It always started around 3:00 AM.
Like clockwork. Like some invisible alarm in my body knew exactly when to go off and drag me from whatever sleep I managed to find. The house would be silent. Everyone else, lost in dreams. Peaceful. Unaware.
But me? I’d wake up with a jolt, like I’d been dropped into my body from ten stories up. My heart hammering against my ribs so hard I’d genuinely wonder if this was it-is this what a heart attack feels like? Is this how I go?
And the fear… it wasn’t logical. It wasn’t connected to any one thought. It was just there-heavy, loud, terrifying. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe properly. Couldn’t shake it off or “just think positive.” I was frozen. Trapped inside a body that had turned against me and a mind that wouldn’t shut up.
I would lie there, paralyzed, waiting for the alarm to go off-not because I wanted to get up, but because the act of moving would shift something. Even just sitting up, brushing my teeth, making coffee… it pulled me out of the dungeon in my head for a moment. It gave me a job to do, a role to play. And that-ironically-offered some kind of relief.
I didn’t tell anyone about these mornings for a long time. Not because I was ashamed, but because I didn’t think anyone would get it. How do you explain waking up in sheer terror when nothing “bad” is happening? How do you explain a fear that has no shape? Just a presence. A weight.
People saw me as upbeat. Bright. The one with the sunny disposition. And I was… once. Maybe still am, deep down. But during that chapter? I was living in what I can only describe as a personal hell.
Everything irritated me. Loud noises, soft noises, people breathing too loudly. I snapped at strangers and loved ones alike. The tiniest thing would unravel me. I’d feel rage and despair and sadness and guilt and numbness-sometimes all within ten minutes. It was like someone had cranked up the volume on every emotion except joy.
I was showing up to work. Smiling. Performing. Playing the role. But inside? I was crumbling. And here’s the thing no one tells you-high-functioning anxiety looks really good on the outside. You’re productive. You meet deadlines. You say “I’m fine” and people believe you. Because you’re still doing. But you’re not being.
I kept trying to make sense of it. Maybe it was just stress. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I needed a break. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t just that.
The truth is-my body was screaming what my mouth didn’t dare say.
Something wasn’t right. Not with me, but with the world I was trying to fit into.
The environment I was in-the expectations, the pressure, the subtle digs, the micromanaging, the constant feeling that I could do 99 things right and the one I missed would be the only one that mattered-it was eroding me.
But it wasn’t just the workplace. That was the final straw. The real cracks had been forming for years. People-pleasing. Perfectionism. Always trying to be the good girl, the strong one, the capable one. I was so used to abandoning myself for others that I didn’t recognize it as abandonment anymore.
That anxiety, as unbearable as it was, turned out to be one of the most honest things in my life at the time.
It wasn’t the enemy. It was the messenger.
It was trying to tell me: You’re not okay. This isn’t sustainable. Your soul is tired and your body can’t carry the weight anymore. It’s time to listen.
Of course, I didn’t “fix it” overnight. I didn’t meditate it away. I didn’t slap a vision board on it and hope for the best.
It started with honesty. First with myself. Then, carefully, with others.
It started with walking, moving, even when I didn’t want to. It started with canceling things and resting without guilt. It started with asking questions I was afraid of the answers to. It started with the quiet decision that I wasn’t going to live like this anymore. And it was messy. It is messy.
But the more I listened to my body, the more I allowed myself to tell the truth, the more those 3AM monsters started to shrink. They’re not gone. But they don’t own me anymore.
If you’re reading this and your chest tightens every morning…
If you dread hearing the alarm clock…
If you feel like you’re losing your spark and no one even notices…
Let me tell you something you might need to hear:
You are not weak. You are not crazy. You are not broken.
You are tired. You are overwhelmed. You are human.
And that anxiety? It might just be the bravest part of you. The part that’s refusing to let you live a life that hurts you.
Listen to her. Be gentle with her. And know this: there is another way. And you don’t have to find it alone.