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The content presented here is for informational or educational purposes only. These are just the authors' personal opinions and knowledge.
Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

My journey through pain - 27. Chapter 27 - The pressure in my chest

There’s this pressure in my chest. This sensation of not being able to completely relax. It’s the anxiety I think. It is tolerable for a while, but when minutes become hours and hours become days and days become weeks and weeks become months, it gets a little hard to just keep going. It feels like I will be okay if I can only rest for a while, recharge batteries, let my mind recover so that I can face more hours, more days. The problem is that I can’t rest. It is not physical rest I need, but mental rest. The kind you get when you are fully immersed in a movie for a couple of hours and then, as soon as you start seeing the end credits, you sort of remember your life again, you recall the errands left in the day or whatever. It’s kind of the same sensation that you might get after first waking up.

I can’t remember the last time I had that sensation.

It seems like I live in a constant state of tension which will not let me go. I know it is me maintaining it and I am trying very hard to learn how to relax, but I still don’t know how to do it reliably. It is exhausting. I am constantly afraid, and I need to keep reminding myself that I am no longer in danger, that I am safe, that the bad things that threatened me at one point happened months ago and that I am in a different place now, literally and figuratively. This fear can be overcome if I really try, even if it takes a lot of energy to do so. However, I am also constantly afraid of being afraid, and I don’t know what to do about that. I really don’t. I have had some days when I haven’t felt as bad as I feel right now, but in the back of my mind there is always this horrible fear that the bad times will come back, and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy because the fear itself brings the bad things back.

It is so scary. I feel cornered, trapped. Like there is nowhere I can turn where the fear won’t get me. Does anxiety have an end? Does it ever really go away?

Many days have passed since my last entry here. I have been trying to get better. Each day is a battle. Some of them I even win. Other times, like today, it just feels like too much. Like all I can look forward to is fight after fight, scraping by for one more day. It’s scary. I can fight, just like I have done since all of this began, but one thought is always there: will this be the day I run out of energy? Will this be the day I’m not able to fight anymore?

I have spoken with my therapist at great length about my anxiety. I have tried, previously, to get rid of it by getting rid of the things that trigger it in the first place. I thought maybe then it would go away, but it hasn’t. It just finds something new to latch onto, like a vine that keeps climbing a wall even if you remove what you think are all possible points of support. Therefore, now, instead of obsessively trying to remove everything that might trigger the anxious feelings and the pressure in my chest, I am trying to learn how to live with it. I am trying to learn how to put it in its proper place. I’m told that, when the anxiety comes, I should just look at it curiously, accept that it’s there, and gently show it the way out. I’ve been working real hard on doing that. It’s hard, though. It requires a measure of mental clarity and calm that is not easy to come by when you’re feeling anxious and nervous and you feel like you’re in danger. It requires me to take a step back, relax, and think logically, which is diametrically opposite from what anxiety makes me want to do, which is to shrink back on myself fearfully, tense, ready to be hurt still more.

I’ve tried so many ways to try and deal with this. So many ways of approaching it, so many ways of thinking about it. The constant mental effort required to remember all of the strategies is not insignificant, however. Sometimes, like today, I can’t seem to remember any of them. I know I should distract myself but I don’t feel like doing anything but shutting myself inside my room and not going out. I won’t do that, because the prospect of not doing anything is even more terrifying somehow and the prospect of doing what needs to be done. This tosses my mind back into the whirlpool of circular anxious thoughts that refuse to go away.

I don’t like it when I feel like this. Part of my mind tells me that it will pass, that I won’t always feel this bad because I haven’t previously. Even though right now I feel as though the pain the anxiety brings will never go away, I know for a fact that it will because it has happened before. It’s just tough to really remember that while in the midst of an episode like this. All I can think of is that I want it to end, that I want the hurt to stop. I obsess about whatever triggered it, which in this case I suppose it was a couple of bad dreams that reminded me of things that I have been trying to forget. Is there no end in sight? When will this stop? I’m trying so hard to be patient like everyone tells me to be. They say I’m making progress and I kind of know I am, but right now it feels like I am not making any progress at all, like I’m back at square one. It’s a horrible sensation.

