I’ve come a long way with my anxiety. From frequent panic attacks and strong generalized anxiety to living my life pretty chill and calm. 

That being said, about once or twice a year, due to extraneous circumstances that add up to a perfect storm, I can develop a short period of acute anxiety. 

It manifests through a sudden surge of anxiety in the middle of the night, and then the anxiety basically stays on for several days. During these days I’m mostly experiencing anxiety symptoms during the day and then they ease up at night. I’m prone to overstimulation, I have reduced appetite, am exhausted, I cry, shake, can’t handle socializing, etc. 

Most importantly, it’s very difficult for me to work, so I usually cancel my appointments for a day or two saying that I’m under the weather. 

I try to let the anxiety run through me without resisting. I work on accepting it as it is. As such the pain and discomfort don’t mount. That being said, it’s still very intense and very distressful. 

It usually resolves itself in about a week. Sometimes though I experience a relapse the week after and then it resets and I wait another week. 

The thing is, I don’t understand what exactly is going on in my body. Therapists have told me that because I’m no longer fearing anxiety itself as I used to, it sounds to them like it’s a trauma response (and god knows there’s a lot of childhood trauma in my past).

I wanted to know if anyone else has a similar pattern to mine for anxiety? Knowledge is very powerful, so I’m trying to better understand what I’m going through. 

Thanks for reading!