Sometimes my anxiety problems get the best of me, even when I’m trying to keep my composure.
This was a frequent issue in college when I had to do presentations in seminar classes.
During my worst bouts of anxiety, I would sometimes stutter or shake slightly while trying to hold my notes to use as a guide throughout the presentation. There was one particularly embarrassing experience when I got so overwhelmed and anxious that it made me physically ill and I had to leave the room to throw up two separate instances in a 20 minute chunk of time. Even after getting treatment through both therapy and medications, my anxiety problems persisted into adulthood. Now I learn how to avoid my triggers and stressors if I can manage. But sometimes there are scary situations that come out of left field that will throw me off and make me anxious as hell again like I am when I’m not coping well. For instance, my air conditioner wasn’t producing cold air yesterday in the middle of the afternoon and I was immediately terrified something had broken inside. The machine was still cycling and moving air through the ductwork, but it was warm exiting the ceiling vents. When my HVAC technician arrived to inspect the air conditioner, he informed me that the coils had simply frozen over with ice. The air filter was clogged and it made the coil freeze, thus preventing the coil from absorbing the heat in my air and creating the warm air situation that I discovered before calling my HVAC supplier. After replacing the filter, I haven’t experienced the same problem again.