Hello Anxiety My Old Friend

For the last five days I’ve been dealing with my good old friend anxiety. It started Thursday when I hurt some muscles in the middle of my back, which if you’ve had muscles between you shoulder blades get injured you know your whole upper torso hurts. Radiating from back to front, giving your brain something to think about when you have pain in your chest. I slept in the living room on the couch in the recline position two nights in a row as I’d usually wake up around 2am in bed with my back telling me to get up. Didn’t want to bother my wife about it so I just stayed out there.

With each day it’s gotten better, and Monday was the best yet. It just felt like an overused muscle, not like someone beat me with a tire iron. But then after work I took the dog for a walk and a quarter of a lap in I nearly bit it on the ice. My right foot slipped and my left leg became an emergency brake. I didn’t fall, but I felt that hard stop like a jolt of lightning through my body. I gingerly made my way through the rest of the walk without issues, but I knew I wasn’t leaving that moment unscathed.

Sure enough I woke up Tuesday morning with what felt like a pained knot right back where it all started four days previously. I think part of it was the pain, but the rest was just a general frustration regarding being knocked back several spaces on the gameboard of life. Like I was playing a real life game of Sorry.

Most of Tuesday were little muscle spasms here and there. No terrible pain, just an annoying, radiating pain that I thought I’d gotten rid of. The day was extremely busy and with lots of folks coming in and out of the building, which as one of the receiving guys I’m dealing with all day. Weird shipments, a shipping container with machines, packaging materials and a ton of product that came from Costa Rica that we will have to go through and receive in, and contractors coming in to check the fire system.

I was frustrated for most of the day, and it got progressively worse until I had to page guys from maintenance to help a contractor find a fire pump(?) or something to do some work on. After about 15 minutes of this guy waiting around I finally went over to maintenance to find a living body that might be able to help. As I walked back I instantly felt like the world was caving in on me. It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the place and I instantly hit panic mode. I walked back and kept it together to help some guy unload a truck and the feeling subsided. I had 30 minutes before my shift was done. It couldn’t have gotten there soon enough.

I stopped at the store to grab a couple things for dinner and as soon as I walked in there I felt it come rolling back like the tide. I thought I’d go into the bathroom and sit in a stall till it passed, but there was an old man walking in front of me, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, and the damn crack of his ass was very visible. I kept walking feeling that panic rise. Once I got to the produce I stopped to stare at some variety packs of Christmas nuts and talk myself back down from the fringe. It worked and I was able to get what I needed and then I headed out the door to the safety of home.

I was better at home, but I still felt like a raw nerve ending. I talked to my daughter about her day and I told her about it. I just told her I dealt with some anxiety because work completely sucks, and that I need to just calm down about it. I need to follow the simple words of one of America’s greatest intellectual minds, Alfred E Neuman, and just repeat the words “What, Me Worry?”. Most of the night I wasn’t quite freaking out, but just on the edge. It was like flipping through a stack of file cards too fast that you couldn’t concentrate on what was on them, occasionally seeing some semblance of calm in the blur.

I know it’s more than just work. It’s a cumulative thing. Much like back in 2014 when I had my first panic attack. 40 years of stupid decisions, close calls, emotional turmoil and general unease of never being completely comfortable in my own skin had caught up. I had four decades of mental raffle tickets and it was time to turn them in for my prize. The prize? Anxiety.

It’s been a months-long carousel ride of worries ranging from our daughter’s health issues, things breaking and needing repaired, my brother dealing with health scares, and yes, my back giving me anxiety. And I’m also dipping in way too much with politics. I’m just getting so pissed off at what’s happening in the US(as well as my own home state of Indiana) with the dumpster fire that is the current administration that it is becoming all-consuming. I just need to use social platforms for sharing my writing and watching funny reels. Unfortunately everyone thinks they’re political pundits so it seems like I can’t escape anyone’s hot takes. I think I just need to completely unplug like I did back in November of 2024. That was the healthiest thing I could do for my brain and mental health then, and it’s the healthiest thing I can do now.

Just let me know if the man gets impeached and imprisoned, if he dies in his sleep from a massive Diet Coke stroke, or if the nukes have been launched and I need to make some peace with the time I’ve got left.

Cool? Cool.

I’m currently typing with an ice pack on my back and I’m feeling much better. Calmer, even. Not sure I can get groceries tomorrow. Not sure I can walk back in there for a couple days, at least until those grey clouds have cleared from my brain. And to be honest, I don’t want to see anymore ass cracks. As I squirm a bit in my seat I can hear cracks and pops in my neck and back, so the ice(and pain reliever I took 30 minutes ago) is kicking in. I’ve got three more days this week, all of next week, and then three days after that. I’ll be off work from the 24th until January 5th, and that sounds really nice.

Think I’ll load my brain with some heady psychedelic new age music courtesy of Oneohtrix Point Never and just keep my head down.