 I'm currently having an anxiety attack. So I thought I'd film it. What's up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And I want to apologize in advance. This video is going to be all over the place, but I wanted to capture on film what my anxiety looks like when I'm having an anxiety attack or panic attack. Well, it's not really a panic attack because panic attacks typically don't have a specific trigger. They just kind of come or they escalate to a point past an anxiety attack. There's a lot more physical symptoms, which I'm not experiencing. But anyways, if you're new here, my channel is all about mental health and usually my videos are about helping people. So subscribe, ring the notification bell. But my anxiety right now is lower than it was an hour, two hours ago. All right. And I wanted to capture this and explain to you what I've done to just take my anxiety from like a level 10 down to like maybe like a level four or five right now and just talk to you about what's going on, what I'm doing and things like that. Because if you struggle with anxiety, maybe something I'm doing might be able to help you. So I guess I'll let you know what triggered my anxiety. So those of you who don't know me, I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I've been clean and sober for over six years now. I just celebrated six years on my birthday, June 23rd. And so in my active addiction of about 10 years, I was fired a lot. I was fired so many times. And it always starts with, hey, can I see you in my office? Hey, meet me in my office. Hey, go see human resources, whatever it is. And even though I've been clean for six years, that still really triggers me. And it's crazy too, because once you get rid of the substances, like I'm a pretty decent employee. Well, anyways, this morning, I work for a drug and alcohol rehab center. And one of the things is that I have my cell phone on me 24 seven. And I had somebody reach out to me this morning, because they need help, they relapse and need to get back into treatment. So I go and I do it. And I go to send emails and try to get everything set up. But then I see that I missed an email and a text message yesterday from human resources. And they said, hey, come to the human resources office before the end of the day. And ever since then, my mind is just losing absolute control of any type of sanity that I usually have. And it's crazy because I haven't had anxiety like this for a while. So let's talk about the fears. Okay, so I already mentioned like where my fears come from and that kind of trigger, you know, so just meeting with HR, but I'm very analytical too. I'm very analytical. So I'm like, okay, well, it was Friday. It was the last day of our pay period. It was Friday afternoon. I'm like, well, if I was human resources, and I was going to fire somebody, this is when I would do it at the last day of the pay period. And on a Friday. So that way, if this guy loses his mind, at least he has the weekend to calm down or something like that, that's what I would do if I was HR. So these are where my fears are coming from. But other ones is, you know, things that work, they've been, they've been changing, you know, not necessarily terrible or anything like that, but anybody with anxiety, like, we don't like change. But because change is happening, and I never really know what's happening from one day to the next, like, I'm just sitting here like, why don't they, you know, they might be getting rid of me. You know what I mean? And, and it's, it's difficult. Like this morning, I have a bunch of stuff to do. I have some writing to do. I have my son here. I want to spend some time with him. I got to clean the house because, you know, some people are coming over to my apartment later and everything like that. And then this just added on to it. Plus the fact that I'm trying to help somebody who relapsed get back into treatment. So I have a million things going on in my head. And I am sorry, I'm losing track of thought a little bit. But hey, this is what anxiety looks like. All right. So anyways, what am I doing about it? Okay, so one of the things that I have to do, the first thing I did is I use this. Okay, this is a cell phone. This cell phone is my lifeline and it connects to a bunch of people who are in my support system. So right now my girlfriend is currently out of town for her little brother's birthday up in Northern California. I miss her already. But anyways, like, I just started texting her. And this was, you know, an hour or two ago, I don't even know if she's awake. She's on vacation. She might be sleeping in, even though her little brother's wake her up. And so I just started texting her. I'm like, Hey, I got this stuff from HR. I totally missed the email. So now that's the other thing too, real quick, I have to wait all weekend now. I have to wait all weekend and let this thing go crazy. And that's why I need to get it under control so it doesn't ruin my weekend. Anyways, I started texting her. She doesn't get back. I'm like, I assume you're sleeping. I said, I'm just going to text you and just let you know everything going on in my mind. So I can kind of process this. So I just started doing it. I just started texting her all the worries, all the fears and everything like that. But I have to get logical. Okay. And something that I do to prepare for worst case scenario is I look at what the worst case scenario is and I start talking to her. I'm like, Okay, well, if they fire me, I have money saved up. I'm not somebody who usually saves money. I have money saved up. I will be fine. The other thing is too, if I lose a job, I've been here for three years. What's crazy is yesterday was actually my three year anniversary. So I've been there for three years. So I haven't had to look for a job for a while, but I've lost so many jobs, but I've always found new ones. And I have to remind myself, even though you get in these bad situations or life throws something at you, I have to remind myself of