I had an anxiety attack the other night for the first time in about 6 years.
Anxiety attacks come in different forms, it can be completely freezing, unable to move, colour draining from your face, sweating profusly. It can be completely withdrawing and unable to open your mouth. It can be your whole head feeling light and feeling your heart pounding in your head. I had the classic chest tightness, heart pounding, every time I exhaled I felt that I wouldn't be able to inhale again because the pain felt so heavy in my chest. Crying and feeling dizzy. I don't want to go into the ins and outs of why I took an anxiety attack. But what I will say is that it was the build up of the past year of planning a wedding, working my ass off, completely my nursing revalidation portfolio. Co-ordinating visits to see the boyfriend (now husband). Dealing with difficult situations. Then something happened the other day that came to a point in my mind that I couldn't do anything any more. It had been getting me down for a few days, losing sleep, napping during the day and waking up afterwards grumpy and irritable. I spoke with hubby about it and we chatted about how I was feeling and that is when it happened. Kyle was amazing about it, he just cuddled me and told me that it's ok to feel anxious and just let it out. I feel really uncomfortable writing this because it is exposing my vulnerability. The truth is that we are all vulnerable and have been taught to hide it. Something I realised during this, was that I felt angry at myself for feeling anxious. Which if you don't allow yourself to feel something without restraint it only causes you to stay stuck and not healthily process what it is that you're trying to express emotionally. If you're family tells you as a child not to be or act a certain way, you're more likely to do it. Not necessarily out of an act of rebellion in the way that you might think, but in a "but this is what I want to do" or "this is how I feel" etc. Then later in life you find yourself hating those parts of you or trying to convince yourself that you need to let go of those bad traits that you have. You're essentially doing the thing that you're parents were doing by telling you not to behave or be a certain way. That's what I realised when I spoke to Kyle about this. It's so important to just feel the feelings that you have bubbling, don't try to change them or manipulate them. Just feel them and let them serve their purpose at the time. Because when you start trying to change yourself, then that's when you start finding that you can't move forward. I found this Buddhist Prayer that I thought tied in extremely accurately with what I'm saying and summarises it quite well.
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AuthorI am a 25 year old nurse, who is trying to find herself. This blog will contain epiphanies I have, my yoga progress and other such things. Enjoy. :) Archives
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