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KEELEY’S APRIL 30-DAY CHALLENGE
Were You Talking to Me?
Please forgive my manners.
Day Eleven prompt: What’s a tell-tale sign you’re nervous?
People might find it hard to determine when I’m nervous because it’s my common state. To know me may be to love me, but my anxiety gets in the way. It makes me self-absorbed. While you’re wondering what makes me tick, notice I often look inward. I don’t mean to focus on myself so often, but anxiety is loud. It affects me physically and emotionally. If it’s present, it makes itself known.
The first sign of anxiety presents as a rapid heart rate. As I feel my heart speeding, it causes my sixty-plus-years concern, which only makes it beat faster, and now suddenly, rapid, shallow breathing gets involved as my head swirls. Sometimes I see you talking, but I can’t hear you. At the very least, I’m consumed with my bodily functions and trying to talk myself into a calm state. The sound of my heart is deafening.
While you go blabbering on, I typically will interject and speak over you, begging you for a distraction while placing the focus on me. That’s the strange part. I want my mind to shift off the worry, but if you talk about yourself or others, I’ll bring you back to me and what I’m going through. Panic doesn’t like to be ignored. When I’m in that…
