Funeral homes and hospitals, and
even shopping malls for some, bear the same features. Job interviews, public
speaking, and noisy environments, too. They can be anxiety-inducing places and
situations. The list runs on. For most people, these places and situations
evoke minor or moderate levels of anxiety. For some, certain places and
situations evoke major levels of anxiety. What I will share with you below are
not so much anxiety-experiences from places and situations, but entire seasons
of anxiety.
My first season of anxiety occurred
in the event of major grief. I carried a constant fear around with me,
something I could not shake. When I felt particularly overwhelmed, which
occurred I think about seven times, I had panic attack events. Times when I felt
adrenalin was being injected directly into my heart, which resulted in the sensation
of my chest feeling crushed. Fortunately, I learned diaphragmatic breathing at
the time and found that, and getting away from people at the time of the attack,
helped allow the panic to subside. I also learned the power of my thinking. I
could literally think my way into these situations as well as think my way out
of them (if I was sufficiently aware).
The second season of anxiety I will
share involved an acute two-week sojourn into inexplicable fear — the state of
constant uneasiness never left me for fourteen days (the first couple of weeks
of 2010). I couldn’t explain it at the time, what the source of the fear was,
but I did manage to identify that I was afraid of what was coming. And I had
anticipated correctly. I recall how disconcerting the nagging feeling of
dis-ease was; it was wretched. That year was tough for me in the workplace. The
experiences were ultimately beneficial, though, as I was able to reconcile
those particular matters by the year’s end.
The third season I will share
involved a psychosomatic condition that didn’t leave me for six months or more,
and probably closer to ten months. This was in 2011. It was a condition that I thought
was linked to the amount of keyboarding I was doing, but I couldn’t have been
further from the mark. The worst of this season was carrying a feeling that my
arms and upper back were on fire. Anxiety had become buried into my subconscious
mind, and was rising up through my body. It took over my conscious world and I
journeyed with fear for most of the year. Only later could I identify the source
of it. It emanated directly as a fear response to the manager I had at the
time. I won’t go into the person, as the point is my anxiety, but suffice to
say, I had never encountered such a personality before (or since). Just the
thought of encountering this person began to make me swell with hypervigilance.
Since then, however, I think I’ve developed coping mechanisms to better hold
myself with such people.
Anxiety comes in myriad forms.
Sometimes it’s our mind, our heart, or our body trying to tell us something. It’s
never enjoyable, but it can be endured, and the objective is to find coping
strategies to alleviate the pain, the thinking and feelings at source.
What I learned about my seasons of
anxiety is they all started and operated differently. They were each a puzzle
to unravel. Each season required courage, but more so patience.
The great benefit of having
suffered anxiety, however, is we’re granted the capacity to empathise with
those who also suffer mental illness. Most people carry such illness with them
at some point in their lives, and many do so intermittently, regularly, or almost
their whole lives.
As you journey with your own
anxiousness, be in relationship with your fear, and I pray God piques your
awareness, so you may be blessed in the learning of effective ways to accept
and alleviate your anxiety.
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