Mostly me again.

I later identified February 2025 as a point when anxiety became more mental and emotional after being mainly physical. During a restaurant episode that February, my body warmed up, swallowing became difficult, breathing felt difficult and I wanted to leave. I described it as milder than the original 2019 panic, but it was still upsetting.

By April, I was describing a massive setback after previously doing much better. Internal anxiety, shaky hands and a high-adrenaline feeling returned. Caffeine could bring back jitteriness. I also wondered whether oral finasteride was involved. At one point I reported taking days off it without a clear change; that observation did not establish the cause either way.

The quieter body. The louder mind.

In May, physical symptoms were often much quieter, while sadness, fatigue, low motivation and uncomfortable mental symptoms were more prominent. In one update I rated the physical discomfort around 3 to 4 out of 10 and the mental or emotional discomfort around 8 out of 10. My struggle was not always a full panic attack. Sometimes it was feeling unlike myself all day.

I still played volleyball and football, went out and trained. I could laugh and enjoy something, then question whether the laughter had been genuine. I feared becoming depressed or losing the ability to enjoy my life. During one volleyball session I felt depersonalization and low mood, then felt much better afterward.

Sometimes two or three better days would be followed by a day that felt devastating. There were moments of hopelessness and crying. I missed the ease of my old self, and I could feel frightened by the fact that I was even asking whether I would enjoy life again.

I was also questioning the things that gave me practical relief. Water and gum could make swallowing easier, but I worried that I was relying on crutches. That concern added another layer to an already difficult experience.

In June, I reported periods when low mood, sadness and fatigue had resolved. Car-motion sensitivity had become less intense. By late June I said I had not had a panic attack for months. At the same time, dry saliva, swallowing and some breathing sensations were still interfering with meals and cardio.

7 July 2025

On 7 July 2025, I described myself as probably 95% better. Even then, the joy and excitement I expected from recovery had not completely arrived. Soon afterward, following about a week and a half of feeling more like myself, I had a couple of bad days with brain fog, derealization, depersonalization, intrusive thoughts and fear of going crazy returning.

Those changes were hard to accept. A few good days could make me feel that I was finally moving past it, and a bad day could make me question the whole recovery. I kept trying to float through the symptoms, but I wanted to know why improvement was not staying consistent.

Feeling almost recovered did not immediately bring the joy or excitement I had imagined. Sometimes I was checking whether I felt happy enough, or whether a laugh had been real. The checking itself became part of what made those days tiring.

In October, I was still trying to float through swallowing and car symptoms. After a brief burst of running to catch a car, I reported a racing heart and feeling off for much of the day. I also said I was no longer spiralling or ruminating in the way I once had. Fear of a major setback could still reappear.

November and December brought renewed concern about palpitations. My estimates of how long they had been present varied between updates. Caffeine made them worse. They could be most noticeable when waking, lying down, trying to sleep or turning over in bed.

During December I described wired, restless periods, body scanning and a chattery mind. Yet I also reported major improvements in mood, motivation, confidence, speech, emotions and feeling like myself. Gaming, walking and laughing could quiet the mental chatter. I paused powerlifting and spent periods sleeping eight or nine hours, though more sleep did not immediately remove every symptom.

By December I was reconsidering the mentality of always pushing through. I had stopped powerlifting for a period and was resting, sleeping and hydrating more. I wanted to take care of myself without making every new habit into another test of whether I was finally recovered.

A difficult moment in an ordinary place.

On 31 December, I described a sudden episode at the barber: severe dry mouth, increased heartbeat awareness, throat tightness when my head tilted, a strange warped sensation in my back and some fight-or-flight. My saliva and symptoms improved after leaving. I questioned whether a hair-loss medication was involved, but the timing alone did not settle that question.

In January, I said my sleep schedule was better and most other symptoms were gone. The recurring problems were palpitations, swallowing or reflux symptoms and car-related fight-or-flight. Some meals were taking about 30 minutes. In February and March, reduced appetite, early fullness, dry mouth and occasional disrupted breathing also featured in my updates.

By April, swallowing had become much less sticky, and I reported some reduction in car sensitivity. Palpitations remained. Around that period I also described heavy eyes, daytime sleepiness, slower recall and brain fog. These overlapped with a long diet, variable sleep and questions about medication or nutrition; I did not establish one cause for them.

The tired, heavy days.

In June I had a spell of marked fatigue after several short nights. In late August I became unwell with weakness, tingling, sweating, low appetite and a heavy head. In September I was still reporting tiredness and a more sensitive feeling at times. Those episodes have their own context in the symptom record.

The other health experiences in the picture.

