Not Dying Was a Wakeup Call

A week ago, I woke up and felt a strange pressure and tightness in my chest. Mornings are busy for me, so I clocked it while feeding indoor and outdoor animals and helping my children get ready for school. By the time they were getting on the bus, I was genuinely worried. I had a passing thought that it could be the last time I ever saw them in this life.

That sounds dramatic, and sometimes I am dramatic, but I’d never had chest pain accompanied by an insistent pressure. Something felt … wrong. I’m a single parent who primarily works from home. All I could think is this: If I had a medical emergency, my children would be the ones to find me after school.

Actually, that’s not all I could think about. I was also thinking about this whole year of emergencies and all the unpaid medical bills I have accumulated. I was thinking about my terrible insurance, which covers as little as possible, and how I’m behind on my bills and not in a position to acquire any other debt. I was thinking about how slow the emergency department is and how much time it would cost me that could be better spent working — unless, of course, this was a heart attack.

The Anxiety Spiral Accompanying Chest Pain

So, I do what we all do. I looked up heart attack symptoms in women. There was a whole checklist. Pain and pressure, check. Sleep disturbances, double check. Weird pain in my back, checking that one, too. It felt like something was pressing on my chest, and I was having a hard time taking a full breath.

I know what you might be thinking: Classic panic attack! Only, I have panic attacks. I know what that feels like. This didn’t feel like that. It felt far scarier.

Obviously, I didn’t die.

What I did do was go to the local emergency room and endure hours of testing. EKG, normal. Bloodwork, normal. Chest x-ray, normal. Could I go now? No, more tests. Bloodwork again, normal. Four baby aspirin were followed by a nitroglycerine tablet. It didn’t stop the pressure, but it did give me a whopping headache. They switched to the cream after the tablet dropped my already low blood pressure even lower.

Then, I was given a stress test, and it didn’t involve a treadmill like I thought. It involved shooting me up with something that made me feel like I was being chased by a serial killer. I cannot recommend it. I was sweating, shaking, and trying my best not to vomit. I would have preferred the treadmill.

They ruled out any possibility of a heart problem, which is a relief since I had an uncle die in his thirties of a heart issue. I’m in my forties, and it does give me a little peace of mind to know that my heart is in working order. But I was also left asking what had happened to me that I was experiencing massive pain and pressure.

What I Learned from Not Dying

There were no answers. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything. The doctor’s best guess was that it was stress-induced. Not necessarily a panic attack. Just exacerbated symptoms due to stress.

This must have been some next-level stress, but to be fair, it’s been a next-level year. I’ve had an emergency almost every single month. That’s not an exaggeration.

I’ve had half my house flood and have to be fixed. I’ve had four emergency room visits between me and my children. I’ve had two emergency vet bills. Four major car repairs. Roof repairs, only recently filed with the insurance company to replace the whole damn thing. I lost a side gig that was paying a considerable number of my bills, with no warning to prepare for it. I have two children in puberty as a single parent.

Honestly, it’s a wonder I didn’t have stress-related symptoms sooner.

But I didn’t die, and all I could think was, Is this living though? It only feels like surviving.

Life is Meant for Thriving, Not Surviving

I worked hard to create a beautiful life for myself and my children. I didn’t anticipate that an entire emergency fund would be drained in only a couple of months, leaving me without money or credit to cover the other emergencies. I didn’t expect the ongoing income loss due to AI use. I didn’t expect any of this.

I didn’t do anything to cause this, and I didn’t expect it, but I do have to figure out a way to better take care of myself through it. Self-care has to be a priority. I can’t just wait and hope things get better. I have to learn how to manage my stress and change how I’m living.

Here’s the hard truth of life: We’re all going to die. We’re not all going to truly live. I don’t want to waste my time here. Already, so much of it has passed, and there were years when I felt like I was just going through the motions (and emotions). But that’s not enough for me anymore.

I had to be honest with myself. I had been neglecting self-care for a while. I was doing the bare minimum and hoping it would get me by. I was struggling to do the things that had to be done, and I forgot that self-care couldn’t be left off that list without consequences.

I had to stop waiting for life to get better. This year showed me that it really could get worse … and then keep getting worse. I know that sounds awful. It has been. But I have to stop being a passive participant, overwhelmed by everything coming at me. I have to take charge of my one wild and precious existence.