One of the things that I still haven’t learned how to cope with is what to do with myself during my free time. I suspect this is part of the reason why feel like this today. Yesterday I had a lot of free time and I didn’t know what to do. I started panicking. I have my emergency list of activities to do to try and cope with this sensation, but yesterday I was tired and all of the activities in the list are productive things, stuff like working out or doing housework or taking care of errands and so on. I realized, with growing unease which bordered on panic, that I don’t know how to just relax and, say, watch TV for an hour. It feels like I can’t. And that terrifies me because it means I am always in a state of high alert and that I can’t really relax during the day because I’m scared of the thoughts that might come with the relaxation itself.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime at my job because of this. I’d rather be busy than not. Nevertheless, I also know I can’t keep it up indefinitely because it’s starting to affect the way I feel, my energy levels, and in the end I know it will only trigger even more anxiety. What do I do, though? It might sound ridiculous, but the thought of simply plopping down on the couch to watch a movie is unbearable to me. Not only will I feel restless throughout the entire two hours, but any emotional content in whatever I am watching is sure to be deeply disturbing to me. What else do I do? I can’t focus when I try to read, even though I used to love reading.

I honestly don’t know what to do when I feel like this except keep going, hoping blindly that the pain will one day stop or at least come less frequently and hurt a little bit less. I know I’m making progress – I always try to remind myself of that. It had been a long while since I experienced a crisis like this, for example. In fact, I think that the routines I have set in place are helping me, and everyone tells me I’m doing better. I’m writing more, too – I haven’t stopped working on the story I am publishing every Monday here. Surely this is progress. I’m also sleeping better overall, even if sometimes I get bad dreams.

It’s hard to have perspective while in the middle of an episode. But it will pass, this much I know, and I need to remind myself of the fact until I believe it, until I internalize it. It will pass. It has passed before so I know it will again. I just need to be a little bit patient. I just need to believe in my own strength.

Anxiety can’t hurt me unless I let it. Anxiety has no power of its own other than the one I choose to give it. I can’t prevent it from coming, but I can change the way I act when it’s here.

There’s one thing I did which helped me. Yesterday evening, when things got bad emotionally speaking, I decided to sit down and give thanks. It’s so easy to focus on the things you don’t have when you feel bad, and so easy to take what you do have for granted. Therefore, yesterday I took some time and simply started listing the good things in my life and giving thanks for all my blessings. I discovered that there are a lot of things I should be thankful for. I realized that the anxiety, even though it looms large over my mind, is without substance, like a scary apparition that wants to trick me into believing it can hurt me when all it can do this moan and rattle in the background hoping to distract me enough, or scare me enough, that I will end up hurting myself. I gave thanks for all the people in my life, in particular. I gave thanks because, even if it hurts, I’m here, in this world, and each day I receive is a priceless gift.

Doing this helped me calm down enough to be able to sleep. I did have troubling dreams later on during the night, and I don’t feel so great today, but I’m going to try and give thanks for everything I have, I’m going to try to focus on the good things in my life rather than obsessing about the bad ones. I’m going to try and take the negative emotions with gentleness and kindness instead of with fear and rejection, and maybe then I can show them the way out. I don’t know if it will work, or when, but I will try. The one thing I haven’t been scared of doing throughout this entire journey is trying things to maybe help my heart heal.

I must keep going. There’s an entire day ahead of me.

Wish me luck.

Thank you for reading. I'm not doing too good at the moment, but I wanted to share the fact that, sometimes, counting your blessings really does help. It helped me, and maybe it can help someone else. If someone reading this feels anxiety or fear similar to the way I do, stay strong. You can get through this. We all can.

