Intern Chick

Knock Knock..

Who's there?

Your anxiety, Internchick....and I'm always gonna be here.


Last night was an adventure to say the least. I should probably back it up here. I have something called generalized anxiety disorder (and before you think I'm some psycho freak and take my blog off your "favorites" 6.8 million people in the U.S. alone have it in any given year). It means that I have long lasting anxiety about everything, its not focused on just one thing (you could say I'm an equal opportunity employer). So what do you get when you have someone with an anxiety disorder who is also an over achiever? You get me, someone with three jobs living by myself in New York. And then what do you get? You get an anxiety attack. A big one.

What is an anxiety attack? Everyone's is different but I get just about every symptom I've ever read comes with anxiety attacks. So that means, uncontrollable crying (I don't do it that often but when I do it, I DO IT), shortness of breath, racing heart, feeling faint or weak, dizziness, back pain, chest pain, and the biggest one, overwhelming fear. Those are just some of the symptoms but they're the ones I hate the most. My anxiety is a lot worse when I've been unhappy for a long period of times. Sometimes I'm completely fine and other times, its really bad. Its just the luck of the draw, ha.

So last night I got in bed around 12 and was pretty excited because this is early for me. I also haven't slept in days, I'm so tired but I get in bed and I just can't sleep, I think I'm supposed to be nocturnal or something, I'm never tired at night! Two hours later, I'm still laying bed and I start crying. I didn't even know I was crying til I saw myself in the mirror. I haven't cried in months so that was a bad choice because I opened up the floodgate and here came the anxiety attack. The worst thing about having one? Having one alone. It was the first time I had to calm myself down and I tired myself out somewhere around 4am. I woke up at 4:45 am and my chest was still really tight. Then I was up until sometime around 8 and slept until my alarm went off at 9:30.

Work was a joke today. I, for once, chose to take care of myself and stayed home. I couldn't even fall back asleep until probably 2pm and got a good 4 hour nap in, which I am so thankful for.

And why am I telling you this? I say that to say this, no matter how hard you work, you always have to put yourself first. That's something I struggle with. A good boss knows a healthy employee is better than an unstable one and the quicker you learn that, the better. Put yourself first and learn to relax, because otherwise you end up with unbearable anxiety along with the other 6.8 million people in this country.

I don't know how to relax because I didn't even experience an ounce of stress until I moved to college and then I really found out what it meant. I don't believe in all that concentrated breathing crap, but what do you guys do to relax??