When You Don’t Know the Reason for Your Anxiety
It’s 4:30 a.m. and I’m wide awake. An hour and a half ago, I bolted awake feeling anxious. There wasn’t even a specific thing weighing on my mind, just this broad, generalized sense of urgency, a feeling that things just weren’t right and I needed to wake up.
I know there will be no more sleep tonight because my mind is already racing, my thoughts bouncing around from one topic to the next. My leg bounces a mile a minute. I try to focus my thoughts, but my brain won’t stay on anything long enough to process it.
There are many times when my anxiety locks tightly to something and wont let go. The thoughts become repetitive and increasingly louder and more urgent. There is no way to focus on anything else. It beats down on me like a hailstorm, cold, wet and jarring. There is no ignoring it because its voice is booming, drowning out anything else going on.
There are other times, though, I cannot even pinpoint why I am anxious. The urgency is still there, though it is surrounded by a dull fog. I know something is eating at me because I cannot focus on anything else. For the life of me, though, I cannot put my finger on it. Yet my anxiety is in full force just the same.
I’m jittery, uncomfortable, unable to focus. My chest is tight. I have trouble catching my breath. I try to calm myself with breathing exercises, but I cannot center myself. I have this strange burst of energy but no will to use it. My brain has grabbed that energy to fuel its racing. I’m wide awake. My thoughts, like my sentences, are choppy. Nothing quite seems to flow. I cannot focus. I cannot rest. I cannot get comfortable. My anxiety is jarring, like percussion being banged on haphazardly without any rhyme or reason. It is loud and bracing, impossible to ignore.
I feel itchy, shaky, edgy and uncomfortable. I am annoyed and agitated though I cannot even explain why. Some days, my anxiety wraps its head around a thought or concept and will not let go, holding it in a stranglehold, allowing me to focus on nothing else. It will often link itself to other things I am struggling with, making it even harder to cope.
When my anxiety attaches to my depression, it becomes that parrot that repeats all the bad in my life on an endless loop. It asks me what else I could have expected and makes me question how much is ultimately my fault. It is unyielding, unwavering and unforgiving. It eats at me, making me feel inherently and hopelessly a mess. My depression feeds it a steady dose of fuel, so my racing thoughts never seem to slow or falter. My anxiety pushes for me to beat myself up for everything, whether it was my fault or not.
When my anxiety combines with my post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), I am bombarded by a steady barrage of emotions that threaten to push me into a bad place. One of the most common themes my anxiety clings to that triggers my PTSD is safety. Once my anxiety has grabbed onto that fear, my brain reminds me repeatedly that I am not safe, not safe, not safe, I can no longer concentrate on anything else. Though I try to reassure myself that everything is OK, doors are locked, everyone is safe, it is to no avail. My brain won’t listen to reason. It becomes a battle to fight off an anxiety attack or worse, to be yanked back to those times when I truly was not safe.
One of the most frustrating parts about struggling with anxiety is that nobody truly seems to understand or sympathize. People suggest I just breathe, not realizing it feels like there is a weight on my chest and I can barely catch my own breath. I’m told I should just try to calm down and try to focus. I would love to do that, but I feel like I have no control over my mind at this point. I swear I’ve yelled at my mind a million times, “Stop! Enough!” but it never listens. It has gone on a 100-mile-an-hour joyride along a dangerously winding cliffside road, and I’m just along for the ride.
The worst, though, is when I am asked what exactly I am anxious about or when someone tries to use logic and reason to convince me there is nothing to stress about. Often, I honestly don’t have an answer about why I am feeling this way. I don’t understand it myself. As I try to explain it, my hand shakes and my mind just cannot form the words. I know I’m anxious, I’m restless, that something is definitely wrong, even if I cannot always put a finger on exactly what it is. I know they mean well, want to understand what I’m feeling and try to talk me down, calm me down. But how can I explain my anxiety to anyone else when I don’t even fully understand it myself?
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I am a 46-year-old happily married mother of three. I have survived physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, a failed previous marriage and a long engagement imploded by an ex’s repeated infidelities. I have been diagnosed with major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorder. I have many facets and have filled many roles. At different times in my life, I have been a student, a teacher, a mother, a daughter, a fiance, a wife, an artist and an author. Throughout my life, I have been both strong and courageous, weak and afraid. I may be a product of my experiences and choices, but I refuse to let them define me. After years of suffering in silence, I have found my voice. My first book, “Unlovable: A Story of Abuse and Depression from Someone Drowning in the Abyss,” is available for purchase in both paperback and e-book versions on Amazon.com and at barnesandnoble.com.
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