Anxiety

I have anxiety. I found a diagnosis once on the Internet -- I think it said situational panic anxiety. Anyway, anxiety SUCKS. It's sucky and awful. And incredibly common.

I think hormones and heredity are involved. I wish I had time to study it more.

Anyway, a LOT of women suffer from it. I'd bet the numbers, if we could get accurate ones, would be astonishing.

I am worried that mine is aging me from the inside out. My heart starts pounding, my mouth goes dry, and I feel this sense of total despair. Sometimes it is actual panic, and I can't exactly control my actions from there. If the anxiety was that someone was breaking into my car, there would be nothing stopping me from running out into the parking lot. (It's never anything like that--just needed a random example.) I'm too embarrassed to say what my anxiety tends to be about.

Therein lies the rub. It's EMBARRASSING. It's like erectile dysfunction. Genital cosmetic surgery. Halitosis or excessive armpit sweating. Inverted nipples. Fetishes.

We humans, especially women, are very persnickety when it comes to this image stuff. How I perceive myself, how others perceive me, how I wish to be perceived, how I dread being perceived, etc... I am smart, kind, self-deprecating, fun, easy-going, loving. That's my "how I wish to be perceived." How I perceive myself is a bit harsher. How I dread being perceived I can't even bring myself to type.

So, now 20 posts later or whatever, I have gotten back to the reasons for the title of this blog. I came up with the title on the spot, without thinking about it. Which is how all the greatest stuff comes to be, in my life anyway. So, because of my anxiety -- which is really running on high these days like an air conditioner in August -- I have to tell myself constantly to breathe. And when I do yoga, and really focus on breathing for an hour at a stretch, I feel so, so much better. I do not have anxiety when I'm doing yoga. And that is a lovely, lovely thing. You can't imagine. Or maybe you can.