For the past 4 days now about half an hour before I leave work I get this weird feeling in my chest, like I swallowed a hot cactus. I leave, get on the train, go home, get settled, and the feeling goes away about 20 minutes after I get home.
This hot cactus feeling is not new to me, it is my “women’s intuition” I guess, or whatever you call that instinct. Every time I feel this way there is something BIG going down and it isn’t going to be fun or pretty, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what is wrong. Now if I were having this reaction on my way to work I would assume it meant I hated my job (it would be right) and I would start looking for a new one (I already am, but I am reading What Color Is Your Parachute and taking some steps to make sure that the next job I take isn’t one that I hate either.) If it kept going after I got home I would assume it meant that I had problems at home that need to be addressed (which is also true, but the things that can be done to fix things are being done so it isn’t as if I am ignoring problems that I am aware of in my life.) This weirdness doesn’t make any sense to me and I can’t figure out what is wrong. If I knew what it was I would try to fix it but I am stumped.
Any ideas why this would be happening? Does this ever happen to anyone else?
It sounds like a normal reaction to the changes that are happening (or will be happening) in your life, aka normal anxiety.
I’ve had that feeling. It’s definitely uncomfortable.
I’ve had feelings that I thought might be premonitions of something bad coming, but the bad never happened, not then anyway. Bad always sneaks up on me.
I think I know what you mean. I’ve always interpreted it as anxiety caused by whatever I’ve had to leave unfinished that day added to anticipation of everthing that needs to get done before tomorrow. Once I get home and into the evening’s activities, it goes away.
I sometimes get it if I wake earlier than usual in the morning’s too, probably for similar reasons.
I would say it’s anxiety, too. Maybe you feel more in control at work than you do at home, maybe there’s something about the train that’s bothering you? Or, are you PMSing right now? Sometimes anxiety or a general feeling of doom can be a symptom of PMS.
It could be an underlying anxiety related to any stressful situation in your life. The physical cause sounds to me like something that I had which a doctor diagnosed as a cramp in my esophagus. In addition to dealing with stress, an antacid helped a lot – especially Mylanta.
However, it might not be a bad idea to talk to a real doctor about it. IANAD, and I know nothing about your age or general medical condition, but it is generally said these days that women’s cardiac problems can manifest themselves in ways other than the classic chest-clenching pain.
I am 25 and though I am heavy I have excellent blood pressure and cholesterol levels so I am pretty sure it isn’t a coronary thing.
I love riding the train. I find it fun and exciting at best and crowded at worst and it gives me time to read which makes me very happy.
The situation with my roommate is not good. I am still really mad at her for all the stuff that went down and I feel like she is lying to me about things. This isn’t new though, this has been going on for months and I have been dealing with it the best way I can think of, which is to keep my home life as calm as possible while preparing for the possibility of moving to a 1 bedroom or taking over the lease on this apartment when our lease comes up. I don’t know that I can do any more than that.
The only thing I can think of is that I have only lived here in New York for about 6 months now and having moved from Texas this whole winter thing is new to me. I couldn’t really focus at work today because I kept watching the snow out the window. I thought it was pretty though and I didn’t have any kind of stressful reaction until around 4:30 which is when the whole hot cactus-y feeling seems to kick in every day. I am waiting through the weekend to see if it still happens when I am not working or if it is just related to the end of my day at work.
My guess would be stress and anxiety. When you’re busy at work, you don’t have time to focus on it so it retreats to the background, like MUZAK of the soul. Once you’re mind’s not as occupied, it leaps into your consciousness like one of those horrible jumpy spiders.
It isn’t just my throat, it is my whole throat/chest/shoulder area. I hesitate to call it just a prickly feeling, it feels tight, like I swallowed something too big to be swallowed (hence the cactus-y explanation) in addition to being hot and prickly.
It is hard to explain, though it seems like it could be anxiety due to holidays/winter/roommate crap/etc. If it isn’t better here in a couple of days I will go to the doctor about it though.
It seems like a really mild panic attack to me. Not so much that you’re incapacitated obviously, but still no good things.
