beat. Your words start trembling like you are nervous, only, to your own knowledge you are perfectly fine. Your legs are shaking as if at any minute they will betray your steady stance. Breathing becomes difficult as you try and grab onto every breath just a little bit longer. The oxygen shortage to your brain causes you get dizzy, and just as everything starts going black you realize you are having a panic attack.

Panic attacks are brought on by stress and anxiety. If you have never had one before, then consider yourself lucky. I started getting them my junior year in high school. They have been few and far between until this past year. Things have been so hectic and chaotic lately that I find myself having them all too often. After one, it is almost hard to regain your composure. You cant go back to just drawing, writing, painting, singing...anything you were doing before the attack is lost. Your mind shuts down as if searching for a quiet place to run to, just to get away from all the silent noise. In some cases, my own included, being hugged is a faster way to rid an attack rather then just waiting it out. However, panic attacks do not always pop up when you conveniently are around people. There have been several times that I have had them in public, like bookstores, Wal-Mart, the mall, school. And fewer times where I have had them with people nearby.

What causes anxiety is different for every person. And more often then not, to a normal person the reasoning seems a little absurd. Ive known people who have bad anxiety for the most irrational of reasons: people not washing their hands, having clutter on their desk, people excessively texting them, quirks that other people have...things like that. Personally, my anxiety is caused by high emotion to situations, and impatience.

High emotion: I am for the most part, a very happy person. My nature is to be spirited if attainable. However, I am also probably somewhat bipolar in that I have really high highs, and really low lows. I don't have alot of the in between moments. I get anxiety from high amounts of emotion, whether it be highs OR lows. If I am excited about something, sad/mad about something, or stressed to the max about school, work, family, or love then I am at high risk for panic attacks because of the anxiety those situations bring.

Impatience: I HATE waiting. Waiting is my absolute number one anxiety-causer (for lack of a better, or even real, word). If I am waiting for a date to show up at my door, if I am waiting for a concert that is 2 weeks away, if I am waiting for a teacher to hand back tests that were taken days before, if I am on the other line listening to the phone ring 4 times WAITING for the other person to finally pickup, if I am physically parked somewhere waiting on someone to show up, if I am waiting on a decision to be made that is going to affect me in some way, if I am waiting for a response to a text message...all of these things absolutely send me over the edge. The first paragraph that I wrote up there, well times that by 10 and when I have to WAIT on one of these things that is exactly how I am feeling. It is the absolute worst feeling in the entire world. And I am open for suggestions if ANY one knows how to stop it.

Sometimes it feels like it is controlling my life, like I am in a dark hole waiting for someone to pull me out. Actually, it feels more like I am drowning, and am waiting to come above water so I can take a giant breath of fresh air and just RELAX. I don't feel I choose to be this way,if I honestly felt I had the choice to not have anxiety I would do whatever it takes. However, I feel like my body is programmed to run this way physically without an ounce of knowledge from my brain. Literally, sometimes I am walking along during a beautiful day, humming a great song and BOOM panic attack. So see, for those of you who think it is a choice or a reaction, I think you are wrong. Why would anyone CHOOSE to feel this way everyday?