Anxiety and all her friends

Insomnia, nausea, worry, rumination, depression. Overachieving, overthinking, undereating.
As long as I can remember, I've been anxious. I didn't always know that I was anxious, but I did know that I was uncomfortable. I didn't know what it was like to not be anxious. Also: I had nothing to be anxious about, not directly. I was just generally freaked out. The world was not a safe place for me. This was not in the sense that I felt that danger lurked around every corner--it was more of a weird mysterious organic knot in my belly that had always been there, and, near as I could tell, was "normal". One time, when I was about ten years old, I cuddled up to the family cat and wished as hard as I could that I could be a cat, and with that would come some peace of mind.
Needless to say, I didn't get to be a cat. And now that I know otherwise, this is a sad state of affairs for a child, expecially one who is not suffering from poverty, or violence at the hands of others, or any of the other myriad horrors that plague the world's children. Hell, when I look at it that way, I had it easy.
I was always awake early, the white hot tightness in my belly ready to get another wretched day under way.
I was awkward, fearful, painfully shy. And this was when things were good. When things were bad, like a seventh grade history test, oh, they were bad. Dread. Fear. And everyone had pennyloafers except me. Which somehow amplified that fire in my belly, and the big cold void that was the future: 5 minutes from now, next week, the eighth grade.
Honestly, I do not know how I got through my twenties, or grad school, or how I managed to get much of anything accomplished. I read books, I ran for miles, I drove around the city at night when I couldn't sleep, listening to the radio. Time was a vast and dark swamp. No matter how good I had it, I could not enjoy it. I couldn't appreciate my achievements, or relish my adventures. I couldn't really love anyone, because I was so afraid of what would happen when they didn't love me anymore. And I could hide it.
I went to counseling. I ate ten million herbs. I have been using natural medicine, mainly acupuncture, as my primary health care since 1990. I tried meditation, exercise, amino acids, vitamins, and did alot of work around why I felt so shitty all the time. There was a good deal of it that I had created for myself, that I was responsible for, yes. But underlying all of that was the familiar, ever-tightening knot in my belly. It still woke me up at night, and early in the morning with a start, followed by the heavy dread that always set in after the shock of waking up in my body, yet again.
Two years ago, in the midst of a personal crisis, I went and saw a psych nurse. I was at my wits' end, hadn't slept in days, and couldn't eat. She prescribed for me a small dose of a widely used anti-depressant. And B vitamins, a protein rich diet regimen, and therapy. I started to feel better quickly. For the first time in perhaps ever, I was getting restful sleep. And when I woke up, the tension that had plagued me as long as I could remember--it was quiet. I am still sticking to her recommendations. Taking pharmaceutical drugs in order to lead a happy life seems anathema to the things I believe, even to my work.
But taking pharmaceutical drugs to lead a happy life has opened my eyes to many things. I do think many people are over medicated. I do think that people "run" from their grief, their trauma, their whatevers, with the use of these medications. Maybe I am doing that. I don't think I am. I do my work. And really, for the first time ever, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, I can enjoy the sweet love of a good man, I can stay grounded in my work, and when the morning comes, I can wake up without the old tense ghost of a nervous system keyed way up high to where I couldn't see anything, anything at all.