I feel that one more post this weekend is important. On my crusade to bring awareness to mental health issues and end the stigma, I think it’s important for people to know the reality of the various aspects of mental illness. Anxiety being one of them. I take anti-anxiety medicine. My therapist is teaching me how to work through the anxiety when it kicks up. And yet, out of the blue, I spent this entire weekend with intense anxiety for absolutely no reason.
It’s not always necessary to identify the reason for anxiety. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that it’s there and manage the symptoms. My symptoms are an intense feeling of having butterflies in my stomach. But there was another more rare symptom this weekend that terrified me. Chest pain. Right there in the middle between my ribs. And here’s why it terrified me.
I wasn’t worried that the chest pain was anything heart related, because I’ve felt it before. This time last year. Last year when I was deep in my internship year/first (and last) year as a school prinicipal. There was one day that I felt the pain in my chest and questioned if I was starting to get sick. After all, sometimes bronchitis, or even covid makes my chest hurt like that. Anytime there’s a respiratory “thing” going on, it hurts. I told my “mentor” that I thought I was getting sick. Here’s what she told me, and I quote: “Push through it. Principals don’t get to take a day off because they don’t feel well.”
So I pushed through. I didn’t take a day off. But I did schedule an appointment with my doctor because the pain didn’t go away and I never got sick. Bronchitis never developed. I didn’t have covid. But what I did have was a blood pressure and a1c that was so high I am still surprised I didn’t end up in the hospital. The reason for the high levels? Stress and anxiety from my job which was closely tied to my last year of grad school, i.e. the most stressful of the two years. That’s when I had to start taking Mounjaro and a handful of other medicines (in addition to what I was already taking).
So now, a year later, while I am no longer at that job, and have enjoyed the hell out of the months since quitting with very little stress and anxiety, this chest pain frightened me. I wondered if I was getting sick. Like I did last year. Every now and then when I cough, I can feel a mucus-y kind of thing in there, but I’m not sick. I am extremely anxious though. About what, I don’t know.
All weekend I have tested myself. I thought about going to work on Monday. Yes, a little bit of anxious flutter. Only because I have a busy period coming up. But here’s the thing, everything else I thought of. Literally everything else, made me feel the anxious butterflies. Writing a post here? Anxiety. Interacting with people on Threads? Anxiety. Reaching up into the bathroom closet to grab some pillow cases so I can change the sheets on our bed? Anxiety. And that’s how anxiety lies. There is nothing to fear or worry about with any of those things I just listed. And yet I felt anxious.
I thought I’d try today to keep my phone on silent so I would be less likely to spend time on it. Maybe I needed time away from interacting on social media. I was fired up on Friday after seeing the latest news about yet another disastrous day for American history. I thought it would be a good idea given someone on Threads wanted to argue with me over a picture I posted. I took a picture of the note I left for the people who clean my office. I asked them to please put my printer on the floor and if they did, they could have the Girl Scout cookies on my desk. My printer is unreasonably heavy and nobody was around on Friday afternoon when I needed it moved. This person took serious offense claiming it wasn’t the janitorial staff’s job to move my printer. She reposted my picture and had her followers praying that the person takes my cookies and doesn’t move my printer. Like, seriously?!
I turned off my phone and laid in bed for a good long time this morning. I was physically exhausted by the anxiety. I had gone to bed early last night, but bad dreams kept waking me up. I dozed for a few hours. Not a deep sleep, but it seemed to help.
It’s now after 8 pm. The anxiety is less, but it’s still there. My husband suggested that perhaps it’s here because I know my job is about to get a little busier as we get closer to the summer. This is how my body is used to reacting to stress. It’s what it does. And that’s why anxiety sucks. There is nothing to be anxious about, and yet here it is. In all it’s irrational glory.
I’ll combat it by watching the movie my husband and I watch literally every Sunday night. I’ll wake up tomorrow and go about my work week routine and hope that the familiarity of my routine will calm my stomach and make the chest pain go away. We’ll see.
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