Where the Anxious Things Are.

Life has recently become hell for me. Not in a real sense, with suffering or pain in the physical world, but rather in an emotional, mental sense. I won't lie to anyone about this: I used to smoke pot pretty heavily. I don't know who this will surprise, and I do know it will disappoint some people. I have no excuses and no good defense. I used it to deal with a lot of personal problems, and as an escape. But recently, I have begun suffering severe anxiety, unrelated to that, I am sure. I have since quit smoking, of all forms, and even lowered my caffeine and fat intakes. I have failed to post for a long, long time now, and I feel that I owe a long and drawn out explanation to anyone that cares.
College, work, and social life has been taking up a lot of my time. I had overworked myself to the point of feeling like I had no free time, and the only free time I had I wasted getting high and laughing at things that only someone in my state of mind could have been comfortable laughing at. I let mirijuana get in between me and some of my closest friends, and in some ways, even for those who may not have known, I have become a bit of a disappointment. I owe the world an apology, because any life wasted by this is a life wasted. I ended up trying LSD and I regret every bit of the things I did while I spent my time on drugs. I am glad to say that in some ways, this anxiety has saved me from spiraling even further downward...
One thing that people who know me can attest to is that I have always been a nice, sweet guy, who loved to laugh and loved to love. Pot never changed that, but it made it less real. I have been almost three weeks clean from cigarettes and pot, and my caffeine intake has been lowered to almost nothing a day. I have lost weight, and begun fixing things I was stagnating on in my life. I am trying to get a better job in sales, that would double my wages, and give me the freedom I need to work around my college schedule, and give me the ability to live my life the way I want to.
Now for the hard part. The anxiety. I have never really dealt with a lot of this before, possibly from the pot, possibly just one of those things that never manifested. But I began having anxiety attacks that would put me in the hospital, afraid for my life and my heart. While there, I realised that I had been making severely stupid mistakes in my life, including smoking cigarettes with a heart condition. I am lucky to have had an experience like this in some ways, because I have become too scared of cigarettes and drugs to even consider taking them anymore... But the serious reality of anxiety is that you become obsessed with dark thoughts, that make you feel convinced you are dying, or that someone you love is going to die. Occasionally nightmares plague me like the disease that phrase is named after. It is exhausting, waking up feeling pain and fear and worse, all from the moment I open my eyes. The physical pain alone is enough to drive someone mad, but the mental anguish and assault that feels as though the demons of hell are knocking on the backdoor of your mind, trying to get you to hate yourself or the world. Life becomes a constant struggle to deal with the fear of driving, moving, talking, or doing anything of any import, because the fear of an anxiety attack is almost as bad as an actual anxiety attack. Tears we up in my eyes as I write this, because I feel as though I have brought this on myself in many ways. I am learning meditation techniques, and I am taking my heart medication again to deal with my high blood pressure, an issue that existed before this. I will never be able to get back the time I spent smoking and wasting away, but I have the future ahead of me, and with no desire to repeat the past, I feel as though I can now look forward to a bright future. I know the holidays are hard for me to deal with because they are something that I look back on with anger and fear because of abuse in my past. I know that there are likely a ton of good reasons for me to be anxious, and should therefore be able to handle the stress, but the magnificent wonder of anxiety is that the irrationality of it can be the hardest part to deal with. It just never feels like you are going to get a handle on the disease. I can assure you that in the span of a few weeks, I have been through a lot of terrible thoughts and emotions and fears, but I believe that with help from loved ones, and from the wonderful creator, I will be able to move along. I have learned meditation and coping techniques to face my fears, and carry on, but I know I will likely never be quite the same again. For now, all I can say is that I owe the world my sincerest apologies, and that I should be more active from now on, given things do not get worse on the anxiety front. Ace out.