Anxiety Attack

May is Mental Health Awareness month, and I started off being vulnerable to the issues that have presented a challenge most of my life. Today I had a full anxiety attack, the first one since June of 2015. It was a good run, but I felt I was due. It even appeared that for a while I could be impervious to future attacks such as this, sometimes we live in a fool’s paradise. Sometimes we forget that the struggle is real and very day to day.
 
I consider myself fortunate to have go so lone without suffering from one, and have taken the more natural approach over prescribed medications. It’s my risk and so far, it has paid off. I took the advice of both my therapist and a friend, along with a lot of self studying. But every day presents you with a new and sometimes old challenges. Adding running to this has helped stave off most bi-polar issues as well. Like I said, it was my choice. Going off your medication is a conversation you should always have with your therapist, for me it was about writers block. More of that later. 
 
I’m feeling better now, I had a nice run in the cool rain. I found it calming and in a way exercised some of the demons of earlier today. Am I out of the woods? No. Challenges such as this lead us all over the map of emotions, and sometimes into darker forests, and occasionally more populated areas. Maybe that’s a reason I run, to travel the physical and emotional map, to be my own cartographer.