Alright Steemit!
This isn't a motivating or spiritual piece, it's something that happened to me in work today, I don't know why it happened, but I think I found out what anxiety feels like.
It all began last week, I was asked to take minutes in our organisations' leadership meeting today. It was an all day meeting, 35 pages of minutes...zzz. I normally work in a technical role, so crap like today just doesn't happen in my work - I felt out of my comfort zone.
I also learned rather late, that I had to chair the last agenda item at the meeting, it was just a 15 minute slot, going over the main points from the meeting. No problem...I thought.
As agenda point 16 approached, my foot started to tap on the ground... my left foot. Quicker and quicker whilst I was writing up the minutes - It wasn't a conscious decision to tap my foot, what the fuck was I doing? I could feel my body start to tighten up, my shoulders were up to my ears, so I relaxed them, I stopped my foot tapping... but my heart was still racing, my body temperature still rising, there is only so much I could control.
As it got to my bit, I felt my brow break into sweat. As I spoke, as I regurgitated the points, I could feel my face heat up, I couldn't control my voice, I stumbled over words, my voice shook, I had to repeat some lines. I had some sort of fear of being "center of attention." I made a couple of jokes, to try and calm myself down, my voice went back to normal, briefly, after each one. But then as the audience fell silent, as I continued, my voice started to shake again. I don't know what happened. I still can't make sense of it. I even went to the bathroom immediately after and I had stage-fright! There was no one else there!!!
I've been frantically googling all evening, and social anxiety seems the best fit. I feel emotionally drained. I normally go to the gym after work, I went home and got into bed!
I hope you don't ever have to feel this, but would be interested to hear other opinions or solutions about what the hell happened!