So, count me into the anxiety thought on this.
If it is ONLY happening right before you leave work and goes away shortly after arriving home. I have to believe something about the trip home is causing this feeling. You should examine the trip more closely and see if there is anything at all that you have dubious feelings about.
I can’t imagine it is anything about the physical trip itself as it is the same trip I make in the morning, only backwards. I don’t feel like this on my morning commute at all so it doesn’t make any sense that I would be upset about something commute-wise.
I have really been thinking about it and I think elanorigby is right, this is probably somehow related to the situation with my roommate and the fact that I really just don’t want to go home.
Just as a quick rundown of what has happened for those who missed the other threads where I have mentioned what is going on, I moved to NYC from Texas with my roommate in June. I wanted to leave Texas and my friend came with me to get out of an abusive living situation. She had been smacked around by her mom and sexually abused by her dad for years and she saw this as an opportunity to get the hell out of there. About 2 months ago I overheard her talking to a friend of hers and telling her vicious lies about me, including saying that I raped her in her sleep. She went on about how much easier her life would be if I were dead, etc. I confronted her about it later. We had a discussion and agreed that if we were going to keep living together she needed to start seeing a therapist to deal with all the abuse she has dealt with and whatever caused her to feel like she needed to lash out at me. Fastforward 6 weeks later and a situation over a guy that we were both into spiraled out of control. This wouldn’t normally be a big deal but the way it happened and the fact that it happened so soon after all the other shit went down caused me to feel like I can’t trust her and that she really doesn’t respect me as a person. Feeling like this has caused a rift in our friendship that I don’t know can even be repaired, though I am trying to do what I can to fix it.
I am really just waiting for the other shoe to drop with her. I come home expecting for her to have gone out of her way to make my life unpleasant and difficult. I can tell by her mannerisms that she is lying to me about stuff and really at this point I don’t expect any different. I really dread going home, but when I get there and everything is normal and nothing is on fire or anything I relax a bit and the feeling goes away. I don’t know how to fix it though.
While it’s nice to be right and all-I am more worried about you and your situation. Anyway to get OUT of there, like now? She doesn’t sound stable in the least. Adjusting to life in NYC is more than enough, you don’t need all this other Drama and Crap in your life. Can you kick her out? Can you talk to someone who knows her and you, but is neutral?
She sounds batshit to me, never mind her painful past. I’m all for her getting help, but she shouldn’t take others down as she raises herself up, if you follow me…
When everything went to hell in a handbasket a couple of months ago I thought seriously about kicking her out. I even bought a new deadbolt to replace the current one, though I decided not to kick her out and never installed it. She and I talked about everything and decided that we could try very hard to get past everything that happened. We set up a contract of sorts outlining everything that had to be done if things were going to get better and we both signed it. So far she has stuck to her end of the agreement but has caused other serious problems.
For instance, I discovered yesterday morning the rent check she wrote me last week bounced, causing me to rack up $150 in bank fees and go overdrawn for the first time in my life. It is more upsetting because I can afford to pay the rent on the place by myself if I have to but she didn’t tell me the money got bounced back into her account 3 days ago so I didn’t know I needed to account for that $750 and went shopping for presents instead. The fees and the whole fiasco could have been easily handled with minimal reprocussions but she never said anything. This kind of stuff makes it really hard for me to rebuild the trust we had when we started living together. Right now I am thinking that I need to ride out the lease and find a 1 bedroom to move into in June since kicking her out, though cathartic, hurts both of us in the long run. She would essentially be homeless and I wouldn’t have time to save up a deposit towards a new place.
Her being homeless isn’t your responsibility. Scoundrels like that always seem to find a new sucker to live with, though, so I wouldn’t worry too much about her.
You said that you felt like this before when you had anxiety about some major problem that you couldn’t identify. Was that feeling EXACTLY like this, or could it be something physical? When we got new furniture at my house, if I sat too long in the new chair I would get strange “stuffed” feelings in my upper body sort of like what you’re describing as soon as I stood up. Did you get a new chair at work? Are you working longer stretches at a chair that you’ve had for awhile?