Sometimes I Can't Breathe

I've always seen the word "anxiety" getting thrown around on social medias and as much as i understood the definition of the word and what it brings into people's lives, i never really thought that it'd one day tap on my  vacant shoulder(the other occupied by depression since a while ago) and demand to tag along for the ride. I've long come to terms with the depressive side of me and i like to think that there's a certain line of peace drawn between me and the melancholic me, but never once have i thought about other mental disorders that haunt the rest of the human race because i've always been so sure that this is it, this is all God would have me carry on my weak, still-underage back, but obviously life just loves to prove me wrong.

My depression isn't going away, not for a long time i'm sure, but i'm learning to be fine with that. All of us have our own tormentors. Those who disagree are either too headstrong to admit their crippling fears, or still haven't come face to face with their demons that had always been disguised as something else. If they're lucky, their demons come one and alone, making the one-on-one battle somewhat fair but if they're not, they may come in two's, a herd even, and where's the fairness in that? To be honest, i don't have the slightest clue on what i'm trying to say or why i'm trying to say what i'm trying to say. I just really wanted to say that i might have anxiety. Not social anxiety or phobic anxiety. It's more general anxiety than anything else. 

Sometimes, i just can't breathe. Every breath comes short and they never feel like they're enough, like my lungs have so much space in them but the air going in doesn't even fill up a quarter of the space. And every part of my body feels like they're burning and it only gets hotter and hotter. My sweaty and sometimes clammy palms and feet get even sweatier and clammier but whatever i do, as much as i wipe my palms on my shirt, my pants, the dampness never seems to leave. My chest feels like a concert hall with a metal band playing but only the drums and bass are making sounds. I feel the beat getting faster with every second that passes until i reach the point where the feeling inside my chest stops mirroring the beating of drums or rapid strums on a bass guitar, instead it begins to resemble a riot happening in a tiny and cramped prison cell, with every single one of the inmates banging against every part of the four walls trying to break their way through. My head feels as light as a feather and everything captured by my two eyes start to swirl but in a way that still allows me to see everything as it is but i just no longer know what they are or where i am or how am i still here. It feels like everything's where they should be and i'm the only one who's getting swirled around. I'm always feeling like i'm swirling around.

Before today, i've always thought of all this as normal. I thought if not everyone then most people felt this sudden nervousness in the middle of day while they sat in class completing their work or at night as they lie in bed reading a novel by their favorite author. I thought semi-constant giddiness was common among young adults, i thought it was all part of the puberty or post-puberty process. Every time my chest gets tight and my head gets light, i thought it was excitement that i was feeling. It wasn't until i kept asking myself, "excited yes, but what about?" and realizing that i never had an answer, not even once, that i concluded that there was in fact, nothing normal about this.

I used to think that i had most of it figured out. My flaws, my issues, my demons. Like, although i'm not sure where my life is headed, at least i'm sure of what i am. At least, i had some part of my life figured out. And then this happened. I can't say that this came out of nowhere because it didn't. I've had feelings like these since years before. Now that i've been thinking real hard about it, i'm quite certain that this surfaced about the same time as my depression did and like my depression, i didn't know it was depression until i got myself extremely involved with more open-minded social networks like Tumblr and Twitter instead of Facebook which everybody i know was active on. They explained to me what no parent, schoolmate or friend could ever explain. They gave me answers to questions i didn't even know i had. They were the first to bring light into my dark life and it was only because of that light, i realized that my life had been dark all long. Without it, without that light, i'd never have known how dark my path was, how blind my steps were.

Some would say if i hadn't known i was sad, i wouldn't have centered my world around it and spent so much time tormenting myself about why i was sad or how i need to get myself to be not-sad because you only fix what's broken and if it's not, you wouldn't have to waste any time and energy on it. That's what they thought, that my self-discovery was seen as a mistake. Imagine, i would imagine them saying, imagine the things you could've done if you weren't so busy trying to fix something you didn't even know was broken in the first place, you've come this far without falling, i'm sure another decade or so of  obliviousness wouldn't mean all that much.

I don't care if they think that i've wasted my time. I don't care if they think i'd be better off in the dark. Right now, i'm glad i'm out of the dark. I'm glad i'm out of the dark although still chained from the neck down trying to break free from the darkness. My darkness. Discovering another side of me today has been a morbid experience but again, i'm grateful that it happened because now i know i'm another step closer to figuring myself out. You can't fix what you didn't know was broken, but you can when you do. As i try to fix the sad part of me, i'll now also try to fix the anxious part of me.