Have you ever felt a wave of heat roll through the insides of your body? If you have, you would remember the effect and after effect of it. It’s the feeling one feels thinking, “how could this be happening to me?” or “is it really happening?”
22-09-22
It’s 1:03 pm & I have checked my heartbeat atleast 5 times since the day started. Last reading was 72 bpm which is as normal as it can get yet I feel a continuous pang in my chest. Medically, I didn’t know what was happening to me. But emotionally, I could express my feelings to my friend saying I think this is the pain of a heartbreak. I have not felt it before. And this heartbreak wasn’t about a boy. This heartbreak was about the moment when you see your self esteem lower. There’s a threshold for each of us to showcase our vulnerability. If you go beyond that, you start to lose yourself. And that’s the most painful kind of heartbreak which I might have been suffering from. But I still didn’t know what was it exactly or what terminology does one describe it with? I have experienced regular anxiety all my life so I knew this wasn’t it too.
In one of my irrational bulk book purchasing episodes, I once bought a book when I visited Mumbai called “My Age of Anxiety” by Scott Stossel. It’s coming in handy now that I’ve experienced the painful reality of what goes within you when there’s a shooting anxiety attack running throughout your body with its epicenter at your chest. The moment it started till the next two hours I couldn’t breathe properly, I felt choked up, I wished to be held and rocked like a little baby. I rang up my therapist and explained all of this to her because those 2 hours were extremely unbearable. The phone call was short & conclusionary.
“Are you having difficulty breathing?”
“Yes”
“Do you feel like crying?”
A wooly lump of heaviness reached my throat as I answered with a “Yes” & started sobbing.
“Did something happen?”
“Yes, I had a conflict with someone.”
“Do you feel palpitations in your chest?”
“Yes”, I said thinking finally someone understands that it’s real. I’m suffering.
Based on this conversation she suggested I speak to a psychiatrist. Same thread of conversation later, the psychiatrist prescribed a pill to be taken which might make me drowsy but will surely calm my senses. I was withdrawn by the knowledge that I might now have to depend on a pill or two to calm my nerves down. Since it was an SOS situation I did take the pill and it did calm me down towards the end of the day to the point that I felt indifferent. It could be psychological or the pill really did its harmless magic? The next day though, the funny feeling in my chest returned. It just won’t go. Next day again. I kept telling myself I won’t feel it if I stop focusing on it. It didn’t stop. On the 4th day, I decided to get an ECG done and it showed nothing. The cardiologist told me you could also go for an echo since the discomfort prevails. Nothing came out in the echo reports either. The denial of not wanting to take a pill just reigned in its reality over me. That’s the point when, I think, I needed to be held. To be comforted by a loved one in a way that they see what I’m going through. That this isn’t a bout of prolonged stress. That something has been elevated in my anxious state of mind. And at that time, if you are told that you are only overthinking, that you should be strong enough to handle this on your own, there are high chances for that apathy to lead to a deeper spiral of breathlessness. This is the time when you need to be around someone who really understands mental health and has the ability to be empathetic, be human.
Fear sharpens the senses. Anxiety paralyzes them. - Kurt Goldstein
In this book, I read about a concept called fight or flight psychology. When the fight-or-flight psychology is activated appropriately, in response to a legitimate physical danger, it enhances an animal’s chances of survival. But what happens when the response is activated inappropriately? “When a mother is afraid that her child will die when it has only a slight cold we speak of anxiety, but if she is afraid when the child has a serious illness we call her reaction fear.” Anxiety is a conditioned fear response. Anxiety disorders arise when we learn - often through unconscious conditioning - to fear objectively non-threatening things or to fear mildly threatening things too intensely. This fear, I believe, stems and grows and takes a place within you ever since your inner child starts to get hurt. It could be classroom bullying, abusive parents, sexual harrassment, or any experience that’s left a deep wound in your mind because of which you get triggered by events that make you believe that this might happen all over again. It’s a new relationship with anxiety which I need to understand fully to be able to make it disappear from my life or to be able to live with it in ways that I own it & not allow anyone to dismiss this state of being.
It’s 6:30 in the morning today. Same day I’m writing this to you. Same day last month at this hour I was traversing along a long beachside in Goa. A night prior to that was horrifying. A different kind of pain. And waking up early to be witnessing the strength of monsoon waves with the silence of the shore was nothing less than magical. My pain was eased down by the embrace of nature. I feel this is the thing about pain, it gets no room to exist when you’re in a warm embrace. When some kind of unabashed natural love shows up for you. I hope that in times of pain I be at the receiving end of such unabashed, unequivocal love. Because what’s love if there’s even a tiny bit of hesitancy in admitting to the world that you care for someone despite their weakness, their pain?
This entire writing process has been nothing short of cathartic for me. If you are someone who’s struggling in their mind & heart, please be known that I see you. If you feel like reaching out, I’ll be present to listen quietly. I found this set of slides to be extremely relatable. Read through & see if you find comfort knowing that there’s a world out there which is ready to take you as you come. :)
Winters are coming, dear reader, may the warmth of mountain sun reach the small of your back. x
Riti
Too real, though only people will feel it will understand it