I love living so much. And that terrifies me. The thought of all of this ending sends me into a spiral.
Blood rushes to my legs and my hands freeze. I can’t breathe, and I never want to close my eyes ever again.
Hyperactivity and obsessive thoughts have been infecting my brain for several years now, focusing on whatever worrying topic they can get their grubby hands on. These fixations flew under the radar for most of my life.
Right before the summer of 2021, I began taking Concerta to help with my ADHD. The dosage was as low as 36mg but the lack of feeling was high. I was in this gray area where I couldn’t tell if anything had even changed. I took it for about a month until the school year ended. I figured I didn’t have any use for it, so then I made the stupid decision of stopping it out of nowhere.
After about a week of feeling fine, I suddenly didn’t. To this day, I’m still unsure what caused my struggles, but I remember sitting and talking in my friend’s backyard during a breezy afternoon in June, when all of a sudden someone mentioned being scared of death. The conversation quickly moved on, but from that moment, I felt a slight shift.
A few hours passed and it was night. The hangout was over, and I was being dropped off outside my house. I went up to my door and knocked and waited for my mom to let me in. I heard some noises from my neighbor’s house, and immediate dread filled my body.
When my mom opened the door and I finally made it inside, I assured myself all was well, but my mind and body did not pick up on that notion. I remember sitting on my couch talking to my mom and sister and just feeling like something terrible was going to happen. That night I would lie awake sweating with every noise I heard from the outside world.
“I’ll just sleep it off. Maybe I’m getting my period or ate something weird,” I thought to myself.
That night I would lie awake sweating with every noise I heard from the outside world. “I’ll just sleep it off. Maybe I’m getting my period or ate something weird,” I thought to myself.
When I woke up, everything still felt wrong. The day after that, everything felt wrong, and the day after that one, still wrong. This overall feeling was the first wave. After about a week, the anxiety came. No matter what, I could not get my mind off of death.
During the day, I would think of dying. While I was running errands, I would think of dying. When hanging out with friends, I would think of dying. And even when trying to sleep, I would think of dying. It seemed like something had just switched inside me. I went from feeling great to feeling the worst I had ever felt in my life.
Every time I would think of death, I would terrify myself. My chest and head would hurt, and I wouldn’t be able to breathe, which terrified me even more. My thoughts would race, and I would get spells of vertigo. It felt like I had constant tunnel vision. If I was looking at something right in front of my face, it wouldn’t seem real to me. It was as if I was watching my life on a screen in a dark movie theater. No matter what I did, nothing seemed to help. I tried taking Concerta again, even just half of my original dose, and still nothing.
Even falling asleep would send me into panic, causing me to wake up feeling as if I would legitimately die if I even attempted to close my eyes again. The entire three months of my summer was spent in a crisis I couldn’t seem to get myself out of. When I tried to cheer myself up, there was no progress. If I bought concert tickets or planned a hangout with my friends in the coming weeks, I was worried I would die before I got to experience those things.
When school started back up in August 2021, things started to feel better. I was still disassociated, but having a structure made me at least feel like an actual person again. Progress was very slow, but it was progress nonetheless.
Summers in general have always been rough for me. As someone who loves being productive and the structure that comes with school, the freedom of the summer that so many others love, I hate. Thankfully, the summers that followed 2021 have been a lot better. I’ve learned how to manage my anxiety a lot more, and I’ve made tons of friends I get to spend time with.
I was still disassociated, but having a structure made me at least feel like an actual person again. Progress was very slow but it was progress nonetheless.
Looking back, I feel a little ridiculous, but I was justified in my worries. An existential crisis will make you think crazy things!
Now that it’s been almost three years, I can thankfully say I haven’t fallen into spirals as extreme as this since, but my anxiety is something I am still trying to manage. I feel uneasy even writing this, but it is something I needed to face.
There’s so much I have to be grateful for in my life that the thought of ever losing any of it makes me want to cry. But why spend all my life worrying about losing it? That just wastes the time I should be spending with my loved ones and doing my favorite things.
Even though no one knows what truly happens after death, we can just keep it at that. Since death is certain, why even worry? Life is what’s truly uncertain. Death happens to everyone, and there’s something comforting about that.
Just to know that we will all have the same fate is one of the strongest ways in which humanity is connected.
Velocity 
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