What If?

I hate being alone. I don’t feel safe. What if I pass out from the dizziness and no one is here? What if the headache really is a blood clot this time and no one is here to call an ambulance? What if the soreness in my neck and jaw and numbness down my arms means I am having a stroke? What if I start seeing white spots again and lose my ability to talk and become paralyzed? What if I get sick and there is no one here to help me? Or even worse, what if I get sick and my son has to watch his mother die?

What if?

My thought process revolves around this “what if” thinking. What if I get sick today? What if I lose my job? What if Jay is in a car accident? What if I end up alone? What if no one likes me? What if I say the wrong thing? What if we run out of money? What if we can’t get food? It’s exhausting.

In an attempt to shift my thinking and not get caught up in thoughts that will keep me locked in the same pattern, I get up off the couch, walk into the kitchen, and make a feeble attempt to start cleaning it. I start coughing again. Is this Covid? It has to be Covid. My chest is heavy. This is Covid. What if I can’t breathe? What if I have to go to the hospital? What if I need a ventilator? The “what if” thinking just transferred focus. Can I breathe? Wait. Let me take a deep breath to see if it hurts. I don’t get the same feeling in my chest I felt when I actually had Covid. So maybe it’s not Covid. Hold on. Let me take another deep breath. Maybe I missed it. Was that pain when I breathed in that time? One more time. I think I’m okay.

As I scramble around the kitchen throwing things away, putting dishes in the sink, and wiping down the kitchen table, I become winded. Why can’t I move around in the slightest bit without getting winded? It’s Covid. It has to be. Let me go lay down on the couch so I don’t overexert myself, end up passing out, and dying alone in my living room.

There’s the cycle. That’s what I have to push through. It’s easy for me sometimes to just say the words. It’s easy for me to know what I should be doing. I can recognize that in the moment. The problem is that I haven’t been able to consistently step outside of it in that moment. I haven’t been able to do much more than acknowledge it and watch it unfold like an outsider who sees an accident about to occur but doesn’t have the time to stop it, frozen in fear and shock. I am aware when it’s happening. I see it. I feel it. I know I should attempt to stop it, but sometimes, I can’t, or maybe I just don’t want to.

My therapist used to tell me that I am choosing anxiety, that it brings me a sense of comfort. It’s like there’s comfort in the discomfort. I know what anxiety feels like and maybe in a strange way, I do prefer it because I know it. I know a panic attack won’t kill me. Even though I loathe the anxiety and panic I feel, it’s what I have become accustomed to. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” At least I know what to expect from the devil I know. At least I know the “worst case scenario” with that devil. I am familiar with him, as much as I detest him. I fear the devil I don’t know because I don’t know what to expect. What if what awaits me on the other side is worse? What if it’s more difficult? What if I can’t handle it? What if.

The hardest part about my healing journey is going to be creating new patterns.

What if what awaits me on the other side is a life of freedom, beauty, and fulfillment? What if I’m happier than I’ve ever been before? What if the life I’m currently living is just holding me back? What if now is the time for me to become who I was truly meant to be? What if life is meant to be challenging so it can be rewarding? What if breaking the cycle leads me to my life’s purpose? What if.

What if I could just change my thinking? What if I started with changing every negative “what if” with a positive one? For example, instead of:

What if this dizziness means I’m going to pass out and die?

I say:

What if I try drinking a glass of water and walking around the block to see if it makes me less dizzy?

Or:

What if I’m home alone and I get sick and no one is here to help me?

To this instead:

What if I’m home alone and I take that uninterrupted time to start that book I’ve always wanted to write?

What if the “what ifs” didn’t have to be paralyzing? What if they could be motivating?

What if I’m okay?

What if this pressure in my chest is not because I’m having a heart attack or because I have Covid? What if it’s from sitting hunched over in a recliner for over six hours a day? What if I have the power to make it go away by getting up, stretching, and exercising? What if I started to truly take care of myself? What if I have the power to change this, to feel better, to live differently?

What if I’ve had that power all along?

What if I never forget that I do?