-Albert
Copyright © 2018 albertnothlit; All Rights Reserved.
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The content presented here is for informational or educational purposes only. These are just the authors' personal opinions and knowledge.
Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are based on the authors' lives and experiences and may be changed to protect personal information. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments

  • Site Administrator

I'm sorry you're struggling :hug: Are you still doing yoga?  Maybe meditation or progressive relaxation can help when you have free time, but are too tired to do something active.  I wish I could help more.  Take heart that the bad times will pass and get better.  You got this.  :hug: 

  • Love 2
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Thank you, Valkyrie. I'm doing yoga, I haven't stopped, and in fact it has been helping. Last weekend we had a session where all we did was breathe, for nearly an hour. It was intense - like meditating, but different. That day and the following one, I kind of felt calmer... but then everything came back. I'm trying to be patient about all this. I will do everything I can to help myself be more calm. Progress is happening, I know it, but sometimes it's kind of hard to take a step back and see it, especially when I'm in the middle of an episode. But I'm not giving up :)

 

  • Love 2
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I wish you luck, and I wish you peace. I hope for more rays of sunlight, more moments of ease. Your decision to give thanks is a great one; I’ve read many times that this is a great practice. 

 

 

  • Love 2
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Thank you, Parker. I'm trying to hang in there. I keep telling myself that maybe this is just a rough patch, that it's here but it'll go away eventually. I just need to be patient, and nurture my ability to be thankful for all the things I do have, all the things that make my life brighter. I just wish it weren't so hard at times. My mind feels weird when I'm like this. It's like I can only think of bad things, bad memories, bad days. I have to keep reminding me, again and again, that's it's not always been so, and that it won't always be this way. I just need to hang on for a bit more, and stay strong.

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  • Site Moderator

I've thought a great deal about this since you posted. I think the best analogy is being out in the ocean. Sometimes you can't really fight against a powerful current. Sometimes you have to simply float. You might not be getting closer to the shore, but you aren't sinking either. Try to habitualize the tools which help you as much as you can where they can act as an automatic response to these feelings. You have made so much progress and are continuing to do so. We are here for you.

  • Love 2
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Thank you so much, drpaladin. You’re absolutely right – a current, a relentless undertow, can sometimes not be fought but merely followed. I’ve been trying to stop myself from engaging the fight reflex when things get rough because there are times when the instinctual need to reject negative emotions does more harm than good. Instead, if I merely ride it out, I will still suffer somewhat, but I won’t exhaust myself emotionally by engaging in a fight I cannot win.

It’s hard. It’s like being tossed into freezing cold water at the pool and seeing the ladder to climb out right there in front of you – except the ladder is frozen and no matter how much you try, you’re not getting out of the pool that way. You’re just going to exhaust yourself if you keep trying. Instead, you have to fight your reflex and just tolerate the awful cold until the water warms up… Whenever it decides to do so.

Not an easy thing to do, waiting around in the icy water. But I’m willing to try.

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And now, a few months past the last posting, I do hope that you are learning to "swim with the current" when needed.  I do hope you're still working with your therapist and remembering that there are those of us who you don't know if have met personally who do care for and support you.  I do hope you find peace midst the storms.

Tony

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I am really hopeful you're doing better, and your worrisome absence is not a sign of the opposite, and that would be OK too, just letting you know people who you might not recognize if you came across, do care and think of you often and wish you safer days. 

As you said it is an uphill journey, and I as a fellow depression sufferer, am very grateful for what you were able to share. Even though we are almost at opposite ends of the spectrum in our depression triggers, if I could call it that, it helped to read your words.. so much. More so because you were able to lay yourself so completely raw but crystal clear. I say this because a large portion of my issues, is what I'm guessing is a solid barrier of rationalization that prevents me from clarifying my emotions even to myself. 

I am not the point here, I mention it to you so you feel your impact on many people far and near, and they are as thankful to you and admiring of you as i am. I care.. and if there's such a thing, I hope the vibes travel to you and give you a little hug if that is what you need, or even a pat on the shoulder. Wishing us both less turbulent minds. Alia

 

Edited by Zeenar36
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I DMed Albert today without a reply or indication he read my message so far.  His last post anywhere - on GA or Twitter was May 20th.   His absence is most concerning.  I hope he is safe and doing well but I fear for the worst.

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On 10/16/2019 at 10:59 PM, GanymedeRex said:

I DMed Albert today without a reply or indication he read my message so far.  His last post anywhere - on GA or Twitter was May 20th.   His absence is most concerning.  I hope he is safe and doing well but I fear for the worst.

Got a DM from Albert today!  He sounded to be in quite good spirits!

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