If we’re lucky, we get an average of 2.5 billion heartbeats in our lifetime. Most of the time, my heart beats normally. One lub-dub after another, somewhere between sixty to one hundred beats per minute.
But occasionally, seemingly out of nowhere, the count raises. One hundred. One hundred and five. One twenty. One forty. It’s usually preempted by the tingly-burning feeling in the chest of an adrenaline rush. And it’s loud. My body is tense. My mind races. It would make sense if my life was in actual danger - being chased by a bear or tiger or something - but it happens when I’m sitting and doing nothing. Or when I’m driving. Or when I’m safe. Even when I’m taking a shit. And when it does, it feels like I’m just wasting heartbeats.
When I was told that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder it felt good to be able to put a name to the thing I dealt with daily and for a long time after, I just coped. I often told people I was fine when I was not. I avoided. I deflected. I projected. Fun fact: the more I’m in an internal battle, the funnier I get. But eventually, coping doesn’t work. Managing it works fine when I have the time and space to do so but falls apart when I have obligations to tend to. The worst timing is when I’m at work.
However, there is no timing. There is no calendar. It just happens. And it gets even more intense when I actually have things going on in life that warrants these stress responses.
I’m exhausted of coping. I’m tired of managing. I need rest. Lots and lots of rest.
If you made it this far, I appreciate you. 🖤