Breathe.

Wake up. Open my eyes. Breathe. Is this reality? Yes. Are you for certain? No. Do I have to get up and live today? Yes. Are you for certain? No.

My routine of morning thoughts that are in my mind the moment I wake now.

These last few weeks have seemed like a blur.  I literally felt like I was going through the motions just to survive.  My mind has been elsewhere, and I’ve been struggling to get it back.

I can’t seem to shake this sadness, this aching inside of me.  I feel like I’m walking in this bubble.  A big, dark, black bubble that camouflages me from the world.

My life isn’t my life anymore.  It’s become something I don’t recognize, and it’s because you’re not in it anymore.  I lived my whole entire life with you as a part of me, and I’ve completely lost the person I used to be.  You framed me into the person I used to be, the old me.

Pain.  Shooting pain. Pain that radiates up and down my leg.  I panic.  Is it a blood clot? More pain.  Am I going to die?  I don’t know. Why do I always have this leg pain?  It’s hard to breathe.  My heart starts to palpitate.  Oh gosh I’m going to die.  I am.  This is it.

Why is this happening to me?  Why?  I can’t think.  My chest starts to hurt.  I don’t want to die alone.  Sharp pain takes over my chest.  I can’t die alone.  My brother did, and he wasn’t scared.  What happens when you die?  I don’t want to die.

This is my struggle.  Every single day of my life I live in this constant cycle of irrationality.  I can never talk myself out of it.  If I’m driving I have to pull over and stop.  If I’m at work I have to run to the bathroom.  If I’m home I go outside for a walk.  It takes at least 10 minutes for me to allow my brain to come back.

It seems psychotic to the normal human being.  Thinking a simple pain in the chest or leg is going to be the death of you.  I’m not a normal human being.  My mind is engulfed in this awful place and no matter how hard I try to dig my way out, I always end up back in the same place.

My therapist and I have talked about this.  It was hard to tell her this is how I felt every day of my life.  You were only 20 when you died Austin.  I have developed a fear of dying after I lost you.  Why?  Maybe because you were too young.  You had your whole life ahead of you.  You were so smart, so kind and such an remarkable person.  You made a choice.  Your death lives inside my body, my soul, my mind.

I live in a constant fear of something tragic is going to happen to me, something totally out of my control.  Like a blood clot, heart attack, aneurism, etc. You had control of your life and your death. I don’t have control over mine.

Everyone tells me that these pains are because of my anxiety.  That is my body’s way of showing it.  I try to believe everyone. I try to turn away my irrational thoughts and behaviors, but I never can.

You never understood what leaving this world would due to us.  After you left I developed this panic disorder; this extreme, constant fear of dying.  Everyday is a battle back and forth between my mind and body.

It’s so hard to live this way.  It has never seemed to ever get easier, Austin.  Maybe one day I will be able to breathe again.  Maybe.

So It Goes.