Nana Marti

What Does Anxiety Look Like?


white and brown wooden tiles
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

I think it looks very different for each of us. I can only speak to my own so I’ll share those things that indicate mine is rather high.

  • WEIRD dreams. Very chopped up, making zero sense, the kind you wake up from totally confused as to what just happened in your sleep.
  • Starting projects and never finishing them. I’m not exaggerating I have  5 different crochet projects in some sort of state of production but staying focused on any one is next to impossible of late.
  • I’m drinking coffee as if it is sustaining my life. I passed up cups and moved on to several pots a day weeks ago.
  • When awake and asleep I am very restless. I cannot sit still well and focusing on any task is a lot of work. I want to be doing something but never really know what I want to do.
  • I’m really not all that irritable but weird things do get on my nerves, things that never phased me and usually went unnoticed in the past.
  • I’m always hungry but never eat because nothing sounds good to me. Or if I do eat it is not the healthy choice I would normally want.
  • The idea of putting on a mask even for work just grates on my nerves and I have to take a deep breath and not allow a panic attack to take over. I’m not someone who had them in the past, but now I feel like I’m on the edge of one when I wear them because I start to feel like I cannot breathe.
  • I worry that things will get locked down again and how that will look.
  • Laundry…during a coin shortage. How do I do laundry in coin washers/dryers at the apartment if there are no quarters available? I hate the thought of dragging it to my daughter’s house to do my laundry, it stresses me out!
  • And then there are the press conferences by the state governor addressing the virus in which we are mandated to do various things. I feel like we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop and lock down will return. UGH.

The power went out while writing this post, only adding to the anxiety levels. I opted to take a nap and woke up to my cat sleeping above me on the back of the couch and her paw on my shoulder. Therapy.