“Anxiety is an urgent, deafening thing. No matter how many logical reasons you have to remain happy or positive, when it is present, you can hear nothing else”.

-Beau Taplin

I feel like you have never experienced and anxiety attack, you don’t really understand what anxiety is. And I’m not talking about the, I’m about to speak in front on my class, kind of anxiety attack. I mean the anxiety attacks that come out of nowhere. When you are making your lunch for work the next day. Standing barefoot in kitchen placing premade salad mix into a container. Thinking about nothing, just lollygagging as you do. And then out of nowhere your face starts to get hot. The slow gradual feeling like your face is being ignited on fire. It starts in your throat and make its way up your face, surround your mouth, then under your eyes, framing your whole fucking face until the whole thing burns. The flames start to move down your arms into your legs and toes. You forget how to breathe. breathe. It’s so hard to breathe. it feels like someone’s pinning your head underwater. Your lungs filling to the brim. It’s so hard to breathe it feels like you are scratching and clawing your way to the surface. The room starts to get dark. Like they describe in movies, the light slowly hollows out. Tunnel vision. Then you realize that you can’t feel your legs, and panic. Your mind feels clear, but your body is fucking screaming bloody murder. Its screaming you piece of shit, you’re dying. While you say imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry to those around you, watching you move through this. Even if you are alone.  Until you finally remember how to breathe… Whether that be from trying breathing shit, which honestly rarely helps. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, and I’m a fucking yoga teacher. But the last two times it happened after my surgery it helped, I also threw up so maybe it was that that helped…. Who knows. Sometimes praying helps. sometimes. Weed helps me the most. Maybe that’s why I have such habit of wanting to keep my pen near me. I don’t use it very much, but it almost feels like a security blanket.. anyway.. when you have one of those fucking attacks. That was un presented. unwarranted.  The attacks that leave you drained for days. Questioning your mere fucking existence. Trying to figure out why you felt like dying when you were doing nothing to trigger it. You think you are dying. You think there is something seriously fucking wrong with you. Because your mind feels clear, it’s aware of everything you are experiencing. But your body is out of your control. You are not your body. but, you are. Until day by day, you come out of the fog. The mind is a powerful thing. If you don’t control it, it will control you. & until you feel what it’s like for your mind to have full control over YOU. Then you will never ever understand.

That shit may sound dark, because it is. but its real life. It’s a reality for millions of people. It’s not just the huge attacks that get you. It’s the everyday elephant on your chest that keeps you from breathing. Keeps you from living. Keeps you from stepping out of your front door, into the world. Keeps you from looking people in the eye and avoiding talking to any human life. It makes you think everyone is looking down on you, it makes you feel like you are always doing something wrong. Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry. It makes you feel embarrassed, and ashamed. Ashamed of being human. Ashamed of dealing with Mental Illness. Ashamed of being alive.

I’ve heard people say anxiety isn’t real. Mental illness isn’t real. I just want to say, fuck you, to those people.

Fuck you, anxiety.