When Anxieties Attack
by Scott Hardie on December 6, 2012
It feels weird to write about a fairly minor health incident in my life after someone else on this site just went through a major crisis. But people have been asking since Kelly's cryptic Facebook comment on Tuesday morning and I guess I should explain.
I had been working every night last week on a project for work and getting a couple of hours of sleep each night, which turned into an all-weekend thing, and the avalanche of tasks didn't stop when the site launched early Monday morning. (Message me if you're curious to see the finished site.) A week straight of all work and almost no sleep apparently took a toll. By Monday night, I was unable to fall asleep for hours, my heart racing arrhymically and jolting me awake. I visited the ER and asked them to run tests just to be safe. They told me my heart was fine, diagnosed an anxiety attack, and sent me home with a Xanax prescription and doctor's orders for two days of rest. Other than burning my hand on the stove this morning (they really aren't kidding when they warn of medicine making you clumsy), it's been a restful two days of sleeping and catching up on Netflix and trying not to touch any projects, personal or professional.
I can be weirdly dichotomic about this stuff: Sometimes I'm relaxed and work in moderation and don't stress at all, but other times I really get deep into a project and work myself to exhaustion and worry that it's not going to turn out perfect. The latter is my natural mode, but Matthew Preston once wisely taught me to try to be the former as much as possible, after seeing the health consequences of a lifelong "Type A" personality that he knew. It's getting tougher in this hyper-connected, 24/7 work-at-home world, but we as Americans really do need to learn to back off sometimes and avoid burning ourselves out. The risk of being perceived as a "slacker" is not worth the trips to the cardiologist.
I'm grateful to everybody for their kind words of concern, but especially grateful to Kelly for sitting by my side for hours in the middle of the night while nurses poked and prodded me, and for taking care of me since. I don't know where I'd be without her.
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The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
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