I hold my breath

I found out, only within the past decade, that I shared a rather odd trait with my mother: I hold my breath when I am stressed. Given how much stress I've experienced the past several years, I seem to spend much of my life suffering from oxygen deprivation.

When I'm emotionally tense — which is most of the time — my muscles are tense. All of them. It's probably the only reason I have any muscle tone at all. If I'm going to die of asphyxiation, at least my core muscles have enough structure to keep me upright until rigor mortis sets in.

I don't notice when I stop breathing; I notice when I start breathing again, or when I need to start breathing again. This goes on all day, off and on. I have no idea if it happens at night, but I wouldn't be surprised. 

When I was little, I had nightmares fairly often. Sometimes they were about monsters, but one repeated for years. Each time, I would wake up, my heart beating so hard and fast I thought I could see it against my chest. My room was dark and my covers were over my head. I was absolutely convinced that a huge black dog was sitting next to my bed, waiting for some movement, some sound, that showed I was awake. Once that happened, I knew it would pounce on me aand rip my throat out. So I would breathe as shallowly as I could and I would hold myself absolutely still. I probably didn't fall back asleep so much as pass out.

When I grew older, the big black dog changed into home invaders, but the concept was the same: any indication I was awake would result in a horrible death.

By the time I was in my mid- to late-30s those nightmares were infrequent, and I rarely have them now. But the feeling is the same: if I don't succeed in whatever I think I need to do, whether it's act like I'm asleep or make enough money to support myself, I will die a horrible death. I have to make the macabre observation that now it appears my nightmare occurs in the daylight.

I'll admit that dying doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore, now that Mom is gone, but that might simply be because I'm not staring into the eyes of Death at the moment. A horrible death, however, is still to be avoided.

It's easier to tell someone else to breathe. To tell myself to breathe, I first have to be aware that I am not doing so. Maybe I need a small looped recording, some sound chip I can wear in an earring or a necklace. Over and over will be a voice, a calm and relaxed voice, saying "Breathe, honey. Just breathe."