Anxiety Alarm Clock

So I woke up this morning, checked the clock, and reasoned that I didn't have enough time to go back to sleep before my temporary housemate got back from his weekend away and woke me up again.

And this gave me a small attack of anxiety.

So if you didn't know, I'm a sufferer of occasional anxiety. It's not hugely serious. It doesn't prevent me from living my life at all. I'm don't warrant medication or even therapy, though I have had a session or two of counselling many a moon ago.

Here's the deal with anxiety: the thought process behind it is almost completely rational but your brain is blowing it all out of proportion, it crops up unexpectedly, anything can randomly trigger it, and it sure as hell ruins the moment. You can be having the best day in the world suddenly torn asunder by a little thought in the back of your head say "Hey, are you sure you know where your phone is?". Cue frantic pocket patting.

So back to this morning. I woke up at half 8. My first thought was that my housemate would be back in an hour and a half. This is a reasonable time frame. However, I then started planning ahead to the inevitable door opening and slamming and all the footsteps and so on (my house has thin walls, and I've been in the middle of dozing off only to be woken up merely by him putting the key in the lock). This started filling me with a little bit of mild dread, because I didn't want to be woken up, and this is where the anxiety started kicking in.

Anxiety isn't the same as worry or stress. It feels different physically. Worry is a slight tightening in your chest and a cavernous feeling in the pit of your stomach. Stress is a mildly flushed sensation in your head and a tensing along your neck and shoulders as you slowly get wound up.

Anxiety makes you go cold and hot at the same time. It starts with a flushed hot feeling that starts in your head and goes all the way down your spine and down your arms. Your chest fills up with it. And then as soon as the heat reaches everywhere, it all drains to an icy cold feeling of dread and panic. Your nerves all tingle. Your heart starts racing. Your chest tightens, Your stomach drops (because anxiety drags worry along for the ride).

And then your thought process kicks in, saying "Oh no what do I do, what do I do?" in a repeated cycle. Which isn't helpful, because you're trying to shout "Oh for heaven's sake! Calm down! It's nothing!"

The long and short of it is that it wakes you up. And that's how anxiety has become my alarm clock in the morning.

Though as my colleagues can attest, "Oh no I'll be late for work" doesn't make me anxious whatsoever!