Anxiety and the Many Hidden Anxiety Symptoms Affecting us all

It’s extremely difficult to nail down exactly when I first had my first major anxiety attack. I remember them all as cascading fading moments in some eerie liquid time line. I never considered myself a “Textbook Case” of someone affected by anxiety attacks.

I always thought I was pretty well rounded and semi level headed. To be honest 99.9 percent of my life, I walked around as a bit more brash or over confident. A bit of a wise cracker amongst close friends and always tired to find ways to lighten a mood even if we were facing some truly gut-wrenching time.

It was something I thought affected other people, not me. Not because I was immune but because I always thought I was a very reality based person. The illusion of seeing things clear cut gave me an edge or advantage from my perspective. I can remember two times that it struck me hardest and my anxiety symptoms were through the roof.

One of the major times was right after having an exhausting night out, fully in a stage of insomnia, and mind constantly shifting in my apartment bed. I had a million things on my mind. I was in my mid twenties, in between attending a JC for a 4-year, and all I could think about was, what was I doing with my life.

I remember my brother was staying at my place that night too. I was sharing a townhouse with a roommate and forgot where they were that night but for some reason my roommate was out of town, visiting family, partying, or something I don’t remember for sure. All I know I got up to go to the bathroom and for some odd reason I stumbled, well I stumbled hard. I had a sharp pain in my chest which made me stumble to the doorway of the bathroom. I think I ended up landing on the doorway louder than I thought because out of nowhere my brother rushed up the stairs and said, “you good?”.

Now, I’m not the toughest in the world but I rarely liked hospitals so I was a huge proponent of the walk it off method. That’s you just walk it off no matter what. Runny nose, walk it off. Cut your finger cutting your steak, walk it off. Four car pile-ups on the free way, walk it off. So just as I was about to deploy my tried and true method, I attempted to stand and fell back again. I then said an unexpected phrase “ugh, drive me to the hospital”.

Without hesitation he lifted my arm up and we wounded soldier walked to the car. When I sat down I thought, maybe I got alcohol poisoning but I realized I wasn’t drunk I was the DD that night. I had maybe 1 beer the whole 5 hour night. As my brother got in the driver seat my chest got tight, like a socket wrench tight, and started to feel the worst level of erratic palpitations I’ve ever experienced. Half way through the ride to the hospital it felt like my heart had stopped breathing. I was in full panic mode and had no idea.

In the end we got to the ER and he put me in the metal wheelchair. The nurse was confused and when I described my symptoms she said, “Let’s check your vitals.” At this point I was just in agony, thoughts racing like this is it, disappointment setting in for the regrets, the whole cookie crumbling. I can’t remember how long we stayed there but after she took my vitals she moved on to someone else. She passed me several times before my brother was like, “Hey! What’s the deal, why are you not helping my bro?”. The nurse turned and said, “Well I see he’s not feeling good so I can maybe get back to him at some point but his vitals are perfectly normal, so there’s not much we can do at this moment.”

I literally have no idea how long we stayed but it wasn’t a short while. I’m not even sure I saw a doctor that night. What I did learn was that anxiety symptoms hit you just as hard as the real ones but only in a mental space. The mind causes the distortion above the body actually experiencing it.

You see, anxiety attacks affect 1.5 people out of 10 in America. That does not seem like much on paper but that’s roughly 41 million people affected annually by this according to the Mayo clinic. That’s a lot of people experiencing so real heavy psychological weight around the experience we call life. There are so many connecting branches from anxiety symptoms from anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, anxiety attack, depression and anxiety, gad 7, gad symptoms,

generalized anxiety disorder, health anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms, and so many more.

The weight of this condition has a way of pinning you down for an indeterminate amount of time. It’s unexpected and unyielding if not counter-acted. I would get into the second time I remember having a major anxiety moment but I think it's best for another day.

Instead I want to help you with getting into a helpful series of tactics to help you through an anxiety episode.

The biggest thing I think you need to remember is 9 out of 10 times, it's all just a moment. Life has a way of feeling like the end all be all in happening right now and that's it but here's the truth.... there's always another door there's always another journey. What you think is meant to be might be a passing moment, and what you think might never happen again, might be something that happens 10 more times down the line.

What I mean is, the only time a decision can be made final is when you actually have your life in consideration. Crossing a deadly rushing river over a shaky bridge, this panic episode is something to consider. Passing on this is a choice of if you have to do this or do you just "want" to do this. Your life is is actual danger, please reconsider. Taking a test to determine your ability to go to your favorite college, this is a path that has many doors so it does not have to be as monumental as it seems. This is not a life threatening decision at this time.

Here' a technique I've used to reduce an anxiety attack.

Grounding Technique (5-4-3-2-1):

Name 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste to bring your focus back to the present environment.

From my personal use of this I have found that varying the objects size in front of you and picking things in a pattern of upper left, mid left, ground, Lower right, upper right or in front of you. This depends mostly on the space you are in.

If you are in an open space that has a lot of height towards a ceiling, or lack their of, do not look here first. stay just eye level or below.

For the touch sensation, I like to do add a quick description to myself to help ground the feeling and make sure the objects are small or light if possible. So things correlate to my brain on a familiar level.

So for example I might say I feel a Pilot G-2 pen with rubber grip from my desk, I feel the tough plastic frame to my Otterbox phone case, and so on. I make it feel as common as possible.

For the smell, it can be hard to match this because you might be in space that has few smells but what I do is describe the ordinary. So I'd say, I smell the dusty cloths smell of the closet. I also sometimes, pick a smell I know I loved back in the day like the smell of a key lime pie or some form of a comforting food or smell.

Then for the taste, I also make up a taste because you very rarely have something edible in front of you during an attack, and also, you do not want to start attaching eating habits to soothe an attack. So instead I sometimes say, the comforting smell, I taste that, or I'll describe the taste of the air as a temperature. I would say I told the cold Air in the A/C'd room or I taste the smell of the fresh cut grass just outside this building.

Yeah, I know it sounds a bit off but it helps to keep me grounded and shifts my mind enough to free myself into a new space.

The best thing to do is to keep these ideas handy and practice before, so you remember to use this during an attack. Practice this by using a short word association like if in a panic ground with the 5 senses, see, touch, hear, smell, taste. Just practice repeating this and deploying it the next time you have one.

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