Smiling through anxiety...

While I don't suffer from panic attacks as severely or frequently as some people that I know, there are times when it can be down right paralyzing. While reading the forum at an anxiety website, I came across these in the humor section. I've compiled them to hopefully give fellow sufferers some laughter through the pain. I can't take credit for writing any of these, but there are definitely a few I can relate to!

You know you have anxiety when….

·         You look for the nearest escape route everywhere you go.

·         You wonder if anyone would notice if you locked yourself in the bathroom at your own party.

·         You carry an industrial size bottle of hand sanitizer with you wherever you go.

·         You have to mentally prep yourself for three days before going to pick up milk at the grocery store.

·         You envy your pets because they don't have to leave the house.

·         You don’t care if taking side streets takes longer as long as you can avoid the highway.

·         Immediately upon waking you check to make sure every part of your body feels normal. If your toe hurts you panic for the rest of the day and call in sick.

·         You're pretty sure the receptionist at your doctor's office hates you.

·         You leave a cart full of groceries because the check-out line is too long.

·         You let your hair grow ridiculously long because you're sure awful things will happen if you sit in that chair.

·         You suffer through horrible headaches because you're sure that if you take a painkiller it will kill you.

·         When you do take a pill, any pill, you cut it in half, and sometimes in quarters, just to make sure you're not taking too much.

·         When someone's talking to you, they have no idea that while you're looking at them and nodding, you're not hearing one word they're saying because all you can think of is "how do I get out of here?"

·         You take a shower and do your hair because you don't want the paramedics who are going to pick up your dead body to comment that you smell and look awful.

·         While you’re in the shower, you hurry up, so you’re not found naked by the paramedics

·         You put on half a can of Deep Woods off to mow the lawn because you don't want to catch West Nile Virus from a mosquito

·         You’re AFRAID to put on Deep Woods Off because it might kill you.

·         You know where every bathroom is in every grocery store and mall.

  

·         You constantly check your fingernails to see if they are turning blue because you heard when people aren’t getting enough oxygen their fingernails turn blue.

·         You stop swimming in the ocean because you are scared of getting stung by a lethal jellyfish/ getting eaten by a shark/ getting caught in a rip tide.

·         You teach every one the Heimlich Maneuver just in case you start choking when you are out for dinner with them.

·         You also make sure you know how to do it to yourself in case you choke when you're alone.

·         When you are out of town, you look for hospital signs on the parkway "just in case"

·         You get all panicky two weeks before you have to pick up your relatives at the airport because you have to drive at night on the freeway.

·         You can recite your relaxation CD - word for word...and put others in a relaxed state.

·         You arrive a little early to events that you have to go to, just so you can be one of the first to pick a seat, which of course would be whichever one is closest to an exit or bathroom.

·         Your spouse will not let you read the possible side effects literature that comes with your medication because you believe you are experiencing every one of the symptoms

·         You’re sure any bridge that you cross will cave in, so you take the long way around.

     ·         You have to sit in the emergency room parking lot to take new meds, just in case.

·         You constantly check your pulse to make sure you are still alive and are not dying from a heart attack.

·         You check your pulse so much you make your neck sore. THEN you worry because something must to be wrong with your neck for it to be so sore!

·         You carry the portable phone from room to room with you, including the bathroom, so that when you pass out or get violently ill you can call for help.

·         Before a trip you use map quest just to see exactly how far away it is that you will have to travel.

·         You don’t want to move to the country because it would take the ambulance too long to get from your house to the hospital.

·         You use the blood pressure machine so often at the local CVS that you buy something just because you feel guilty.