anxiety attack

I reserve the right to give myself a break

I reserve the right to give myself a break.

For years, decades if I’m being honest, I never gave myself a break. I took days off and I took vacations, but I never really rested. I just pushed and pushed and pushed until one day it broke me.

I broke from doing too much, from never slowing down, and most importantly, from not knowing how to say “No.” One day, my whole world came to a screeching halt and my body and mind shut down.

I began to have anxiety attacks. I was forced to take a break. I was forced to rest. I was forced to reevaluate my life and my priorities.

A lot of healing has happened since then, but I still have the capacity to overcommit, to overwork, and to put too much unnecessary pressure on myself. But now, when I feel that happening, I reserve the right to slow down, to unburden myself, and to take a break as needed.

My mental, emotional, and spiritual health require that I rest, but it took me pushing myself to the breaking point to realize that.

Anxious or simply exhausted

Have you ever been so tired that you thought you were having an anxiety attack?

I recently drove my wife and daughter to New Jersey to visit family. We had an event to be at by 11am and it usually takes about four hours to get there. In order to account for the unexpected, we woke up at around 5am to leave by 6am.

The trip went smoothly and we were actually early, so early in fact that I has time to stop by a jiu-jitsu academy I’ve visited a few times prior for some morning training before going to our event.

We went to our event, grabbed some food, and then went to our hotel to check in. I tend not to eat or drink very much while I’m driving because food makes me tired and fluids make me have to pee, both of which make the trip take longer.

This, combined with waking up early, and the general stress of being on the road all morning, and I was in a somewhat fragile state. As a highly sensitive person, I had put a lot of strain on my body and mind over the course of the day.

My wife took my daughter to the hotel pool and I laid down for a nap. But as I laid there trying to rest, I was struck by a wave of what felt like anxiety. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in a long time so this disturbed me, but I allowed it to wash over me as I laid there with my eyes closed.

I began thinking about what could have caused the anxiety I was feeling and I concluded that I wasn’t over-stressed or worried. In fact, nothing was really wrong at all. I was just tired, so tired that my body and mind had had enough.

I had basically pushed myself as far as I could go and now I was feeling the effects of that. What felt like anxiety was really just me being overly tired, dehydrated, and hungry. I wasn’t having an anxiety attack. I just needed some food, water, and a nap.