First off, sorry that I haven’t written in awhile. To say my life has been hectic and stressful would be an understatement. But, I won’t drone on about that right now.

The last two mornings I’ve been hit with anxiety instantly upon waking. That really sucks. My day hasn’t even started yet – what could kick off anxiety before I’ve even had a chance to open my eyes? Come on universe, give me a break!

For me, my most prominent symptom is always a massive hot flash with full body sweat, followed by FREEZING to death. Then repeat. Over and over. It’s awful. I’m so hot I want to uncover, but then I’m instantly so freezing I have to cover back up (be that with blankets if I’m in bed or layers of clothing if I’m out of bed.) I have plenty of other symptoms too, but that seems to be my most consistent and prominent symptom. It’s also the one that “gives me away” if I’m around others. You can see that I’m sweating, or shivering (or both). Or if you touch me, I’m clammy and/or slick with sweat. WTF.

I’m in a private FB group for anxiety sufferers and I was curious how anxiety/panic manifests for others. I know there’s a kaleidoscope of symptoms that anxiety can cause… but I was wondering what are the symptoms that knock you down every time. So I posed the question to the group: what is your most dominant anxiety symptom(s). I found the responses interesting, so I thought I’d share (each line is a different person unless there’s a x2 etc at the end). I imagine I’ll get more replies on my post, but I thought I’d go ahead and write this up. And because I’m a nerd, I put them into word clouds…

Men

• High blood pressure & occasional hot flashes
• The intense need to escape public places
• Falling sensation
• Claustrophobic, rapid heart rate & pukey

Women

• Racing heart & thoughts of impending doom x2
• Racing heart, thoughts of impending doom + muscle weakness
• Tingling in hands and feet x2
• Rapid heartbeat 
• Nausea, sometimes vomiting & no appetite
• Impending doom & feeling like I’m going to pass out
• Nausea & hot flashes
• Butterflies, sense of unease, rapid heart rate & restlessness
• Fast heart rate, dizziness and feeling like I’m going to pass out
• Nausea, no appetite, inability to sleep
• Extreme hyperventilation and weakness
• Muscle weakness, hard to breath & blurry vision
• Back spasms and blurry eyes

I’m not sure what this tells any of us, beyond anxiety sucking… but I thought it was interesting to learn how anxiety attacks others. It’s a nasty little beast.

– Miranda

Word clouds created using word clouds.com

Galaxy image was taken by the Hubble Telescope 🙂