Imagine a time when you were worried about something. Now, imagine that this feeling does not go away after the thing you were worried about is over. Instead your mind will find something else to be worried about. Imagine being in a perpetual state of dread and anxiety over anything and everything. That is what it’s like to have Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

I have had anxiety my entire life, in various forms. I get panic attacks and agoraphobia where I think I’m going to die, I have social anxiety, I have OCD, I have generalised anxiety. As a kid I would wet the bed a lot longer than most kids, get nightmares, and be terrified of the plugs at the bottom of the swimming pool which I thought would suck me in. I used to take swimming lessons and remember holding up the whole class the day we were allocated the lane with the big filter. The teacher would swim down to the bottom of the pool and touch it to prove to me it was not dangerous, but nothing could get me in the water.

It is wrong to think that GAD is a milder and less debilitating form of anxiety than panic attacks. The two are just different. GAD eats away at you. You are tormented by worry and always stressed about something. Your nervous system just doesn’t seem to have an off switch. You try to tell yourself that everything is ok, that nothing bad is happening anymore, but it’s like fighting against the tide. It is both a mental and physical experience. Your body is tense and signals to your mind that something is wrong, and your thoughts also create physical symptoms of anxiety in your body. It is a vicious feedback loop.

I had a particularly bad night with anxiety last night. I was still upset about the missing pages of my story, as I wrote about in a previous post. While most people can move on with their lives after a disappointment, I continue to stew over it. My dad describes his brain as “sticky” and “obsessive” and I’m afraid I’ve inherited it from him. I am constantly fighting the compulsion to keep turning the house upside down looking for the missing pages. I lie awake thinking of all the places they could possibly be. I feel like I will only be happy once I find those pages. On top of this, I have a crush on a waitress at the vegan, bohemian café down the road. Yes, I admit it. I am crushing on her. Being a waitress at a very alternative café, she is different. She likes dancing like I like dancing, and she practices meditation. We have shared some of our hardships with each other, and she is a very caring person. I thought she had stopped working there, and I was both sad and relieved. Finally, I could go there without being an awkward freak. But then I ran into her again last Friday night. She was there having dinner with some others. We hugged each other. She told me she was still there.

“Are you meeting some friends tonight?” she asked me.

“No, it’s just me tonight,” I said, looking away.

“Would you like to sit in the cushioned area inside?” she asked me, words infused with gentleness and care. “It’s quiet in there right now.” She remembered that I like it quiet.

“Ummmm, errrrrrr,” I deliberated. I can’t make even the simplest of decisions.

“I will leave you with Daniel to be seated,” she said, and she went back to her table.

One of the reasons I was so anxious last night was that I was planning to go to the café again tonight, mainly to see her. I keep meaning to ask her if she’d like to hang out some time. I tell myself I will ask her the next time I see her, but I never do. Having a crush can be painstaking for anyone, but when you add mental illness to the mix, it is a dangerous concoction. It is torture. I find my whole life revolving around this woman who is still very much a stranger. I was going to leave the city for a while, but I don’t want to leave her. She is a goddess and I don’t ever feel like I am good enough for her. I dissect our interactions for days. I feel relieved on Mondays and Tuesdays when the café is closed. I don’t have to decide whether to go or not. All the other days I am anxious. I am anxious as I consider going and seeing her. I am anxious not going, as I worry I will miss out on the chance to get her number before she leaves the café for good. Because everyone, eventually, leaves. I just can’t win. I only know her first name. Of course I have tried looking her up online but there are so many people with this first name that I gave up. It is also hard being face blind. I don’t recognise people out of context. I wouldn’t be able to recognise her by her profile picture.

Why do I put myself through this???

Last night, all the stress, anxiety and anticipation got so bad that I started getting mild seizures. I was watching Chicago Med (which probably didn’t help) when I suddenly felt like I’d been jolted with electricity. Then when I went to bed I started getting spasms in my ear. My whole face was so tense I think my muscles needed some kind of release. According to Cleveland Clinic, a tendency to suppress or hold in your emotions increases your risk of developing Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures, or seizures that are due to psychological distress rather than abnormal electricity in your brain. I found the spasms incredibly distressing and worried they would never stop. I called Nurse on Call at 3am crying. Then when I hung up I took some sleeping pills and diazepam. I left the bedside lamp on as the light comforted me, and I fell asleep. I slept until 5:30pm today. Thankfully when I woke up the spasms had stopped.

Despite the night I had, I still went to the café tonight. I wasn’t even hungry. I put some effort into my outfit and painted my nails black. I came in the back gate, as usual, but the waitress was not there tonight. I felt my whole body relax. There weren’t many people at the cafe. I sat at the far table and ordered a drink. I then went home.