Food getting stuck had a history that reached back before anxiety. Since childhood, dry foods such as pancakes could lodge or feel difficult to get down, particularly when I ate quickly. In 2025 I had two actual food impactions involving dry chicken or rice. During one episode, I brought food back up and spat white saliva for about an hour. Those events were different from simply feeling a lump in my throat.

A doctor prescribed rabeprazole or Razo for reflux: a three-week course and later a four-week course. This was treatment for the reflux and swallowing problem.

I also had pills seem stuck with chest heaviness, nasal congestion and throat mucus, lightheaded episodes after changing position or exercise, and visual migraine phenomena that went back to childhood. These experiences mattered to my story without proving that anxiety caused them.

I had a history of jaw clenching, and one gum-related flare settled after I stopped chewing gum. Changes in confidence, speech and emotional ease also improved at points in the journey. I discussed libido concerns, but repeatedly reported preserved sexual function; I do not treat those concerns as an established anxiety symptom or medication effect.

Motion, acceleration, and feeling trapped.

This has been one of the hardest experiences to explain. In a fast-moving car or during a plane’s acceleration, my body can start bracing automatically. Heat builds, there can be a heavy dropping feeling, and I want the movement to slow down. I have described it as my brain struggling to comprehend the speed.

The lack of control matters. I am seated, the vehicle keeps moving, and I cannot simply get up and leave. The sensation can become an urgent need to escape. I have used very strong words to describe how distressing it feels, because ordinary descriptions of nervousness do not capture it well.

I described a flight to Dubai, particularly takeoff, as intensely frightening. Looking back, I felt affected by that experience. Later flights could bring anticipation of the same body reaction. My concern was the experience of being trapped with the sensation for a long time.

Headphones helped to some extent. At times they reduced how much attention I gave the motion, but I have also described the benefit as only a little. I have mentioned reclining or feeling more supported as helpful for comfort. Neither amounts to a complete resolution of the trigger.

I kept travelling in cars and had taken flights, yet in December 2025 I specifically said that repeated rides had not made this symptom go away. At other points I reported less intense car sensitivity. Both belong in the story: there was some change, but simply doing more journeys did not produce the consistent relief I wanted.

I stopped caffeine after repeatedly noticing it amplify other symptoms. I cannot claim that this cured the motion response.

After so much broader improvement, this remaining symptom can feel disproportionately frustrating. It creates the question: if I can work, exercise, laugh and feel normal in other settings, why does acceleration still set off this reaction? That is part of the unfinished story, not evidence that the rest of my progress was imaginary.

Swallowing, saliva, and finishing a meal.

Meals could start normally and become difficult partway through. My saliva would reduce, the tongue or throat would feel dry, and the last bites would take much more effort. I could become very aware of swallowing and breathing. The same theme appeared during running, when trying to swallow saliva felt awkward or blocked.

Water helped, and gum sometimes helped saliva. I disliked depending on what I called crutches. That frustration was real, but the practical relief was real too. Gum also aggravated my jaw during one period, so one helpful effect did not make it a good choice in every situation.

The actual food impactions made this more complicated. After food genuinely got stuck, I became more alert to every swallowing sensation and feared a repeat. I cannot reduce that whole history to fear alone. By April 2026 I reported that the food symptom had become much better and less sticky, which was a clear improvement after a long time.

My heartbeat, even on a calmer day.

These could remain after the mental and emotional symptoms had eased. I noticed them on waking, at bedtime, with position changes, after meals or during exercise. Their intensity varied. Some days they were less intrusive; at other times I described them as forceful or aggressive.

Caffeine and energy drinks were recurring aggravators in my own reports. I also questioned sleep, diet, reflux, medication and deficiencies. I did not establish a single explanation. The fact that I could feel calmer and still notice my heartbeat was one of the things that repeatedly confused me.

Jitteriness and the wired feeling.

Jitteriness deserves its own place because it is easy to miss when summarising anxiety as worry. I described internal shakiness, shaky hands, restlessness and a high-adrenaline feeling during setbacks. It could feel as though my body was ramped up even when I was trying to respond calmly. Caffeine was a clear trigger for that feeling at times.

Fatigue and brain fog.

At other times the dominant feeling was almost the opposite: heavy, tired, sleepy and mentally slow. I asked whether I needed better sleep, more food, better hydration or recovery from training. The long cut, short nights and illness all overlapped with some of these periods. They belong in the story without turning every tired day into an anxiety diagnosis.

My experience has therefore included both feeling too activated and feeling depleted. They did not follow one clean schedule, and they did not always improve together.

These entries describe different forms my experience took across the years. Some group several related sensations together. This is the record assembled so far, rather than a final count of every symptom I have ever experienced. They are not separate diagnoses, and they did not all happen together.

These experiences affected how I felt and what I worried about. Several had a separate medical or illness context, so I cannot confidently attribute them all to anxiety.