Getting anxious before a first date, or a job interview, or maybe a school exam. Those things make sense to me. But getting feelings of anxiety for absolutely no reason does not make sense to me. It’s not logical. It’s not rational. But, it happens. And it happened to me today. With no warning.

I was sitting at my desk at my job. I was doing the tasks I needed to do. For no reason that I can think of, my mind went into a dark place. I started having thoughts of decisions I’ve made in recent years. I thought about financial struggles. I thought about arguments I’ve had with people. I thought about driving in blizzards. I thought about my education. I thought about friends and family that are no longer here. I thought about friends and family that are here. I thought about my immediate future. I thought about the distant future. I thought about my recent past. I thought about my distant past.

I have no idea whatsoever as to what caused this. But, as my thought train went further and further down the track, I got more and more nervous. I felt the anxiety build up. I felt bile build up in my mouth. I got worked up into almost feeling ill. And I don’t know why. As I said, sometimes it’s not logical.

For a little bit more perspective as to how this makes almost no sense to me, keep in mind that I’m actually “in a good place” mentally and emotionally now. A lot of the things I had been through and a lot of my struggles over the past few years are either behind me or are turning around for the better. My social life is good. I have a new job that I like. I have steady income. So, what happened?

There’s always been a feeling with me that whenever things are going well, they’re going to collapse. Is that due to being conditioned and programmed to feel that I don’t deserve to be happy? Is that due to a precedent of bad things happening to me? I don’t know. That’s part of why I’m writing this. Although, I am aware that I’m looking for answers that I may not get. Of course, that too makes me anxious.

Absolutely nothing bad happened to me today. NOTHING. I woke up and went to work. There were no traffic issues. There were no obstacles. The job went as it was supposed to go. In fact, I got good news while I was there. And even with all of that going as it went, I still got worked up almost into a panic. As I said, it’s not rational nor is it logical.

It took me a little bit to snap out of it. Because, as I said, the more I thought about things, the more anxious I got. And I was very much aware that it was happening too. I was aware that I was getting more and more anxious and that I didn’t know why. Which, of course, exacerbated the anxiety.

I know this makes absolutely no sense to some of you. In some ways I envy that, because maybe that means you don’t know what it’s like to have irrational anxiety issues. But, for those that this kind of story does make sense to, I’m sorry that it does. I wish it didn’t. I wish you didn’t go through this too.

I had a completely different concept for a blog entry. In fact, I have an unfinished draft that I was going to work on and publish today. The topic was nothing like this. In some ways, it was a follow up to something I had written a while back about our current political climate and my theories as to what helped get us to where we are now. I’ll get back to that one at some point. There’s more research to be done on it before it’ll be up to my liking.

But for now, I’m putting this one out there. I’m publishing this one because I need to. I feel this one is an important one. Despite what some people that have read multiple entries from me may think, I’m still not used to positively and properly expressing myself. I was taught, programmed, and conditioned to suppress emotions. I was often told that what I felt was wrong. I was meant to feel that I couldn’t express myself. Of course, that led to anxiety. So, that’s what I’m doing here. I’m letting it out. Although, I do want to make it clear that I’m in a MUCH BETTER state of mind than I was this morning. I’ve found a few good things to redirect my thought train to. Those things always put a smile on my face. And that’s what I need to remind myself of. There are good things in my life. And no matter what gets me down, as long as those good things are still there, I’ll be okay…
and I’m not alone.