Define Anxiety

breathe (brth)
v. breathed, breath·ing, breathes
v. intr.

To inhale and exhale air, especially when naturally and freely.

I think he key word is FREELY. I can’t seem to remember how to do this. It’s 2:30 in the morning and I can’t breathe on my own. I keep stopping. I then start to try to force myself to breathe. I try so hard that it feels like I am trying too hard and I almost hyperventilate. I then try to calm myself down and that’s when Shaun wakes up… to me babbling to myself.
He asks me, “You okay?”
and what do I say? “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Then I tell him to go back to sleep.
I lay there in bed wanting to just smother him while he sleeps because he’s SLEEPING while I am not breathing.
He wakes up because I’m trying so hard to breathe that I am now coughing.
“You okay?”
and I say, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
But really, i’m not okay. I can’t say, “no, i’m not okay and i’m not going to be okay because i’m drowning in anxiety and unless you live with this like I do, you willl never understand it and you can’t make it all better.”
He does try to make it all better though. He tries to understand it. He hugs me and tells me it’s going to be okay.
I wouldn’t give this to him if he asked to take it from me for even a minute so I could rest. He wouldn’t know how to deal with this type of raw, scared feeling that takes your breath away and leaves your whole body aching and your skin cold. No one, NO ONE should ever be this scared unless they are being attacked by a large, hungry animal.
“what are you afraid of?”
Everything. There isn’t anything that these anxiety attacks don’t uncover.
Tonight, it is everything.
Tomorrow night it will be something else.

I wonder if someday when he asks, “Are you okay?” I will truly and honestly be able to say, “Yeah. I’m okay.” ?

I wonder if the day will come when I can breathe naturally and freely.