Most of the time I feel nauseous, dizzy and exhausted. Other times I feel fine, normal and happy but once I realize that I am having a good day, it all come rushing back with the blink of an eye. The worry and the dizziness jump at my brain causing me to panic instantly, the pain and tension suddenly hits my muscles like a thousand knifes piercing through every inch of my body. Some times it feels like I can’t get up, or I’m too tired to move, some might say numb, others might say tense and restless. Most days though, I feel all of these at once. I suffer from SGAD (severe general anxiety disorder). I can’t sleep, at all sometimes. On my good days I manage to get about 3 hours of sleep per night. 

 

Usually when I have an attack in public people notice that I'm turning red or that my nose is turning blue. They notice that my eyes get bloodshot. They attempt to calm me down and try to help then remember that they don’t know anything about this type of illness, so they do what they can. They give me some water and tell me to breath, you know inhale Tala exhale, deep breaths Tala long breaths, stay calm Tala, don’t stress Tala, its all going to be okay. And in an instant there is a crowd gathered around me giving me advice as if they know how it feels or as if they where in my shoes in another life.The gesture is nice, that someone takes time out of their day to help you, but what they don’t understand is that they are just making things worse. People ask me how it feels, if it hurts, and how often it happens. This is for those people who are so keen to learn and so eager to understand mental illnesses that they hurt me in the process. 

My anxiety feels like fire, unbearably hot and frustrating, eager to burn every cell in my body. It feels like bees buzzing in my ears, reminding me of the billion problems I have but can not fix. It feels like every cell moving so fast that I can feel my blood rushing to all the edges of my body. My anxiety feels like burning and drowning except not in water, in worries. It feels like I’m moving faster than the 60 seconds allowed in a minute although it feels slow and takes forever. My brain starts to panic and I can no longer breath correctly, I start hyperventilating. I feel cold but my ears are hot. I start sweating and twirling the pendant on my necklace, without noticing I’m biting my nails or gritting my teeth and tapping my fingers on the table. It feels like my nerves are exploding. My hands start shaking and my fingertips are ice cold.I cant feel my feet, I start trembling when a wave of heat goes threw my body. It starts aching, the shaking shy voice in my head reminding me to breath and telling me everything is okay if overthrown by the loud, mean voice  yelling at me telling me that everyone is watching me and that I’m humiliating myself. My anxiety kicks in and my heart goes from 0 to 1000 in an instant. The constant metronome of my heartbeat in my ears sounds like a spastic drumroll. My demons sound like a TV static noise, speaking so fast I barley catch any of the words. The only word I do catch are the worst you can possibly hear. My anxiety makes me feel as if there is a life or death situation going on 24/7/365. I hold on to myself like I am the only lifeline birding the gap between reality and my anxieties torment of the atomically loud abyss of noises and sounds and feelings of fleeting rushing threw my veins. I avoid eye contact not because I’m not listening to what your saying but because I am listening to my own voice and hoping that through your ears you cant hear that’s its 2 octaves too high and on the verge of breaking because my hands are sweaty and I cant feel my lips. My anxiety is constant nausea not allowing me to put a single crumb in my mouth although I am starving and haven’t eaten or slept in 2 days. My anxiety is a curse, I sent a text and because my best friend doesn’t reply in 2.76 seconds, my brain goes ballistic with things like ‘maybe it was about yesterday’ ‘maybe its something i said’ my thoughts get blurred and all i can think about are the what ifs and the maybes. I am not sure why I act like this. It's really noting like me, but its not my fault and i can’t control myself. I don’t know why my brain is wired to think this way, to panic and worry all the time and when i try to get an answer out of myself i go crazy and I make up a problem but the truth is, THERE IS NO PROBLEM, THERE IS NO LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION, THERE IS NO RHYME OR REASON, THERE IS JUST FEELINGS AND IM FEELING ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Some days are better than others, and some days are worse. But they're just days, and I've got more where they came from. But living everyday feeling like your drowning is not a way of living.

People don’t believe that pain exists within, as if pain doesn’t exist except if your bleeding or flung in a cast or staggering with a limp. They expect me to wear my demons like a scarlet letter pinned to my chest. You know ‘A’ for able or ‘A’ for anxiety. They assume if you can’t see it, then its not really there but sometimes the most painful demons are the ones they cant even see.