Anxiety

Today I have had anxiety.  Lots of it.  I don't know what anxiety is like for other people.  For some, it involves worrying about any number of things.  I imagine that for others, like me, it's far less tangible.  The vast majority of the time, if someone asks me, "What are you feeling anxious about?", I have absolutely no freaking clue.

So I'm going to try to describe what anxiety "feels" like to me.  I can feel a physical sensation of tension around my heart and in my head.  I feel sobbing and hitching and hysteria somewhere deep inside of me, but it won't come out.  It's not that I'm restraining myself and holding it in.  It's more like it's locked away tightly in a little steel vault hidden deep inside my chest and I don't have the key.  It seems to desperately want to get out.  This metaphorical metal box shudders and shakes and bounces around from the effort of whatever it contains trying to escape.  The vibrations build up the pressure so that it is throbbing in my chest and in my skull. I tap my fingers or jiggle my knee trying to let some of the pressure out.  I even try to jump-start the release of whatever is contained within that vault with some practice sobs, but it doesn't work.  There are so many cushioning layers of numbness between the Vault of Pain and the surface that all I can feel are the shock-waves of whatever it is that wants to get out.

And that is my best description of anxiety.