I spend a lot of time exploring the origins of my panic and anxiety. Some of them I understand (my mother was a big source of anxiety for me) but some are not so clear.
One of the big ones for me is fear and anxiety about death. I realized that around the time my panic and anxiety started to appear, an interesting series of events happened. I was pregnant with my son, and happy and healthy and quite content. Suddenly, a very dear friend of mine colapsed at work and had a grand malle seizure. They discovered he had a brain tumor. They gave him 6 months to live. He was not many years older than me. He had a young son. He was vital and vibrant and - I think what really hit me - there was absolutely no way he could have prepared for or predicted that fateful moment when WHAM! you are on the floor in a room full of colleagues trying to make sure you don't choke on your tongue, yelling for someone to call 911, watching you leave in an ambulance. Then listening to the doctor basically tell you, that's it, you are officially dying.
My husband was with him when this happened. Because some of the people in the meeting had flown in for the day, they insisted the meeting continue. My husband had to sit and continue doing a presentation after watching his friend of 12 years collapse in a seizure. I was disgusted by this. It was a complete and utter disregard for LIFE. Life is not about a stupid meeting. Whatever it is you are discussing in your stupid meeting, it does not hold a candle to the relevance of this young man's LIFE. I think not only the event itself, but the total disregard shown for the significance of this event really shook me up. It really made me start thinking about the weight of life - the immense almost infinite importance of it - and the terrifying swiftness with which it can all simply ... disappear.
Two weeks later, I gave birth to my beautiful heaven-sent child. I think perhaps the juxtaposition of these two opposites - life and death, did something to me. Not immediately, but gradually since that time. I don't think it caused my panic and anxiety, but I think it may have been a whopping trigger.
I have spent many hours contemplating life... death. I think I am coming to undertand that they are, in fact, not opposites. They are like yi