Majority of my life I’d wondered if I was actually having a heart attack, now I’m certainly at an age where I could be.

After all of these years of anxiety and panic attacks, you would think I’d know the difference. Sadly, the feelings invoked through a panic attack are very similar to a heart attack. In recent years, when I’m woken up by chest pains, it absolutely acerbates the problem for several minutes. Should I call an ambulance or lay here and hope it passes. Where’s that brown bag?!

What’s crazy about anxiety is how it comes out of nowhere. Obviously, subconsciously something is bothering me. Anxiety happens with you think you have to have it all figured out, have all of the answers ready. Anxiety is stems from not as much thinking about the future, but wanting to control it. Now, what was I trying to control at 5 years old?! As I sit here writing this, the answer just came flooding to me. My parents split up. And when Shane was 5 years old, his parents split up. Shane also suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.

Ugh. That hurt a bit to admit.

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I’d been trail running and feeling great! The rain began to fall and I was picking up pace to get out of the woods. Thunder clapped loudly. The rain intensified. As I’m laser focused on getting to my car, my chest hurt. My hands went numb. I’m still running. I’m running to get to my car and crying from the pain and collapse to my knees and wonder if I’m having a heart attack. (You hear it all the time, ‘the guy was running the marathon and collapsed…’, it’s rare you hear about someone pulling out of a drive thru and dying of a heart attack, right?) I’m crying and crawling. It was one of my scarier attacks. Clearly, I’d survived. I’d just panicked.

I was in Florida and checking into the hotel room. Within minutes I’m laying down and opening my Calm app, struggling to breathe. The weather was perfect, the hotel was great, the travel was easy. So WTF?!

This week I was headed to Planet Fitness. It’s in the bottom level of the mall, so there’s an escalator to take you to their entrance (very fit and sensible for a gym, right?). On the escalator I’m struggling to get air. I’m not moving but can’t breathe. And to top it off, I’m wearing my mask as mandated. At the bottom of the escalator, I turn and fold over on the mall floor, unhooking my mask from an ear. My slightly uncomfortable chest pain was now full panic. I pulled myself together in record time, part of out pressure of passers by, partly because I didn’t want my significant other to see me fall apart. He’d not seen that side of me and I wasn’t ready to introduce it now. It took me 50 mins of a 55 min workout to rid myself of the chest pain.

Anxiety and panic disorder are so much more common than anyone knows.

Asking for help doesn’t make you weak, it takes true strength to humble yourself to do so.

A few years ago I’d decided to ask for help and find someone to talk to. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find anyone….many doctors weren’t taking new patients, some therapists didn’t return my phone calls, many places were just so expensive. So I’d given up and carried on. Just as I am today.

I had a good handle on my anxiety for a long time. I’d learned some skills on how to control it and retrain my brain. Somehow, I’ve regressed.

Like I said, some days I snuggle with my demons. Some days I slay them.