Tonight I am stricken with fear. My stomach is eh... uh... well, not at its best and I've found myself in the errrr bathroom once or twice.
I don't feel sick and my stomach doesn't hurt. Just cold from sitting in the unheated bathroom. But I am feeling something else. Something so familiar. When I sat down on the bed after the ummm second round, so to speak, I tapped my husband on the shoulder and said my stomach isn't well. Then my face disappeared behind creases. I wrinkled my forehead, I tensed my lips and I scrunched up my nose. Tension. Tension, anxiety and fear. All of them wanting to lose control and go into panic because I may be sick! I wanted to start crying but I was to tense to cry. Instead I shook. My body shook from fear and my brain started begging. Begging for the fear to go away. Please don't let this be happening, please let me be somebody else!
But I am me, and that scared version of me isn't who I want to be anymore. So I forced my face to unclench itself, I took a deep breath and I told the emetophobia NO! No you can't have anymore of me. You've had enough. You've owned enough of my years and I won't let you have anymore. I worked too hard and for too long for you to come back and destroy it. NO.
And to help me wind down from the anxiety I decided to write a blog post. And here I am. Not anxious. I remember the days when it would take 5-6 hours to recover from anxiety like I just had. I just needed 15 minutes today.
I am on the watch though. I view this as a chronic disorder. I can keep it at bay but it's always lurking and ready to come back. So I have to keep it away every single day. Every single day I have to put one foot forward so it doesn't end up taking one step back. Sometimes it makes me feel sad and hopeless that I will battle this for a long, long time... but I quickly remind myself when I felt incapable of battling it at all. Of ever going out and challenging it. Of ever eating food and not counting the hours to make sure I didn't have food poisoning. Of ever falling asleep because I was simply tired and not completely exhausted from staying awake in terror all night.
I am capable now, and I don't do those things. There's not turning back to that life. There's nothing in that former life of anxiety, panic and constant- CONSTANT - fear that is worth not fighting this.
I really hope I can keep remember this. It's that time of year when I will constantly be challenged and I have to face it. I can't fail this. I can't let it win.
Suck it, emetophobia.
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