Stress Center Peer Support

Weekends have not been good for me lately. I work M-F from 7 to 5:30 and on Friday nights I cover local high school football for an area newspaper as a part time job. By the time the games get over and get the article off to the paper, it's 11:00 or later and it takes a while for me to get to sleep. I then wake up at 6 in the morning to go to work until 3 on Saturday's. After I get done there, I hit the gym for an hour or so. Exercise is good, right??? I get home and I get the pounding heart beat that lasts most of the afternoon and into the early evening. I've been to the ER once earlier this year for the same thing and have tried to keep it under control so I don't waste another trip back. I'm not sure if the tiredness of the whole Friday-Saturday thing is catching up with me or not? Everyone says that exercise is great for stress and anxiety, but it seems to just get my heart rate up and I can't seem to keep it down afterwards. Even if I don't exercise, it happens sometimes. I'm at my wits end. I have a business trip coming up in less than 2 weeks and scared to go and have something happen to me while I'm gone. This seems to be getting worse as years go by. Just scared.

This state of being you describe is well known to me in the past year. As a Registered Nurse I saw death often in Emergency and Trauma situations, worked in an Operating Room, and Palliative Care. I did it all without a tinge of anxiety. Raising two children and caring for a house, job, social obligations,stressful times, and lifes' ups and downs never ever bothered me. Then last year I was hit with every symptom that is described for anxiety, and I had major panic attacks. I like to think that it will go away. I am deligently working on it, and although at times it seems hopeless and my morning anxiety is through the roof, I seem to keep on plodding along, often preoccupied with imaginings that are frankly 'crazy'!!
I refuse to go to any hospital again, and difficult though it may be, I try daily to combat this.
I know how you feel, I truly do!! I have been so very sick! I am counting my blessings that I have a good home, a quiet place to live, and all of that. This anxiety is free floating and threatens to ruin my life at this point.