Anxiety | a black mark I wish I never received

It's been over a week now, going on two, since I've been fully conscious.

It started Saturday, May 1, 2021. I'd ordered Chinese food and went on my usual walk. It had been getting progressively more difficult due to my body rejecting exercise. I'd be in pain the next day, sometimes severely. But any time I'd voice this to anyone, the solution given was to 'keep moving.' 'It'll pass.' 'It's nothing/your anxiety.'

So I kept moving.

And the more I fought the malaise, and the sign that my body was begging me to stop, the worse my symptoms became. I experienced my hands feeling fuzzy and buzzing along with the rest of my body, including my face and feet. I kept forgetting things — worse than usual. I threw away an unfinished soda while a friend was visiting, and I had no recollection of it and searched everywhere only to find it in the trash.

The entire visit with my friend was in a daze. Hazy. I can't tell you some of what we spoke about. I know we shared YouTube videos and laughed, and we ordered food, but it all felt like a dream because I was so damn tired. I had tunnel vision from the fatigue.

The day before that, I soldiered through to get a haircut. It also felt like a haze. During the week that followed, I barely remember a visit with another friend I hadn't seen, also, in a year due to the pandemic.

I worried that something was very wrong, especially after a week into this mysterious weakness and fatigue. I ate more and more as my body craved energy it couldn't get. No amount of caffeine did anything. I'd voiced my concerns to my doctor when it began, but I thought it might just be fibromyalgia. My teeth badly need a dentist, so I did worry it could be an infection spreading, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not in pain nor do I have a fever.

I've been through prolonged, intense stress from PTSD symptoms since October of 2020. I also experienced severe anxiety attacks that went into shock because of my injection phobia, even though I got both of my COVID vaccine doses. I fainted after the first shot. The second one I had to get lying in a bed because of the powerful anxiety attack I had, but I was proud of myself for getting them, and I prepared to start living life again.

Then the crash hit. Debilitating fatigue and weakness refused to even let me check the mail without running out of breath. I started to worry again. I'd had some unusually intense side effects from the second shot; a fever, extremely cold body temperature and then hot, a severe sinus headache, and malaise with body aches. Once it passed three days later, I felt more like myself. I started to go on walks again. I felt as well as I could be. And then, after two weeks, the weakness settled in. It left me wondering if the side effects from the vaccine, that resulted in me getting a fever blister, somehow brought on the chronic fatigue.

I did some research, but I found nothing linked. In fact, I found articles claiming the vaccine actually helped sufferers of long COVID. That didn't really apply to me since I'd never contracted COVID that I knew of, so that couldn't be it. No one else reported this. I didn’t want to think it was the vaccine, but two of my doctors brought it up as a possible rare case of an adverse reaction. (Disclaimer; I'm pro-vaccination. My experience has been a very rare case. The majority of people who get the vaccine are absolutely fine.)

After exhausting all resources, I mentioned my concerns to a couple of loved ones. Their response was exactly as I thought it would be.

"It's probably your anxiety."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

"You just have to keep moving and it will get better."

"You'll be fine."

"You're overthinking."

The anger that built within me was much more powerful than I could express. It’s the way it always went. Any time I had a health concern, many defaulted to my anxiety disorder being the cause. Even doctors in my past ignored me because of my anxiety diagnosis, which resulted in me having very real health problems. GERD was ignored for a few years until I changed doctors and am now on stomach medication for the rest of my life because it was 'just anxiety.'

I stopped myself as I tried to justify my concerns. The fact that I even have to justify how I feel, let alone write an essay to be believed, regardless of my past, is awful. I'd sent a measurement of my pulse rate to a friend to prove I wasn't anxious, and I realized that was ridiculous too.

The symptoms of this chronic fatigue haven't improved. It's been about two weeks now, and I am still struggling to be taken seriously. I've spent nights and afternoons crying. My body has been through so much just within a year, let alone my entire life. Trauma, anxiety, night terrors, living in poverty. My body is tired. After a few months of relapses with self-harm and a resurgence of new and very vivid and severe PTSD symptoms and dreams, I am starting to come to a conclusion.

My body has been through so many years of bullshit. Even now, as I've gained a few more chronic illnesses like GERD and spinal stenosis, I struggle to be taken seriously by some. And it's all because of the black mark on my record: Anxiety.

Anxiety has become a stain on my reputation. This anxiety I didn't want. Didn't ask for. This panic disorder I struggle to cope with is the one thing that has led to my physical health worsening and some not believing me until it's too late. And I am at a loss. I don't know what to do about it.

I am not suicidal right now, but I am no stranger to suicidal thoughts. Most often, they are from utter exhaustion — from trying so hard to just chase a semblance of good or happy. They often surface because some refuse to take me seriously or believe me when I am crashing from something I can't find answers about. Because 'anxiety' is so easy to blurt out to dismiss me like I'm still that scared little child.

I want more than anything for those who doubt me to just listen to me. Take me seriously. Comfort me when I am scared. I wish doctors wouldn't joke when I have intolerance to medication because of a hyper-sensitivity disorder that is most likely from being autistic. "You handled that prescription well?" Laugh. "That's something coming from you."

Somewhere along the line, when I was given this black mark, I had thought it answered my questions. I learned to cope and be thankful for answers because answers are what we all strive for. It means healing. It means learning to find a way to finally get closer to happiness.

Little did I know, Anxiety was a stain that would prevent all of these things.

©2021 Shane Blackheart