My Anxiety Story

DISCLAIMER! I just want to assure everyone that I really am okay! Thanks to my amazing family and frands (and my strong-ass self, fuck yeah), I'm in a great place. But, as with everything, this struggle comes and goes - and when it comes, it comes on strong. When I wrote this post earlier this week I was at a low point and needed to write my frustration and worry out of my system. (For the record, it worked.)

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In this daily battle for peace and happiness called life, we all have an emotional arch-nemesis. Mine has become hypochondria.

I've had anxiety since I was five years old. I vividly remember my first panic attack: I was sitting at my family's kitchen table. We were having some sort of gathering, like Thanksgiving or a birthday. I was half-listening to my Aunt Connie tell a joke; and suddenly, I knew - not just felt, but knew - that I was going to die.

It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over my head, and I was plunged into the purest form of fear I'd ever felt. I ran to my room, my parents following close behind.

I was pacing on my bed, making frantic, involuntary movements as though my body was trying to distract my mind, when my dad asked, terrified, what was wrong. I told him, "I think I'm going to die."

After a half-hour of "20 questions," my parents realized with relief that I was just having a panic attack for no apparent reason. It didn't really surprise them - it was just a sign that I'd inherited my family's unfortunate anxiety problem. They both wrapped their arms around me and hugged me tight, as though to squeeze the anxiety out of me. It worked.

These random panic attacks punctuated the rest of my childhood. It didn't ruin my life or anything, but it did ruin countless sleepovers, birthday parties and afternoons at school. After a few years, I finally zeroed in on my "triggers": guilt and nausea.

My random bursts of anxiety (which I realize now would have been labelled "panic attack disorder") finally simmered down when I turned 18 and started attending college, and were replaced by a mild yet constant social anxiety. This I struggled with until I was 24.

And then, right as I started conquering these social insecurities and feeling like I'd finally kicked my anxiety disorder to the curb, it took a new form: hypochondria, or health anxiety.

I'd always been a bit of a hypochondriac, thanks to my general anxiety. But it had never been at the forefront of the issue until April of 2016, a month before I turned 24. Jesse and I were going to bed one night when I noticed my right arm felt a bit numb, like I'd just lifted weights. But I hadn't exercised at all. (Obviously.) 

I became alarmed when, a few weeks later, the numbness worsened and spread to my left arm, too. When May came and my right leg started feeling it as well, I panicked and went to the ER.

Jesse and I spent the next God knows how many hours in at Toronto Western Hospital. I remember sitting in the waiting room, trying to keep my mind blank in order to avoid completely panicking as we listened to the news anchor announce that Gord Downie had terminal brain cancer. As the doctor took my blood and ordered me an urgent CT scan, I prayed I didn't share his fate.  

The CT scan came back "dirty," meaning the technician saw something. The doctor pulled Jesse and I into a private room and closed the door. He told me there was an extra-axial lesion on the left side of my brain, which could mean one of a variety of things. He wouldn't tell me what those things were, but I would later find out it was usually an MS red flag. I started to hyperventilate, and Jesse did what he could to calm me down as the doctor scheduled me an urgent MRI for the following night at 2 a.m. My birthday was two days away, and we'd planned to go to Montreal, but we were told to cancel it in case any more urgent measures would need to be taken.

Jesse was shooting the Raptors came in Cleveland the night of my MRI, so my parents came with me. At 1 a.m., we loped into Princess Margaret Hospital, where I was given a blue gown. I broke down again just before going in for my scan, and as my parents put their arms around me, covering me completely, I was reminded of that night when I was five, in my room, when they managed to banish my fear with a hug. But I was a grown-up now, and unlike then, I had a very real, very scary reason to panic. I was so used to easing out of panic attacks by accepting the words "you're okay." But what if I wasn't this time?

The next morning I went to work. Jesse had just texted me to tell me he was about to cancel our Airbnb in Montreal when I got an email from the neurologist. He said the MRI was clear, as was the initial CT scan - the technician had read it wrong.

Needless to say, the relief I felt in that moment was beyond words - unlike anything I'd ever felt before. I texted Jesse to tell him the news, and the next day we were on our way to Montreal. But despite the relief, the scare scarred me. I've been terrified - even more than before - of disease and death ever since. I did eventually get a one-on-one appointment with another neurologist to determine what exactly was causing my numbness and other symptoms. After conducting an EMG and other odd tests, he determined I had ulnar nerve palsy, which is basically damage to the ulnar nerve that runs down the arm and into the pinky and ring fingers. So, not a big deal, really. 

Since I was still shaken from the initial scare, I was skeptical - especially because getting ulnar nerve palsy in both arms is incredibly rare, and I couldn't think of a reason why I'd have the condition in the first place. Also because it didn't explain the numbness in my leg. But I accepted my diagnosis and decided to carry on with my life.

My symptoms, which have now ranged from numbness and stiffness in all my limbs to difficulty swallowing and breathing to a mild but noticeable loss of bladder control, have come and gone in distinct, weeks- or even months-long episodes, and I can't tell if they're all being caused by anxiety or if it's something more. My deepest worries are, of course, the most detrimental conditions: ALS, specifically. I'm not very superstitious, but it does irk me that my initials are ALS, and ALS Awareness Month is May, my birth month. But anywho. The runner-up is MS.

And the funny thing is, if all my obsessive Googling has been at all useful, it's taught me that my anxiety itself is probably what's causing these symptoms. Never underestimate the power of panic. Interestingly enough, being nervous can actually affect... your nerves.


Why am I sharing all this? I don't know. Maybe because I was so anxious the other day that I had to leave work early, come home and cry about it for a good 45 minutes. Or maybe because I know that most people struggle with the demon of anxiety to one extent or another, and I wanted to add my voice, my struggle, to the din of mental health.


TL;DR: The fear of death does nothing but prevent you from living. I'm going to try to remember this next time I feel a prickle in my skin, or find myself confusing a hangover for a terminal illness. Ahem.

x,
Amanda