Dear Diary

Sometimes I don’t know how I ever made it through my life without Xanax.  That thought both calms and worries me.  It calms me because when I take it, I’m able to form more rational thought processes while it significantly reduces the anxiety and panic I feel over whatever it is I’m having a panic attack about in the moment.  It worries me because I wonder if I’ll ever get to a point in my life where I won’t have to take it anymore, and I don’t want to feel dependent on it.  I’ve been taking anxiety medication since late 2006.  That was when I had my first anxiety attack.  It started at work, I was just sitting in my cubicle doing my thing when all of a sudden I started to feel weird.  A dull ache started in my left clavicle and slowly moved down into my left arm over the course of about an hour.  My pinky and ring fingers in that hand went tingly, almost numb, and I started to panic.  Wasn’t that something that signified the onset of a heart attack?  I started to Google the symptoms, and sure enough I was right.  (It’s okay if you don’t know what Google is, Diary.  All you need to know is that it has all the answers.)  I frantically messaged my friend Kenneth for the remainder of my work shift because he pretty much knows everything about everything, and I wasn’t about to leave work early for something that might not even be a heart attack.  Seriously, what would they think of my sanity if I’d left early?  When I got home I made my younger sister – who was in her space pajamas – drive me to the emergency room.  By this point I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was about to die.  I agonized over the excruciatingly long fifteen minute drive, certain that at any moment my heart was going to give out or explode or whatever it did when heart attacks happened.  Once in the ER I was given an EKG – that’s how they measure electrical activity of a person’s heart, Diary – and they informed me that I was showing no signs of an impending heart attack.  I was, in fact, suffering from what was commonly referred to as an anxiety attack.  And Diary, wouldn’t you know that I’ve been plagued with anxiety ever since.  I’ve yet to have another anxiety attack (#me knocks on wood quite superstitiously.), but having panic attacks on a regular basis isn’t really my cup of tea either.  Maybe someday I’ll get better, Diary, and I’ll be a regular person who can leave her house to go grocery shopping without feeling like everything is ending.

Tagged as: anxiety, things you probably didn't need to know about me, Xanax