High Anxiety

I've emailed Birdie for advice on anxiety.
It's just about killing me and   I. Don't. Know. Why!
It's gotten so severe in the last three days and I am having difficulty functioning normally.
I had a full complete physical exam in May and checked out ok. But I wasn't having the anxiety then.

Truthfully I don't know what to do about this. It is attacking me in the middle of the night. The house is dark and still and very quiet which makes it worse. I woke my husband up the first night it happened and made him talk to me. Bless him, he called into work and stayed home with me until I felt better. He went to work at noon since my symptoms were entirely gone by that time.
I have never had it this bad before. And it scares me.
My God! I think to myself...Is it a brain tumor? Do I have MS? Am I having a silent heart attack?
The symptoms are gone in the light of day. No palpitations, no fear, no trembling limbs, no chest pain, no trouble swallowing, no nausea, no feeling of doom....nothing.
Grand kids still come over every day. We play, do crafts, I do laundry in between bike rides and trips to the grocery store. I make breakfast, lunch and dinner. I walk the dog.
But when bedtime comes around I begin to feel afraid.
I don't want the symptoms to come back again.
They are god awful.  Why do they only attack in the middle of the night?
I'm trying to figure it out on my own by the process of elimination.
I'm down to drinking only one cup of coffee a day. I stopped drinking all alcohol. No chocolate either.
I had a great idea for a different post but find I cannot concentrate on anything except for the way I feel which is tired and anxious and uncertain.

I'm sorry to be venting about this here. But I don't know what else to do.
I asked Birdie if she thought writing about it would perhaps make it go away.
Or maybe journaling would help me to sort out why all of a sudden I've got it this bad.

So this is me getting started with the writing down of the beginning and maybe soon another post about how I'm doing in the meantime. I'd appreciate your prayers.

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly

Morning

Genesis 1:3-5New International Version (NIV)

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” 

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

I never considered myself a morning person. When I was working 40+ hours a week mornings were always so damn painful...metaphorically speaking.

I hated morning.

I'd have to get up at 5:00am in order to be the first of 5 people in the shower. 

(We only have the one bathroom)

And let me tell you 5:00am never felt, to me, like a normal time to get out of bed.

I was always so tired during the day. 

I worked 12 hour days, 4 days a week, while occasionally eating lunch on the run. 

Mostly I fueled myself with a steady diet of coffee and cigarettes. 

Back then I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. 

Good lord but that is a lot of smoking before, but mostly after working all day.

If I'm honest, I never really felt well back then only driven or amped or hyper.

And I thought that since I was always moving I was getting stuff done.

I did get stuff done but there wasn't any heart behind it. Or kindness. Or thought really.

I was on autopilot. Ticking things off of my to-do list like a general.

I felt little joy and my soul was shriveled up like a raisin.

On the morning I was fired, 8 years ago, I didn't want to be working there anymore and truthfully, they didn't want me to be working there anymore either.

It felt like a severing though. I felt cut, raw, hurt and injured.

Now it just so happened that my sister and her family were traveling to Florida that morning.

When I called to tell her of my firing, she invited me to go to Florida with them in their car.

I gladly accepted and soon found myself wedged into their conversion van in the last open seat, 

along with 5 other people and assorted pieces of luggage, shoes, snacks, bottles of water and beach supplies.

I was happy to be heading south to the Sunshine state. I was a little crowded and a lot carsick but otherwise my destination is what kept me happy and smiling.

On the second morning of our trip I found myself alone, sitting outside of a Cracker Barrel restaurant somewhere in bumfuck Arkansas, drinking a nasty cup of to-go coffee, smoking a cigarette and crying. (The rest of the family was inside eating.) 

I didn't know what I wanted to do. I certainly didn't want to be eating at that Cracker Barrel I can tell you that! I felt panicky. I regretted taking this last minute trip with my sister's family, because all of them squished inside that overly full van, kept arguing with each other.

It was driving me insane driving with all of them.

I wanted silence. I wanted to go over my firing in my mind and pick apart every word that had been said by my bosses and by me. I wanted to nurse my indignation and my heartache. I wanted peace in my mind, in my heart, in my soul. And I wasn't getting any of it.

The third morning of my trip found me awake at, you guessed it, the ungodly hour of 5:00am.

But I could smell the salt air and I could hear the ocean from the open window of our Condo so I got up and headed outside to take in the view.

That view of the white sand and the blue-grey-green water that meets the sky never disappoints.

As the waves roll in towards shore there is the subtlest sound of Yah-Weh.

Yah as it rolls in, Weh as it pulls back out. 

It's like the ocean is breathing His very name every time a wave comes ashore.

It instantly settled my soul and I took my first deep breath of air in weeks. I felt myself starting to unkink...felt my soul start to expand.

There is something about the smell of the ocean...I wish I could bottle and smell this all the time.

The feel of the sticky sand on my feet, the little tiny birds running running running on the beach, 

even the sound of the seagulls is something that puts me to rights.

Every morning for the entire week I was in Florida was spent on that beach staring into nothing and yet also staring directly into and hearing the very breath of God.

If I close my eyes I can hear it still today. And remember how it felt to be so near the sound of YahWeh and how comforted and held I felt.

Now I get up at 5:30am in the morning and it no longer bothers me. 

It's so automatic I don't even need to set an alarm clock. I even look forward to it.

Because the first thing I do is grab a cup of coffee and then I head to my desk where I keep my devotionals and my Bibles and I say a good morning to YahWeh and I thank Him for the morning, for THIS morning and for other mornings to come. And I am grateful. So very grateful to be up at 5:30am.

                                                 YahWeh

Thanks for reading,

Love, Lolly