what I've overcome in the past. So I even texted my son's mom because I was letting her know. I said, Hey, I might have to bring Dylan back early because of my anxiety, I'm like, I'm going to be there right when this lady from HR. So if they are getting rid of me, we just pull that bandaid, get rid of me. So I'm texting my kid's mom and like, she's, she's like, I typed like, LOL in the text and she's like, why are you laughing right now? I'm like, I don't know, maybe because I'm losing my mind. But the other thing is, like, you know, I've been in these situations before I've been in worse situations before and got out of them. And I have to remind myself that I've been in worse situations before. All right. And like, my kid's mom's known me since years before I even got sober. So she saw me at my worst and now she sees me at my best. She's seen the whole spectrum of Chris and his ups and downs. And like, man, this is going to be weird, but like, I'm like doing all this rambling and talking crazy. I'm like, I really hope my audience isn't changing their opinion of me in a negative light. Like my, my brain, when I start to get anxious, like it, it will just find negativity. So right in the middle of recording this, I'm like, Oh man, like if I was watching this guy and I was coming to his channel for helping solutions, now I kind of think he's a nut job. But, you know, most of you out there, I know that you're very empathetic. And I just wanted to make this video to be very, very real about the way my anxiety looks. And it can look different for other people, you know, other people when they're doing it, like they're like hyperventilating and stuff like that. And my breathing was, you know, messed up earlier, but I calmed down mindfulness is the next thing I started doing. So mindfulness is being present in the moment. Okay. Like I have to do that, especially since I wait till Monday. But I'm like cleaning and doing all these other things. I need to make more videos on mindfulness, but you can be mindful without just sitting down and doing a formal meditation. Like I'm paying attention to all of my senses, like the way things feel, the way, you know, things taste and smell. And while I'm cleaning and just being really in the moment, because it helps me get out of the future or quit staying in the past and just get back into the moment. So I'm being very mindful of what's happening right now to try to calm my brain down and get back to the moment. All right. So the last thing is I went and I took a shower and I took these. All right. So I am still on medications for my anxiety. This is Lexapro. This is a non-narcotic medication. Those of you might have seen my video where I got off of it. Well, my anxiety started to come back. So I got back on it. Okay. This has helped. This has helped me out a lot. Again, this is non-narcotic. I hope YouTube doesn't like try to strike me down or something like that. So regular prescription, calm down, YouTube. All right. But, but, but yeah, this, this has helped. It's helped. I think, you know, just part of what I've done, you know, talking to my girlfriend, talking to my kid's mom, being mindful, taking my medication and calming down. And I'm feeling a lot better, but it's a long weekend. It's currently Saturday morning. I have 48 hours. And then, you know, as I think about my medications, one thing I got to worry about is if I do lose my job, where's my health insurance? But I was telling my girlfriend, I was like, you know what? If I lose my health insurance, I know what to do. I know to go down to the social services, get some state medical assistance. Boom. There we go. Like, but one of the problems is with our anxiety, it shuts down the logical thinking and planning part of the brain. So I get these little glimpses of clarity and things like that. But yeah, I need to write things down. I need to think about the positives. I need to remember my past and how I've been through this before. And I do know that this feeling will not be here forever. It's just, you know, that anticipation, the waiting, like, I hate, I can't stand when people are like, Hey, I need to talk to you. But later, like, I just lose my mind. I lose it. But usually I get it under control unless it's like my girlfriend or an HR department. That's what I freak out. Or sometimes like family members, like, it's my mom or my dad, like, Hey, we need to talk. Like, I'm like, Oh my God, are you dying? Like, my brain can get negative real quick. So I don't know. These are some of the things that I'm doing to calm down. If you can relate or if you have any tips about what you do during an anxiety attack, go ahead and leave them down in the comments below. I know this video is different. It's a little bit weird. It's a little bit all over the place. But you know, I made a video yesterday talking about my black and white thinking like I am still a work in progress and I never want you to think or I never want to come off as like this guru who has solved everything. Like a lot of it is just educating you letting you know things that work for me, ways that I've grown and things like that. And like, I just want this huge supportive community and all that jazz. So anyways, I love you all. Thanks for sitting here if you made it through the end of the video. Feel better. Feel better just talking about it. You're all beautiful. Thanks everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. And that's the other thing you guys are helping me do this YouTube thing and making this thing grow and get bigger, you know, and that that helps me not worry so much about potentially losing a job. But you know, I will keep you posted. I will keep you posted like Monday, Monday, I'm gonna make another video. And it's either going to be that I'm completely nuts and I was freaking out for no reason, or lost my job, you know, there's only two ways this is going down, but I'll keep you posted. All right, I love all of you. Thanks for staying with me. I'll see you next time.