The head case
- Meghan Garrity
- Feb 22, 2017
- 4 min read
Every morning I wake up and I take two pills. One so I don’t get knocked up (considering I don’t let myself to close to anyone that pill is pretty much pointless). The other pill is so I can function in everyday life. For the past year and a half I’ve been living with an anxiety disorder. I can feel others hold back the roll in their eyes when I tell people I cant do certain things or that I just don’t feel like leaving my house that day because of my anxiety. To those who don’t have it my anxiety just sounds like an excuse to be lazy. I know this because I used to be one of those people. Care free, down for anything, unconcerned with the shadows of the world. Annoyed with people that make excuses for themselves. Now that my genetics started to kick in, and my anxiety’s started to wake up my life is on the outside still the same. I still go out with my friends all the time, I dance like knows ones watching, I sing with my friends in public, I flirt with boys, I still seem like the outspoken care free person everyone has always seen me as.
On the inside however it’s a whole different ball game. When I first had a panic attack I was driving back home for the summer from my apartment at the time. It’s about a good hour drive and about 15 min into it I thought I was dying. My vision was playing tricks on me; it was like my brain had a 5 sec delay to catch up with my eyes. My throat felt like it got smaller I had to start thinking about how to breath instead of just, breathing. My legs felt like they gained 100lbs and it took all the strength I had to lift them to drive. I was the most scared I had ever been in my life. I felt like at any moment I was going to black out, crash, and die. I truly thought that was going to be the end of me. Somehow I made it to my exit and as soon as I did I pulled onto the first street I could find and I lost it. I was shaking and sobbing and sweating and as soon as I dialed the phone to call my dad I remembered all the pills my dad takes in the morning and I realized what was really happening. I wasn’t dying; I was changing.
For a good week I was convinced that I had a tumor and if I didn’t get a MRI that I was going to die at any second. I think at one point I even convinced my mom of it and she started to call doctors about it. My dad being a certified head case himself was quite aware of what was happening because he had been dealing with it for the past 30 years. I didn’t want to believe him, I think at the time I was perfectly fine with shaving my head and removing my imaginary tumor and moving on with my life, just like I has seen in greys anatomy hundreds of times. I didn’t want to live life on the verge of a breakdown, and that whole summer I did. I didn’t leave my house much and when I did I would wait in cars for my friends to run into stores, when I did go into stores within 10 min I would run out searching for air. At home I would sink into my bed and binge on Netflix. I was scared of talking to people I didn’t know, even a drive through would send me into a world win of emotions. I was also petrified of driving I would pull over at least twice while driving and have a good cry. My thoughts were physically exhausting me, and everything made me tired but I still couldn’t sleep. I thought I was never going to be okay, most nights I would find myself crying in my moms arms wishing I would just stop thinking so much.
Towards the end of the summer the pills my doctor prescribed me started to work without me feeling like I was goanna pass out or throw up. I started leaving the house more but things were still different. I was withdrawn, but I had to be. I couldn’t pay to much attention to what I was doing or who I was with because if I did my brain would start to do back flips and all hell would break loose. I like to call my issue that “chicken little struggle” you know “the sky is always falling” mentality. I think there’s a man with a gun at every corner. If my leg twitches I instantly think I’m about to have a seizer. If people in public look at me to long I think something looks concerning to them making be feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. I live in a perpetual state of fear.
I don’t know if those feeling will go away as a get older but if they don’t its just apart of who I am now. Its something I have to live with and I’ve figured out ways to calm myself down and try not to think so much, but those thought are still always haunting me. There are so many other issues I could have that are much worse than my anxiety so I consider myself lucky in a way. My life will probably never be the way it was at 17 and I guess that’s why they tell you to hold onto those years the best you can. Regardless ill never stop trying to reach that kind of happiness, my mind may be altered but that doesn’t mean I’m defeated.