I've been suffering from pretty intense anxiety for at least a few years, if not much longer than that, and somehow I only figured it out a week ago. 

I'm pissed off that *I'm* the one who had to discover this, but I'm also relieved to have a framework, to be able to start to seperate myself from it. 

I had a freaking *colonoscopy* because the doctors couldn't figure out why I was having digestive issues - specifically, this hard, tangled knot in my guts all the time. It came back clean and the doctors were like "well you're fine lol."

My insomnia has always been a curse. I used to drink to help me sleep, but gave it up once I had regular access to THC vape pens. Of course I've ended up being stoned out of my mind every night in the endless pursuit of a decent night's sleep, my mind and body revving at 110% all night for no goddamn reason. 

I've been bleeding out of my eyeballs with stress (figuratively speaking) for years now. My behavior has been unacceptable. I've lost friends from the shit I've said while having what I now know as panic attacks. I have no memory of the words I said, it's just me desperately trying to be social, the loneliness getting worse than the agoraphobia.

Standing in the corner of the bar, eyes closed, trying to breath, trying to shake out my "nerves." Being unable to look people in the eye for long, spending entire evenings doing nothing but holding back the desire to run screaming from the crowd - I just told myself I was a shy introvert. 

Apparently, though, I give off a calm, collected demeanor. The few people I've told about discovering I have anxiety have been surprised. "You look so calm" and "I've never known you to freak out." 

Yeah. I'm like a bottled-up volcano all the time. I'm good at it. So I guess I can't blame people for not figuring it out for me. 

The thing is, I never looked into anxiety because I never really felt terrified or afraid, which I thought were the main hallmarks. I've had that "impending sense of doom" a few times, but randomly once or twice a year. Things in my life are generally really calm and good. It never occurred to me that anxiety could look like this - not fear-based, but stress-based. 

But now that I know, I can feel it in my body. I'm a single dad with a full-time job, so I'm no stranger to stress, but this is something more than stress - it's like static, electric noise that turns every muscle in my body hard, makes me stop to just breathe, pausing every few minutes to try to shake the tension out, try to let it go, try to relax. 

So when I brought all this up, my doctor agreed, and now I've got that orange bottle on my desk. They said it might make me drowsy so I'll take my first one later this evening. 

All I hope is that this chemical therapy has an effect on my body. I really think my body is running on this anxiety, at this point, out of sheer habit. I definitely had this much real stress a couple of years ago, and I just haven't come down since. If I can kick my body back to some more reasonable level of normality, I'm pretty sure my attention and lifestyle changes can take it from there. 

I know I can do it without the medication, but if taking these pills takes that journey from six-to-eight months of effort down to two or three, then hell yeah I'm taking them. 

I just want to get back to my natural state of relaxed. I spent a good chunk of my life like that, I know that's who I really am. So tonight is something of a beginning of a real journey back to that, medication or no. 

I don't want to make all of this public, and I'd rather not tell my friends about it, so thanks for giving me a space to let it out. And if anyone wants to talk to me about your situations, I'm happy to chat when I can. Thanks.