My True Priorities Emerged

I asked myself, What do I want?

Answers came from everywhere, all at once.

I want quality time with my children. I want to rescue as many animals as I can. I want to grow an enormous garden. I want to keep my remote and self-employed status as much as possible to grow my income while maintaining my home responsibilities.

I want to spend time with friends and keep making new ones. I want to see art and hear music and love things with my whole heart. I want to read all the books on my shelf and all the ones that I haven’t even heard of yet. I want to feel like I’m living before I’m actually dying.

I don’t want to spend all my time worrying about bills, money, and budgeting. I don’t want to be in relationships that are fraught with judgment and anxiety. I just want to love well, to be loved, and to enjoy my life.

And, yes, I want all of that while acknowledging that I’m living in a capitalist hellscape sliding surely into fascism. I don’t know how to enjoy life while fighting fascists with every cell in my body, but I know that joy is revolution. Gratitude is pure rebellion. When everything is in chaos, I still get to practice self-care. It’s the airplane mask we put on first. We can’t possibly contribute well to our communities or save the world when we’re overwhelmed with stress and letting it impact our physical and mental health.

Mental Health is Health

I think we forget that mental health is health. It is inextricably intertwined with our physical health. They may have separated our eyes and teeth from health insurance, but we cannot separate emotional health from physical health. It’s impossible.

We’re not just a body. We’re not just a brain either. We’re both. We’re all of that, along with souls in need of nurturing.

Lately, I’ve had to be intentional with caring for myself. Time in nature helps, but with temperatures dropping, I don’t always want to be outside. Bringing plants inside helps some. Opening curtains to let the light in helps, too. I sometimes go out into my garden to gather herbs. I’m literally touching grass for the sake of my sanity.

But I also keep looking to the arts to feed my soul. Museums and local concerts meet a need I didn’t quite realize I had. I drink up the art with my eyes. I feed my soul with every note of music I hear. I am reminded that it’s not enough to live if we don’t remember why we’re doing it anymore.

I’ve learned to add comfort to my life, too. Comfortable clothes. Soft blankets. Shows that comfort rather than annoy. Books that make me think and feel and see things differently.

It’s more than just making myself happy all the time. I’ve thought about the kind of person I want to be and how I want to make my community and the world around me better. It started me down the path of animal rescue and offering affordable rideshares locally. I even started thinking about ways I could provide life coaching services, a natural with my mental health background, that are accessible to the community, offering pay-what-you-can sessions.

I find ways to give back, but I also find ways to ask for help when I need it. I just want my life to have meaning, and I know that I get to choose that meaning. It’s not entirely out of my hands, even if it feels that way when I’m handling yet another setback.

I can still love well and feel joy. I can do my best to feed my soul with art and beauty and nature so that stress doesn’t eat my whole damn life. I make my time count because I didn’t die. I didn’t die. I’m still here. For however long that will be. I want to appreciate it while I’m alive to do it.

This Isn’t Spiritual Bypassing

My stress is real. The reasons for my stress are real. All of that is true, and I’m still going to try to take better care of myself through it. The last thing I need is to be harder on myself than life already has been on me.

I’m not going to pretend to be happy when I’m not. I’ll probably cry a lot and have days when I can’t do much to be productive because I’m overwhelmed. I will care for myself as gently as I can because life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows and dancing glitter unicorns. Sometimes, it’s broken and stormy and waves crashing from all sides, all at once, all the time.

But we keep going even though we all know where it ends. Some people will spend their whole lives committed to routine and convention, but I don’t want to do that. It’s not what makes me happy. I chart my own path, and if sometimes that path is rocky, that’s just what I have to accept.

I didn’t die. After about an hour in the hospital, I suspected that I wouldn’t. Not yet, anyway. But it still counts. I didn’t die. I’m still here.

I did get a wakeup call about how I’m living. I realized I’d been stressed out so long that it now seems like my natural state. I stopped noticing the tension in my shoulders because it’s there all the time. The gnawing in my gut from stress about my finances? That’s just the way it always is. All the time lately.

But that’s not the way it has to be.

I’m working on it.

I start with a deep breath. I put away my worry about the hospital bills. I give myself a break and know that I don’t have to know everything or fix everything today. Everything will be okay if I just take good care of myself and do the next right thing. Only the next. I don’t have to look any further than that right this minute.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.