Anxiety & Stress, the Unseen Two-Headed Monster & What it Does to It's Victims

Different people experience stress for different reasons and not very often are there two cases that are alike.

Some may have grown up in a very rough situation while others developed an instant stress that perhaps stems from a chemical imbalance.

Stress, and especially anxiety are two things that are predominant in our society but it should never be dismissed. No one should ever consider stress or anxiety as something you can "just walk off" this is not football after all.

First, let me describe to you what an anxiety attack feels like:

It can come on quick or slow, there are no rules for this but it more often than not comes on very quickly.

All of a sudden, the person feels their heart speed up greatly, they have all sorts of discomforts in their chest. This has led many to think they were having a heart attack.

The anxiety now takes grip fully and the victim starts to think that they are literally dying. That they are have a heart attack, or the room feels like it's getting smaller or any number of symptoms that most of the time leads the victim to believe that they are dying right then and there.

The first time I had an anxiety attack was at work. I was working as a sort of private nurse in a nursing home. I had taken my patient to lunch in the lunch-room and I'm sitting there with her. I'm watching her eat and talking to other people that worked there. Nothing unusual, no stressers present, nothing.

Then, as if out of the clear blue sky I started feeling discomfort, I couldn't pin point it so I was trying not to pay it any mind but soon I started having a cold sweat and then BANG!

Suddenly, I feel this compulsory need to get out of that room, I could feel my heart beating very fast and I felt that I was in the process of dying. This didn't feel like a simulation, I am not exaggerating anything when I tell you that I felt that I was literally dying.

I didn't run out of the room and I forced myself to sit in that room but several people asked me if I was ok as all the blood had rushed out of my face and I was ashen.

The reason I didn't run out is because I was in college at that time and I was studying Psychology in hopes of one day getting a degree in that field.

I had a moment when I almost unconsciously remembered my professors describing and anxiety attack and somehow I was able to not freak out completely.

I was unable to finish that day's work and I felt much better when after lunch I was sitting in my car driving home.

This has by no means been the last time I felt an anxiety attack and I didn't always think my way through it. I guess that first attack was small enough to where I was able to talk myself through it.

I have had several anxiety attacks since then but what I have of much more often is something called generalized anxiety.

I'm always in a state heightened awareness of danger around me, my hands can sometimes start to shake along with a whole slew of other symptoms that I don't care to remind myself of in writing this article.

I have all but lost the ability to sleep and am constantly vigilant (that's the actually correct term that I have been diagnosed with)

Hyper Vigilance is a hell of a thing, it's like watching a horror movie that is loaded with suspense and you're sitting on the edge of your seat to see what happens next yet nothing ever happens next. There's just that feeling of waiting for something to happen and it never does.

Without going into to much detail, as a kid I had 3 unsuccessful kidnapping attacks on me, I was standing next to my father when he was shot along with the 3 year nightmare that came with his recuperation.

I'm sure it didn't help that I ended up working for a Congressman on Capitol Hill when 9-11 took place. It's not that I was worried about airplanes hitting me, no not at all.

What did leave another scar on me is that one of my duties was to take care of the office mail, open it, segregate it and place it in the correct co-workers trays or desks.

For those who have forgotten, this was at the same time that anthrax laced letters were sent to a couple Representatives along with a member of the media.

I was not exposed to that situation but what came next was that every idiot who had the bright idea to put some flower or other powder into a mailbox destined for my office.

Lets just say that I was more than once covered in powders of all varieties and had to be thoroughly checked out by the Haz-Mat team. They check just about every single orifice in your body to make sure there were no anthrax spores there and then I'd be free to take a shower after they tested the material and found it not to actually be anthrax at all.

What the powder was or wasn't is not in question here, what it did to my already weakened psyche is anyone's guess.

The fact remains that I've probably got a life long battle with anxiety ahead of me. So far, most of the new drugs that doctors keep trying out on me tend to make me sick and give me more side-effect than the anxiety they were supposed to cure.

I still can't sleep.

I'm still hyper Vigilant,

I'll probably be this way till my final breath.

Please check out my blog at www.robertkorczak.com

Or find out more about my father who's an Ex CIA Agent www.boriskorczak.com

By Rob Korczak