#43: Choking on Air

HUMOR

Rise and shine, rapscallions!

You know how jerks say “don’t choke” instead of “good luck” before you’re about to embark on something big? If you’re lucky (normal), you may have thought, what an interesting metaphor! I guess it would be a bummer to choke in the middle of trying to do this important thing. I assume you let that thought come and go and then focused on remembering your lines or making the basket or not sweating through your nice interview clothes. You weren’t actually worried about choking. You were worried about what choking represented: messing up. Well GOOD FOR YOU! I, on the other hand, am worried about choking. And also not messing up. Together, both, at the same time. Because sometimes when I get anxious (and even when I don’t realize I’m anxious but apparently my body does), I choke uncontrollably. I choke on anxiety alone, baby. I choke on air.

This choking eventually devolves into coughing and, of course, humiliation. The humiliation leads to more anxiety, a newfound bout in which I’m anxious about the fact that I choked on nothing and that’s weird and everyone probably thinks I’m weird, or worse, gross, or worse-worse, infected with something bad* that I’m spreading all over them with my cough driblets. This fun sexy new anxiety makes me worry that I will choke again and I become verrrrrrry aware of my throat. Sometimes, if I’m having a particularly awesome day, I convince myself that I’ve forgotten how to breathe! More commonly though, I manifest a tickle in my throat that can be incredibly hard to banish.

The tickle causes me to choke and cough again and again and again. The more I try not to cough, the more frequently it happens. The harder I try to suppress the cough, the more violent the hacking. I literally THREW UP this morning trying to strangle a cough, and I was just alone in my apartment. I’ll cough til I dry heave and then go about my day thanking my lucky stars I didn’t bile blast the sidewalk. It’s so fun!

Of course, even thinking about coughing increases my anxiety about coughing which in turn makes me cough more. Writing this essay while struggling to emerge from this cough cycle has been a waking nightmare that I, for some reason, self-engineered. Maybe I should step on finding a new therapist?

When I’m not going totally nuts OR SLEEPING (because, yes, in the midst of an anxious cough cycle I also cough in my sleep which wakes me up and then makes me anxious about being a bad sleeper and such a damn good cougher), there is a trick that helps me out. I do this little breathing exercise as much as I can muster throughout the day, and sometimes sometimes I can swerve a cresting cough altogether.

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^ Pardon that interruption. It is meant to signify the throat-ripping coughing fit I just had as punishment for planning to reveal my secret breathing exercise to you all. Okay, breathing now. Done. Here’s the exercise:

Inhale (through nose, not too deep)…2…3…4…hold (naturally like it ain’t no thang (NOT like you’re playing mermaids and trying to beat your record of swimming two and a half pool lengths at Mamaw’s))…2…exhale (through mouth which should be positioned in a butthole of a circle)…2…3…4…5…Repeat ad infinitum or until the gods smile upon you and you forget what it’s like to cough at all.

This exercise has me in a chokehold (ba dum tis!). It’s the only thing I’ve found that works. Surprisingly, ruminating on how to stop coughing has produced less impressive results. It’s confusing because isn’t the key to anxiety just thinking your way out of it? Once you’ve run through every possible scenario in your head, fixated on every flinch or flicker (real or imagined) experienced by each of your body parts (the advanced anxious girlies will be able to image individual muscles in their mind’s eye), and calculated all potential risks, consequences, and descents into utter disaster, your anxiety will dispel! Mostly because it will take so long to do that your Earthly body will wither and die long before you’ve finished.

Inhale…2…3…4…hold…2…exhale…2…3…4…5

Anyway, I have to go log onto a meeting with a potential freelance client. Fingers crossed I don’t choke! Just kidding, I’m definitely gonna! Probably will stealthily turn off my camera and mic and blame it on ~tEcHnoLOgy!1!!!1 We’ll see if I book it lol.

Wishing you clear airways and breezy breaths. Byyyye!

Ariana

*Let the record show, I did go to the doc. I tested negative for the ‘vid and all my other vitals were vibin!!! I am the picture of health except for this damn cough. The doctor literally scratched her head, did a little ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and said idk!!!!