Unanticipated Anxiety

As someone with anxiety, I can usually predict when I might feel anxious and what situations might cause anxiety. However, over the weekend for the first time since I was diagnosed, I had a anxiety attack.

When I was in middle school, I had multiple anxiety attacks that lasted over the course of a month. This was almost six years before I was diagnosed and I didn’t have one since. Until this past weekend.

On Sunday, I was at my cousin’s bridal shower, who I’m a bridesmaid for. We were done setting up and guests began to show up. After half of the guests arrived, my cousin said to us, “Go mingle. It looks weird with us all standing together.”

That one sentence triggered my anxiety to the point where I started to almost hyperventilate.

The biggest trigger for my anxiety is interacting with people. Especially those I don’t know and those I know too well.

I knew that there would be a lot of people I didn’t know, which is why I took my daily medicine as well as my “as needed”. Once that was said it felt like the room became quiet and I couldn’t focus. The constant thought going through my mind was, “I have to talk to strangers?!?”

I’m thankful that since there are seven bridesmaids in my cousin’s wedding, they didn’t notice me and one of the others walking out the back.

It took what felt like an eternity for me to calm down enough. However, the next thought that crossed my mind was, “Will anyone notice me walking back in and ask what happened?”

Anxiety attack round two, start.

It didn’t take more than 20 minutes for me to calm down from both incidents, but it did get me thinking about how I’m going to be at the wedding. Will I have an issue walking in front of close to 200 people that I have barely met or have never met?

When I was asked to be a bridesmaid, this was something I never considered. But now after this incident, I wonder if I should ask to back out?

Let’s take day by day as it gets closer and find out.