A For Anxiety

I have kept this post pretty short and gone through all the stuff very quickly. In reality, 1 entire month was very long.

I was excited for this Diwali because I was coming to Indore for this but as mentioned in the title, towards the end, the excitement turned into severe anxiety.

Why? You may ask. To answer that, I'll have to quickly take you in October.

On 9th October my father had to leave for Indore as we have some very important stuff going on here. I will not mention it in this post, instead, I will write a separate post about that covering all aspects in detail. It was pre-decided that he would be leaving around that time frame.

Me and my mother were the only ones in Bengaluru. The anxiety began the day he left. I always make fun of people who use the term "alone" in the context of more than 1 person because technically, if two people are together, none of them is alone.
I will stop making that joke now. I think multiple people can be alone. It depends on the situation.

I was worried because a little more than a year ago, in Pune, my mother had to be hospitalized because of a spike in her blood pressure levels. Luckily, she was back at home in less than a week but now she has to take lots of medicines to keep her BP levels in control. My sister, her husband, my sister's friends, and my cousin (brother) also live in Pune so we had lots of help.

This is not the case in BLR. We don't know anyone there and BLR is an expensive city, so with my father gone, my mother's health was the top priority. This was discussed before him leaving but since there weren't any other options, it had to be done. As long as she took her medicines daily (which she does now without fail), there should be no issue.

I have to go office 2 days in a week so she would be alone for around half of the day which also I was not in favour of but then again, no other choice was there for me.

Every day before sleeping, I made sure that the door is properly locked and the gas stove is turned off. It was off every single day but anxiety is a bitch.

I started a small project to keep myself busy (expect a post on that as well) and it kept me very occupied so all was good throughout October.

The severe anxiety started around the beginning of November. We were to leave BLR for Indore on 11th November so ideally, as the date came closer, any anxiety should have been reduced but in my case, it was the opposite. It began to increase. I was constantly worried about the fact that "Everything has been fine till now, something doesn't feel right. Something will surely go wrong."

The last time, I got my eyes checked was after 2nd wave of covid. Since I spend so many hours in front of the screen, I am sure the power has increased. I can feel its symptoms. There is a constant discomfort in my eyes. They get watery when I am in front of the screen. After looking at something close to me, when I look at something far away, there is a delay of a fraction of a second for the focus to shift. This last one kicked the anxiety high up.

I was not afraid of what might happen to me. I was more afraid of the after-effects IF something happened to me. My mother doesn't speak Kannada or English. She is also not familiar with UPI/Card payments. This is a bad recipe if something were to happen to me especially when she has her health to take care of.
Another thing that was constantly worrying me was the "What if we missed our flight?". The tickets were expensive and loss of money is one thing, not able to go on this festive time is another. The latter is more ugly.

On the 6th of November, 5 days before leaving, I began to feel strange sensations in my hands. I was in the office that day. My sweaty palms were completely frozen because of the AC in there. I called my sister's husband and told him about all the symptoms. We both knew the root cause was anxiety but we decided to check the BP.

I came home and used my mother's BP measuring device to check my BP twice. It was normal. A huge sigh of relief. I was about to go to the doctor for an eye appointment but when I put some eye drops in my eyes, it felt nice for longer durations of time which kept me going for the next 5 days.

Those days were over in a trance-like state. Somehow, they just passed by. My Google Keep had multiple lists so that I did not forget anything.

 

Screenshot of my Google Keep

Finally, the day came on which we had to leave. Everything was smooth. The cab came on time. The airport security checks were done in an instant. We boarded the flight.

Then came the final feeling of anxiety.

"What if something like 'The Final Destination' happens?" I will not spoil the movie here but if you have seen it, you probably know what I am talking about. This feeling was not that severe as there was nothing in my control in that case. Health and being on time for the flight is my responsibility. I cannot control what happens in the air.

Let me take a moment to appreciate that film. It makes one afraid of everything around them. I remember I watched it sometime in 2011-2012. Given that it was released in the year 2000 and it induces anxiety EVERYTIME when I am going on flights even after 23 years is a clear indication that it has aged well.

I took a VERY BIG sigh of relief when I got to my home in Indore. It felt like a mission was accomplished. Here I am writing this post the day after Diwali and all is well health-wise. I have an eye doctor's appointment in a few days so that will be taken care of. My hand is back to normal.

Now that I think of it, it should not have happened. I am only 24 years old and if this was my condition by just thinking of the ugly stuff, what would happen when I AM in an ugly situation? A similar situation was when I arrived at BLR 5 months ago which I did not handle very well. I know that in hindsight everything looks better but then again, something needs to be fixed. Not sure exactly what.

I have a vague idea but will execute that when the time comes.