I’ve been feeling vaguely panicked all day today. So much so that I haven’t done one dang thing. I just keep wandering from room to room, spending a couple minutes on moving the phone to the charger, putting a towel in the hamper, petting the cats, and then moving on. I’m so unsettled I can’t even just lay down.
Once I finally forced myself onto the couch, I realized that I’m hurting quite a bit. The anxiety I’d been feeling had completely covered it.
There comes a point where the pain just stops making it to your brain. When the pain is especially extreme in one moment, you might pass out. When the pain is extreme constantly, you begin to compensate and for brief moments it might recede into the background like music. But it still makes its presence known. I can’t seem to breathe right, I’m weak and tired and dizzy, just like I might not be able to make out what the music is, but it could still keep me from communicating effectively.
So all day when I’ve been feeling restless and panicky, it’s really because I couldn’t breathe. And why couldn’t I breathe? Because the pain was interfering with my body functions. Honestly, sometimes it’s like Chinese water torture. It’s not that the pain is always as extreme as it could possibly be, but the fact that it never. freaking. goes. away. makes it so much more intense than it should be.
Sometimes it makes me feel claustrophobic. Like this broken body I inhabit is a sarcophagus I’m trapped in. It’s that feeling of constriction and lack of control. I am bound by this pain and there is nothing I can do to stop it. No amount of baths or cool washcloths or frozen yogurt or heating pads will truly just make it stop and set me free.