The one where I just feel like talking - watch out for seriousness and some crying

A couple of months ago, some friends and I were working on a small group assignment in some free time that we had between lab and our next class. Somehow, we got onto the topic of tanning (which I do and make no apologies for it) and Nichelle was telling us about a friend of hers that was a former sun-worshipper, who had stopped tanning due to malignant melanoma. I said that I really wasn't worried about such things - if something like that were to happen to me, I don't particularly care - I'm ready to go, but my only concern is the care of my parents when they get older. My friends were fairly horrified by this statement, and for some reason, I was just thinking about it, so I'll explain myself a bit - bare my heart and soul for all to see. Why not? It's my blog, who else's heart and soul should be on it?

As I've mentioned here before, I've had anxiety and panic attacks for almost as long as I can remember - well, I remember one clearly when I was five, so I don't know if there were fuzzy attacks prior to that. Anyway, they got much worse (and much more socially unacceptable, as well as much more embarrassing) when I was in high school, which is the point that my pediatrician started prescribing medication to try to stave them off. (My hereditary pancreatitis was diagnosed in 5th grade - I carry a screwed up gene for PTI (the protein that keeps trypsin inactive until it leaves the pancreas.) The evil pancreas will be mentioned again in a minute.)

I should definitely say that I am one blessed character - the Lord has given me so, so, so many abilities and attributes and opportunites and needs and wants and people that love me - and that my anxiety and my pancreatitis are my two thorns. My only two problems, the only things that steal my sleep (please note the time on this post.)

With that said, when you wake up every single morning with your heart racing, your whole body shaking and your stomach churning; when being with other people is often unbearable yet, when you're alone you can do nothing but cry sometimes; when things that normal people look forward to and are excited about (i.e., marriage, kids, new careers) paralyze you with fear at the mere thought of them; when the idea of moving away from home makes you physically ill - well, it's just all very tiring. And to have lived with those things intensely for 11 documented years, all the while being told that it will get better as I get older - well, I'm 27 and I've just finished my first year of medical school, during which my anxiety and my pancreatitis stole my superficial peace, my study time, my grades, my knowledge, my confidence, and many hours of sleep. That part makes me a little angry.

Some will say that I'm just feeling sorry for myself. But this is all very real to me. And it does make my future - 50 or 60 more years or whatever God gives me - seem terribly long and tiring, particularly if my anxiety robs me of a marriage and a family and I spend my last years alone.

Again, several have said that anxiety and panic disorders dimish with age and experience. Dear Lord, please make it so. I'm in the process of fulfilling my dream - the occupation for which You have given me talents and great interest - but I am so afraid that my anxiety, my panic, and/or the horrible pain from my pancreatitis, are going to ultimately take that dream from me. You have given me a perfect guy, with so, so many wonderful qualities - almost as if he were made to order - and yet, the slightest thought of marriage sends me into a semi-vegetative panic, because I'm afraid that his degree will force him to move away from here for work. And I can't go - I just can't go. But - what on earth would I do without him? He has been my one and only love for almost nine years, and he has seen me at my very worst and loves me just as I am, for some odd reason. I would never find another Scott. And even more upsetting - I worry that my anxiety will ruin his life as well, and I love him too much to let that happen.

I may come back and delete this post later - I just thought that getting some of this out may help me sleep tonight.