We'll jump right in.

Given the title of this one - I'd like you to think of swimming. Now depending on your skill with water you either respect it enough to stay poolside or on shore and admire its beauty from afar or you dive head first in, welcoming the cool, liquid and its feeling of weightlessness over your body. There is a wonderful thing that happens to people as children that allows us to learn how to navigate our experiences with water. We quickly pick up the act of floating, a simple procedure of filling your lungs with air and laying on your back at the surface of the water calmly and at peace then eventually we learn a maneuver called swimming that allows us to move throughout a pool or large body of water with our arms and legs, churning the water and making waves.

As children, we manage to put down the fears and anxieties that can occur when trying new things and just go for it. A thing that happens to us that we somehow manage to forget and have to relearn as adults is Confidence. As children we either loved or feared the water and grew up as adults with the same fears and anxieties but it wasn't the water's fault. Water, while it can change depending on where you are and what you do...remains the same in pools. It is a liquid that can heal and harm us if we are not trained in the proper way to deal with it. It can overtake us and ....eventually harm or even kill us. So depending on your skill with water... you either sink or swim.

What's with water today?

Well, I liken anxiety to water in my life...even more-so drowning. I mentioned to a reader that its very much like trying to stay afloat when the waters get rough.

Anxiety is a nervous disorder characterized by a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks...so says the Google definition. Doctors would agree..but what about those who suffer from it - does it line up with our experiences with it?

I have been brought to my knees, literally, under the crippling force of an anxiety attack and that coupled up with the other things that I deal with -particularly the schizophrenia and where my mind seems to go, it feels like God's punishment. I can recall moments when I couldn't even lift my head or remove myself from a fetal position due to the invisible weight and force of a wave that had bared down on me. The feeling of your breath being stolen while this hidden anvil sits on your chest is enough to make you believe that something more serious is going on...because the feeling is like something even closer to death. This is what we as sufferers feel and think at the time it happens. I hate that word - suffer. We fight through it every time we are faced with it.

Some would say - maybe you just aren't cut out for the things you are doing in your life.

Then that would mean that I'm not fit to live and trust me I have had that thought and feeling before, pre and post anxiety. How DO we manage to get through it when it happens?

If you are anything like me then the first few thousand times it happened, you just had to ride the wave until it was over. There was no fight in me then - I didn't understand what was happening or why. I thought I was having a stroke or heart attack the first time. I had even been admitted into the hospital, not a mental facility but a medical hospital. It was explained to me that, that was what I was suffering from. Life got complicated after that.

I was married at the time to a then doting husband. Every time it happened he reassured me, calmed me and cooed me. He even sang to me! But it was all just so I would know that everything would be alright. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't miss those times. He was supportive and that is what I needed.

The attacks seem to come and go as they please leaving me to question my sanity and strength but that is the nature of them, at times the only thing that I can marvel at is how they come about and because I rarely have the answer to the question of "What caused this?" - I just do my best to get through them with but there is something and was something for the moments I didn't have medication to take...something got me through those moments maybe it was

-divine intervention

-inner strength

-prayer

-magic..???

Our bodies...because its not just in the mind or an emotional thing, the attacks have proved that - find some way of bleeding off the effects. I wish I understood it more than I do but alas, I do not. The tension itself rises up and threatens to drown and when I feel them coming on - I imagine myself floating on my back, after taking the medication for it. It is a medication that I have to keep on me at all times, just in case. I don't like being tethered to medication but its what must be done. It makes me look at those commercials with the Abilify pill following the woman around every where she goes and I think much the same except mine is connected to me with a ball and chain. Constantly reminding me of how unwell I am.

It's funny really - I used to be a perfectionist but mental illness has kicked that out of me. I don't mind it - I was hell on heels for the people around me for a long time but when things got sticky and I had to face the facts of reality - I got over it. There is perfection in breathing a breath of fresh air everyday, there is perfection in learning a new trade and in the things that my eyes take in on a daily basis - nature is perfect, I am not.

There is a connection I want to make here. Not to show you how messed up I am but how complex mental illness is and how the smallest thing can open up something huge to your eyes.

This morning at around 11 am - I had a minor anxiety attack. It was a feeling of pure dread, for lack of better words - I felt heavy. My limbs and legs - my body felt heavier than normal and my stomach was doing flips. This is the one time I had an answer to the big question of What caused it? I was thinking about a specific trauma I had had in my past. I won't go into detail about but just to say it was a rape. I had a dream about it last night and while waking up it was the first thing on my mind. I thought I was handling things pretty damn well until I started thinking about the new friend I made. A male, in his 30's and seems pretty decent but the trust issues in me arose and I felt that first sting of anxiety wash over me. I moaned to try to release the pressure that was causing the discomfort and when that didn't help, I thought of other things. I used the skills that I learned to get through these things. Reframing - thinking of something else. Relocating - moving to another room and Rehabilitation - doing something that made me feel better.

Like I said it was small and minor but the act of thinking about my day and the writing that awaited me along with the act of moving to the kitchen to make coffee helped. On a bad day - I can't move. And on a fair day - movement is reduced to changing position on the sofa, bed or floor. For some reason I like the floor - its hardwood floors are cool and give a shock to my system letting my body know to let up.

I wish I could say that I have defeated this. That anxiety is no longer and issue and give you the secret formula for ridding yourself of it. All I can tell you is what works for me. Prayer, medication, therapy and finding a hobby, talent or skill to submerse yourself in. Something as simple as talking to someone about it can help you loads - but you won't know until you find out.

Sink or Swim?

Swimming - Keep your head up, move your feet and set yourself into motion when you feel a wave of anxiety rushing towards you. Don't worry if you have to sit still until its over but make yourself believe that you will still be there when its over.

Sinking - is the act of giving up on yourself and your life. Please know that you are worth so much more than your circumstances say you are. Its tough getting through this life and it even tends to make you a little cynical about what's ahead of you but - what if you didn't think that way? What if..instead you made yourself believe in the goodness of things and people.

We're all the same - none of us is perfect, very few of us are rich - that puts us on even playing ground with each other - so...play nice.

And kick kick kick! "As long as you're kicking you're swimming and as long as your swimming, you're not drowning." - Mom, who doesn't know how to swim but knows everything about life.

Thank you for reading!

Please if you have any questions or comments at all on any of the post from my life - please share them. I'd love to hear from you.