What if I was on your side all along…

Anxiety, obsessive thoughts, fears, nightmares, aches, mild panic attacks, sudden jumps in heart rate…

When I was a kid, I had nightmares. A lot of nightmares. That kind of that goes deep into your bone and through your whole body. The one where you wake up petrified, where you can’t move and your body can barely take a shallow breath. It’s not just bad dream. It’s your body telling you it is reality and you are soon to be done.

They became quite rare lately. I still have nightmares every other day, but forgot about the petrified feeling in a middle of a night. Until it happened one night. And I could have been just young teenager again in that moment. It didn’t mattered that I was 33, with my wife and cat sleeping next to me.

My body took me back. For reasons unknown.

In my younger years, I was afraid of going to sleep because I knew, I just knew it will happen again.

And it lasted until fairly recently. I was 28 or so and afraid of going to sleep. My body told me every night that something horrifying will happen. No matter the situation. No matter how much I could rationalise that nothing bad will happen. There was no arguing.

I hated myself for it so much. I was ashamed. And you know what was the worst part?

Day after day reappears…. Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear… how Colin Hay sings in his song Overkill.

But there was a way how to numb it. Knocking myself out with several beers always seemed to do the job.

Numb all the things my body was trying to tell me. And just keep running, figuratively. Move country, start a new life. When it comes back just repeat the process.

The one thing you cannot outrun is your body and the way what it tells you. I’ve tried.

What if my body was just protecting me? Just learned when I was a little and now it is just doing its things to keep me alive? What if it’s not a shame I should feel, but a pride. A pride that my body kept going and kept me alive for 34 years and counting. Surviving the only way how it knew, telling me there is a danger everywhere.

What if it was on my side all along and communicated the best it could and now it’s time for me to listen. Listen to the anxieties, fears, nightmares, obsessive thoughts. Listen to them and then just let them go. They must have been useful when I was young and whom am I to say otherwise.

Thank you for keeping me alive the best way you can.