Physical manifestations of stress

I need a vacation so bad it literally hurts.

I've been rife with anxiety about the impending recession, some slowness across our group at work, and my fears that another round of layoffs in the law firm world are imminent and will include my firm. I've had a little other personal stress as well, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary. It's my fear for my job security that keeps me awake at night. Night after night.

In addition to the insomnia that comes and goes, I have neverending stomach acid and reflux at night. I find myself chewing antacids before bed almost every time I go to bed. And then when I get there, I just lay there because I can't sleep of course due to thinking about all this stress. Sometimes as I lay there, I apparently clench my jaw or scrape my teeth back and forth across each other like a nervous tick. I do this when awake too at times of particular stress, and it's taking its toll. My right side of my face feels constantly sore and sharply stabbing when I move my mouth the wrong way. Unfortunately everything that involves eating constitutes "the wrong way" these days.

But most troubling is that about 2 weeks ago I started to feel the familiar fluttering thud in my chest every once in awhile. I know from my ex who also had them that they are known as PACs and though he was not a doctor, he was a rampant hypochondriac who voraciously studied every ailment he believed he had. This one he chalked up to his valve closing too soon, causing a little backflow of blood into the aorta. I have no idea if that's really how it works, I only know that it feels like a small thud in my chest and then I have a sudden need to cough. When it's happening, it happens a few times an hour. Sometimes it will be three or four times in a minute, and then I won't notice it for days.

Thanks to my job I have occasion to learn about all the strange and unfortunate things that can suddenly an inexplicably go wrong in the human body. I know that certain cardiac conditions are diagnosed through measurement of the ejection fraction of the heart valves, and "ejection fraction" is something that sounds like it involves backflow of blood. Or at least it might. I also know that my mother had an arrhythmia and that they can be hereditary. And I know that I have not had these heart thumps for lack of a better term in many years, and their sudden resurgence worries me.

I suspect many people would tell me that what I need right now is not a regular physician but rather a psychiatrist, since my paranoia appears to be making me feel all of these things. Unfortunately I have never believed that seeing a psychiatrist would help me. I would refuse to take any drugs offered and find that therapy feels like a useless exercise to me. My life is actually pretty good when I step back and gain a little perspective, but that's precisely the problem. My life is so good that I don't want it to change suddenly and without warning. See, my life seemed pretty good once about 7 years ago too and then the bottom dropped out of it and I spent a long year trying to swim back to the surface.

My mother told me on the phone tonight that even if the unthinkable (actually I wish it was unthinkable--it's all too thinkable for me right now) happens, she will not panic. She has seen me come back from that deep abyss before, at a time when even I did not know if I could. She also saw me make it down here to Georgia without a clue what I would do once I got here, only to find surprise them by building a life quickly here that is better than anything any of us hoped for. My parents are in a much better financial situation today and able to help, and I am mentally more resilient than I have ever been. So if it happens, deep down I know I will be OK. I know I will have survived worse. And I know I'll always find a way back up to the surface.

The problem is the worrying, the not knowing in the meantime. Perhaps because of my previous experience and in particular my feeling that I did not get out in time even though I knew I should take precautions, I am too cautious today, too paranoid for my own good. That's what everyone tells me. I don't want to be the Cassandra making everyone else nuts with my dire predictions of the horrors that await. But I also know that sometimes my sudden feeling of impending doom isn't just me being crazy. Sometimes it's my warning signal and when I ignore that signal, my body pays the price.

The second week in May cannot come soon enough. I hope that 5 days away from it all playing poker in New Orleans will help calm the waves of worry that churn in my stomach every day along with what sure is starting to feel like an ulcer. But in the meantime, I need a treatment plan. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to start.