I Hate Mornings

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized, in my case, by a constant background hum of anxious thoughts and physical sensations. This constant hum ebbs and flows, the peaks would be considered the classic “panic attack” which are very rare for me and the valleys would be hours where I don’t think twice about how I feel or what I’m thinking.

On a typical day, my anxiety level is at its highest in the early morning. I typical wake up and the anxious thoughts are already out-of-control: “how can I ever make it through the day?”, “things would be better if I just stayed in bed.”, “maybe I should call into work sick today.”, “what if I feel off, dizzy, weak, weird, sick at work, at lunch, at a meeting?”. These thoughts are endless and usually start to snowball within seconds.

Along with anxious thoughts, I typically in the morning and in other anxiety provoking situations do a “body scan”. I scan my body for how I’m feeling physically. Am I dizzy? Does my stomach hurt? Is my heart beating too fast? Is my head fuzzy? Do I have any energy? Am I weak? Are my muscles tense? What I have learned is that by asking the question my body usually responds to support what I’m asking. Is my heart beating too fast? Even if it wasn’t before, it is now.

If I’m unable to stop this onslaught early enough, the whole day will be spent running in circles trying to understand why I feel the way I do, which leaves me in a state of mental fogginess, a place I call “the weirdness”. In this place the world looks foreign, my own skin looks foreign — like looking through think, frosted glass.