Sandhya Raghavan
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Many men and women all over the world live with anxiety. Life for them is nothing short of a struggle as an anxiety attack can always be around the corner. Sufferers often find themselves living at the mercy of the disorder, compromising their social and personal lives to accommodate the problem. What s worse is, not many people empathise with their condition since the disorder is very commonly mistaken for timidity or low self-esteem. Five real women reveal how it feels like to live with crippling anxiety.
People talking nonstop: "Imagine a room full of people all talking at the same time. The only difference is, the room is entirely inside my head. And as noisy as that is the thud of my heart beating hard against my rib cage. My throat gets parched; I feel breathless. Although I may not have eaten anything for a long time, till the anxiety settles down, I can t take a morsel of anything. If I do, my tummy starts aching. That space between the heart and the tummy starts aching."
Like running a marathon: "Although I don t feel sweaty as many who suffer from anxiety attacks do, I feel that I am running short of breath. I feel like I ran a marathon. There is no dizziness, but I do feel nauseous, and my heart starts racing. To calm myself down, I grab a seat and take a few deep breaths."
Discouraging voices in my head: "My anxiety always rears its head in the worst possible moment, like when I want to make an important phone call or speak to a large group of people. The discouraging voices in my head keep telling me that I am going to mess up and they drown all the other sounds in the surroundings. I get a sudden urge to run away and hide where no one can see me. As a coping mechanism, I also find myself biting the sides of my lower lip till it bleeds."
An overload of senses: "Every smell, taste, noise and face/look becomes heightened. It's like an overload of senses. I need to fiddle to keep my mind distracted. My heart races and I enter the fight or flight mode. If I m in a position I can't remove myself from, I become very agitated and ready to snap, almost like a dog backed in a corner. I struggle going out on my own. Yet with someone I trust, I'm completely different as I have a full on distraction."
A horrible feeling: "I have a bad anxiety problem. Sometimes, it controls me and other times, I control it. When it overpowers me, I can t think or rather I prefer not to think in such situations. It is very horrible since you cannot see how crazy you may seem to the others. I do anything I can to get control of the situation. I either distract myself by helping others or chew my lips to get rid of the horrible feeling."
Fight or flight: "I feel like running away. I also tend to have heart palpitations and moments where I get hot flashes and I shut off from the world as a way of protecting myself."
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