What are YOU doing for the next hour?

I have GAD – Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I have Depression, too, which I still struggle with on occasion – actually, I’ve seen its return over the past couple of weeks. It generally manifests itself as laziness – I just sit and do nothing and feel like doing nothing and stare off into space, rather than being productive and getting stuff done. I take a nap to shut my brain off, or submerge myself in a book. I find it hard to get up in the morning, and I’m more tired than usual. The housework piles up, and I do the bare minimum at work to get by. Eventually, though, the blues pass and I get my head straight again.

But the GAD? It’s permanent and it’s daily.

At this moment in time, I’m not on any meds. I was, not too long ago. After about a million (well, three or four) different variations and combinations, I hit on a combo that suited me. An Effexor/Welbutrin mixture that was HELL to ramp up on, and HELL to come off of. But in the middle it made things pretty normal, pretty okay. However, it’s that ramp-up and ramp-down (primarily caused by the Effexor) that make me reluctant to go back on meds, when I go through a rough patch. It’s at least a year-long commitment, when I decide to “go back on”.

With GAD, the hardest thing to deal with is, well, the general nature of the anxiety (hence the name, huh?). If there were one specific thing I was afraid of, one thing I could nail down that was causing me distress, I could face it, deal with it, kick it in the nuts, and put it to bed. But no, there is nothing specific to pin down and conquer. There’s just a constant feeling in the pit of my stomach – ranging from butterflies to pterodactyls – that has me on a constant churn.

So I have this low-level, manageable level of anxiety that’s pretty much a constant part of me. It’s like a buzz in the back of my head, causing my shoulders to climb up toward my ears and making me hold my breath a lot, until I see pretty sparkles and remind myself, oh, YEAH, exhale. Inhale. Breathing. Right.

But then there are the full-blown panic attacks, which I indulge in, oh, I’d say once a week or so.

They usually hit me when I’m at rest – though every now and then I’ll get one when I’m at work, or right in the middle of something, or during some circumstance that’s completely random. Most often, though, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, or from a nap, or moments before the alarm goes off in the morning, practically TWITCHING with a spastic need to getupgetupgetup because there’s screaming in my head and tension in my gut. I HAVE TO be mobile, animated, in motion when this feeling hits me. Because I can’t just sit still and let it wash over me. I just can’t. There’s chaos in my head – a vast array of thoughts, songs I can’t get out of my mind, anxious times that I’m forced to re-live all at once, nonexistent tragedies and problems I create from nothing, every sound that I’ve ever heard and every thought that I’ve ever had… they all hit me all at once, at the very same time, crashing together in my head.

Sounds wicked crazy, doesn’t it? You should see it from my end. My head is a very noisy place to be in, sometimes.

My body is practically vibrating, yet when I hold my hands out in front of me I’m shocked to see that they’re not shaking. This is what my brain does to me. I’m like an equalizer with all the channels pegged. All this kinesis going on in a body that’s perfectly still. And then, when I do go to move, my motions are jarring, over-compensated, uncoordinated. I drop things, I knock things over, I bump into things.

At first I try to just muscle my way through it. I’ll do something that requires physical effort – get on the elliptical, clean the house, go for a walk. I’ll give myself a stern talking to. I’ll listen to loud music. I’ll write (o hai). Sometimes that helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I just give up the ghost and pop a Xanax.

Better living through pharmaceuticals. And that stuff is the SHIT.

I’m pretty damned good at hiding my anxiety. I’ve perfected the art of appearing normal – or at least sane – to the public at large. Calvin catches me, sometimes, when I’m acting spastic and erratic. I confess what’s going on to him, because he’s always been supportive, even if he can’t quite understand what the hell is wrong with me.

He’s fond of saying that if I could ever really read his mind I’d run away screaming. It makes me want to laugh. He has NO IDEA. OH. Oh, my. It’s cute, really.

The ironic thing is that when I feel like this, I go searching in my brain for a reason for it. It’s like, I’m feeling anxious, so there must be something to be anxious about. There isn’t, really and truly there isn’t. The feeling comes with no rhyme or reason. So, I start to make shit up. Calvin will die. Like, tomorrow. I can’t let him out of my sight. I’ll die. It’ll probably hurt. The bills are going to hell. We don’t have enough money. I’ll never go home again. Something bad is going to happen. Something wicked this way comes.

If I scream I’ll just keep on screaming. If I cry I’ll never be able to stop. If I sit very, very still, maybe Fate won’t see me. I’m a field mouse and the hawk is up there, somewhere.

You guys, I’m serious. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to shatter from the inside out.

As Charlie Bartlett said (I’m paraphrasing, here), “Nobody has ever died from a panic attack. Just think to yourself, ‘I’m having a panic attack. In fifteen minutes, I’ll probably feel better.’” And I do. Not usually in fifteen minutes, but within the hour things have calmed down, my heart rate has come back to normal, my thoughts are no longer racing, and Doom is no longer just around the corner.

It’s a fucked up way to spend an hour, though.