how i survived today

i was literally shaking in anxiety. struggling with my breathing. my mother was sitting in front of me and i said to her, can you come here and hug me? and she just broke down and cried hahaha. she had never ever see me like this so i think she was a little scared of what she was seeing. my dad was sitting beside her, and he looked at me and said, come let's go out and do grocery shopping. it'll take your mind off things. so i followed him and we did grocery shopping the whole evening. he bought me snacks and picked out a new coffee flavour for us to try on. 

and that's how i survived today.

this week has not been particularly easy for me. my anxiety got really bad again this week. Bad like crippling kind of bad that I become functionally limited. Then there was spinning head and muscle aches and stuff. the doctor gave me a couple of days leave for my headache but then it never really went away after that so i spent another couple of days lying down and trying to sleep as much as i can. i needed the break. a few years back i would feel bad just by saying that. how weak. how incapable. but i'm terrified at the thought of dying of heart attack due to overwhelming stress at the age of thirty (one of the irrational thoughts i had was that what would happen to my little kids - if I ever had them - if i died so quickly and unexpectedly) so i better start taking care of myself now. and people would never know how to take care of yourself. only you know how to take care of yourself.  

my mother was terrified for another reason. she said that i have always been known as the strongest one in the family, the can-endure-pretty-much-anything one among the rest of us (i think these things are only true in her eyes) so she was scared when she saw me break down like that. this must have been like the worst, she said. i said, no. there are worst things. and i repeatedly assure her that this won't last long. that after a few days i'll bounce back and things will be okay again. 

today i am the most grateful for a family that are always there even when they don't understand or don't know how to be there but they're still there you know. i pray for opportunities and privileges to always be able to come back to this safe place for as long as i can even when life changes. 

that's how i survived today.