Suffocate

It starts with a feeling of emptiness. Then it begins. You know that feeling when you’re on a Ferris wheel and the chair swings forward on the way down and you feel your body lift in the air? The feeling that your heart has left it’s cavity. Air forces its way into your stomach and you feel as though it’s going to feel like gravity in a second. But seconds pass and you’re not descending. You’re in stasis. In mid-air. No way of knowing how you’re going to get down. You’re hating every moment of being suspended.

You breathe. And no air fills your lungs. They feel empty. Everything inside feels empty. There isn’t even a vacuum. Everything is just hollow. You plummet for a second and you exhale. But then that feeling shoots up again. And you’re back in mid-air.

I feel that way all the time these days. I’ve been heart broken so many times I should be used to the catatonia. But you see it’s not a heart break. It’s falling in love that causes this anxiety.

I keep fearing that i’m going to lose it all. Just like I did earlier. I keep fearing I am going to lose my mother the way I lost my aunts in 2019 and 2021. I keep missing my sister who has left the city after marriage. I keep thinking that I am going to lose my furkids because I have lost four before.

The anxiety doesn’t seem to know logic. Philosophy of how a probably future shouldn’t affect the immediate present doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t trust life. I don’t trust love. I don’t trust myself. So how am I supposed to trust people who say they love me?

Have you felt this way? Have you managed to cope with these insecurities? How have you done so? Please, do share.