Episode 04 – Anxiety Saved Me -Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Twisted Thinking, the podcast that helps you keep your thoughts flexible. My name is Kristin and today we are talking about chronic anxiety and how it very likely saved my life.
This is an adaptation of a blog article I posted on my website on April 12th, 2022.
So, for clarity’s sake, when I say anxiety, I am referring to anxiety as a chronic and debilitating mental health disorder rather than the very normal temporary state caused by being in high stress situation.
So, I had my first panic attack when I was eleven. It was a 1991 and back then no one really placed any importance on mental health. They didn’t recognize it as really having a bearing on much of anything, including school, relationships, jobs, you know. And there were some people who didn’t —
Who said that they didn’t even believe in psychological disorders. These people were basically — they would tell you; you know, whatever you were feeling, whatever you were experiencing, it wasn’t real and it was all just made up and make believe and usually they said that you did it because you wanted attention.
Of course, reality is very different. In the world today we know mental health and wellness are very real and very important, and disorders are not nearly as rare as we’ve been led to believe. I’m willing to bet that these invisible illnesses have touched most of us in one way or another. Most of us have probably suffered loss whether it’s tangible or intangible, because of these things.
Since that first attack at 11, I have probably had thousands over the years and during that time I have learned something that no book and no doctor and no other patient ever told me.
Panic attacks evolve, at least mine do.
My first one was pretty straight forward. It was a textbook kind of thing.
I felt paralyzed. I couldn’t stop crying. My hands were numb, and my head was all swimmy. Loud sounds made me want to hide and that feeling of impending doom – that feeling of something terrible is about to happen – it was just all consuming and it lasted about 10 minutes. And for years it went on that way.
In my early 20s I was a complete and utter mess, but even being a mess, I had become familiar enough with these symptoms that my rational mind knew that I was safe, and I use air quotes here.
And then, suddenly, in my 20s the symptoms changed and a few things got added to the mix. I had to adapt and so I did.
Then in my 30s more change, and then I adapted again.
Now I’m in my 40s and it has been 84 years and 1000 million doctor visits and probably the same amount of tests and I figured out what’s normal for me at least now until I hit 50, I guess.
These days I usually know what my body is going through, why it’s happening and that it is basically once again I use air quotes safe. Because of that, the anxiety, while it isn’t gone, it doesn’t have quite the hold on me that it used to.
So, I tell you all of that to set the stage for the morning of January 25th, 2022.
My wife was taking her final exam that morning and she was also going to find out if she was going to graduate or not it. Kind of a big day. You know, understandably, we were both a little anxious. So, I waved goodbye from our balcony as she walked to the bus stop, a train station, and I did my best to acknowledge the anxiety and hopefully really take away its power.
But the that feeling it was just building and building and building and I decided the best thing to do would be to ignore it, so I did some stretches. I sat down at my desk to write, but just within a few minutes I stood right back up.
There was this funny pressure in my chest and then seconds later there was a funny heartbeat and then maybe a minute after that I had just this like funny chest pain and I keep using this word funny because even though I can’t explain what it was, I knew it wasn’t regular normal and it wasn’t anxiety normal, and so I could — I only you know, it was funny. That, that’s it.
Within about 5 minutes I knew beyond a doubt that there was nothing normal about what was happening, and so I called 112, which is the equivalent of 911 in — in the EU.
And I spent four days in the hospital. During that time, those four days they were some of the most impactful 4 days I have ever experienced and probably the biggest test of faith in recent memory.
I analyzed, I thought, I considered, I prayed, and I really came to a most interesting conclusion.
My anxiety disorder had very likely saved my life.
If it wasn’t — if it hadn’t that morning, when the actual event was happening, then later that night when my blood pressure bottomed out and the machine alerted a nurse that I needed help. And if it hadn’t been for years of dealing with that such extreme anxiety and the symptoms of it, I may not have even been aware that something dangerous was happening, or if I had become aware I might not have been so fast to react or calm enough to call for help, or even sure of myself — uh, you know, to do it.
I may have waited until my wife got home that evening or not said anything at all. And really, if it weren’t for my familiarity with that anxiety and how my body reacts to it, I really might not be talking to you today.
After going through this experience, I realized that I still have so much of this life left to live. I have so many things left to do I am not ready to leave yet and so even though my anxiety complicates things sometimes to the point of just sheer screaming into a pillow frustration, I have chosen to be grateful because I believe that it has given me a chance to continue on this journey.
My hope is that after sharing this with you, if you have a similar problem with anxiety — I hope nothing so extreme happens — but I do hope that this story might help you find a way to twist things around so that the negativity that is just inherent in anxiety might become a little less heavy for you also.
I’d like to know if anyone else has found a reason to be thankful for their anxiety over the years.
If you have, please let me know and last but not least, if you are struggling with anxiety or any other mental health problem, know, you are not alone.
That’s all for today. If you’ve enjoyed this episode head over to https://www.podchaser.com/TwistedThinking and leave a review. If something I said caught your attention and you want to continue the conversation, I invite you to join my discord server. It’s free and easy to use. Just click on the link. Big thanks to my patrons. Without them, none of this would be possible and thank you so much for listening. Until next time be blessed and stay twisted.