The Agony of Anxiety

5 minute read

Let me tell you a story about something that happened recently.

I was standing in my kitchen, making lunch for my son, just like any other day. Except on this day, and for many days before it, I felt unsteady on my feet. A little lightheaded, with a wobbly feeling in my neck and head, and dogged by a persistent headache that had latched on weeks prior.

'It looks like a sinus infection', the doctor told me, as I cried my eyes out in front of her. Frustrated with the pain. With the unsteadiness, and the nausea. With feeling unwell for so long. It was my third visit to her in as many weeks, and I felt like screaming.

But instead, I just nodded my head, accepted handfuls of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and promised to come back in a week.

A few hours later, as I reached for a bag of pasta in my kitchen, a strange feeling came over my right leg. Like a distant crawling weakness, with a little bit of warmth thrown in for good measure. As I looked down, the feeling spread to my left leg, and slowly began to course up my arms. I knew something was happening, and quickly at that, so I struggled over to the table, collapsed on a chair, and hurriedly wrote down my husband's phone number and the pin code to my phone. 'Why are you doing that, mom?' my son said, a hint of alarm in his voice. 'Because I think I'm going to fall over', I said. 'If it happens, I want you to call dad and tell him, OK?'.

Seconds ticked by, and the feeling remained, but now I could feel it in my jaw. I had no idea what was going. I was completely terrified. I called a friend in the compound and asked him to pick me up and bring me to the hospital. He arrived minutes later, and at this point, I couldn't speak properly. The power had gone from my legs and arms, and now my jaw. All I could do was lean against the wall and watch my legs wobble violently as they struggled to keep me upright.

'Jesus', my friend said, as he half-carried, half-dragged me to the car. He kept speaking to me all the way to the hospital, afraid I was going to pass out, but my brain wouldn't play ball. So, I just nodded. Again and again. My speech slowed down to an awkward slur. I couldn't form a cohesive thought. For the first time in my life, I thought I was going to die.

My son cried beside me and reached for my hand, but when I tried to grab it, I realised that my hands had turned into what I can only describe as closed claws. My nails digging so deeply into my palm that I was briefly afraid they would break through the skin.

I thought about my mum on the way to the hospital. I thought about how I had absolutely no energy or enough brain cells, it seemed, to send her a message to tell her I loved her.

I thought about my son, watching me disintegrate, and wondered what this would do to his little eight-year-old mind.

When we arrived, I was shaking so violently that every word I had to speak in response to the doctors took an enormous, full-body effort.

'They think you might be having a stroke', my neighbour said. 'But you're going to be fine', the doctor said. 'You're going for a CT scan right now.’

They wheeled me to the room, performed the scan, and shortly afterwards, the doctor reappeared to tell me that there was no sign of stroke. OK, this is good, I said. As I lay in a bed, my speech slowly returned, hooked up to something that had stopped the shaking, while the nurse performed an ECG.

They kept me in overnight, not happy with what had happened, and the neurologist was called. 'We'll just keep you in for observation', he said. 'And tomorrow, we'll do an MRI of your brain'.

I didn't sleep a wink that night. My head pulsing on the pillow from the headache that would simply not abate.

The next day, the MRI - and what felt like every blood test in the world, came back clear. 'You are in great health', the neurologist said. And then he paused and looked at me. A few seconds ticked by.

'Simone', he said. 'I think what happened to you was a massive anxiety attack.'

To say I was shocked would be an enormous understatement. I literally couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'No, I'm fine,' I said, but even as I spoke the words, I knew it was a lie.

I was not fine. In fact, I was probably the furthest thing from it. My mum confirmed this moments later via WhatsApp. 'Don't be ridiculous! You are NOT fine. You moved overseas in the middle of a global pandemic. You had a challenging year. Your son was involved in a very traumatic event during the summer, which you witnessed. And which you have not dealt with! Don't be silly now and listen to the doctor!' She doesn't mince her words.

It's been a month now since this come-to-Jesus moment, as I like to call it. A month since I gasped for breath, and couldn't speak, and watched my limbs run out of battery.

I'd like to tell you quite a lot has changed, and that I'm feeling 100% back to myself, but that would be a lie. I still have a headache that comes and goes, although it's much weaker than its predecessor. I still feel weakness in my legs on and off, and my neck still feels a little wobbly, but not as bad as before. My sleep is mostly good, but then I'll have a few bad nights, where I essentially have a panic attack in my sleep; and wake myself up gasping for breath, with a pounding heart. Not super fun, as my son would say.

Something that has changed, however, is my mindset. And it's something that's continuing to change as I slowly get better. As a result of this event, I have realised that nothing – and I really mean nothing, is more important to me than my health and that of my family.

Nothing is more important to me now than minding myself, and the ones I love, as aggressively as possible.

No amount of work, or stress, is worth my time or my peace of mind.

I have also learned that while my mind might put up with a lot, my body will not. And this lesson was taken the hard way. In my late thirties. In possession of an otherwise very healthy body.

We are all under significant amounts of stress at the moment, related to a million different things; home-schooling, job losses, money worries, family separations, travel issues, and everything in between. And the worst thing we can do, as I have learned, is to ignore it.

Please, let me be a cautionary tale. Let these words be the signal for you to take a break, and be honest with yourself, and recognise that you are probably doing too much, and carrying too much, and being everything to everyone, except yourself.

You can't pour from an empty cup, as my mum likes to say.

And that's where I must leave you, for now, dear reader, as I refuse ever to let mine become empty again.