I watch television with my family when it jumps out and swallows me up.  The urge to suck in oxygen overwhelms me, but an unseen might weighs heavy upon my quivering chest.  The urge to cry infects my face as my heart punches the inside of my ribs.

I want to ask for help, but I know that nobody can save me.  I’m on my own.  I slow my breathing and mumble a prayer: maybe God can help me.  Save me.  Listen to me.  But he doesn’t hear my call.

As the blood pumps into my muscles, I grow dizzy and weak.  And then it attacks my sight, forcing me to see the world through whirls and blotches of water and fog.  My stomach twists.  My bones tremble.  What have I done to deserve this torture?  I must be a bad person, because bad people are tortured for their crimes.  I can’t remember what I could have done.

It’s winning.  I crumple to my knees and land on my palms, sucking in oxygen even though I know it will feed my foe.  My sight blurs as I claw at the carpet.  I feel my wife’s hand on the back of my head and her reassuring words in my ear.  But I’m dying. Help!

Tears wash around my eyes and tumble down my cheeks.  I roll on to my side, accepting that these will be my final minutes.  I think about my beautiful wife.  My amazing sons.  My beloved daughter.  My future promises good things, and I have a lot more to give my loved ones.

I close my eyes.  I awake the following morning.  I’m alive.  Breathing.  My wife beside me with my daughter tugging at my arm.

Until next time.

EVER WONDERED WHAT GOES THROUGH THE MIND OF SOMEBODY WHO SUFFERS WITH ANXIETY?

I was told It can’t hurt me.  That nobody had ever died from It before.  I didn’t believe them.  My mind turns on me, disabling my ability to inhale the oxygen required to exist.  It strikes me down when I least expect; watching television, driving home or drinking a cup of coffee.  

I sit with the people around me, my family, friends, existing inside a defective bubble that has so far failed to protect me from my inner enemy.  The one I refer to as It.  From the outside, it hurts me without people seeing.  The only proof It exists comes from the pain in my words, and the torment in my face.  People don’t believe me, think I’m making It up – but It’s as real as the crimson blood flowing through my veins.

It doesn’t care when; I just know that It will.  It strikes without warning.  Without mercy.  It scares me.  I’m frightened that It will never let me go.  I worry It will kill me one day when It has taken all it can from my being.  I have no idea why It stalks me, but I often wonder if I have done something to anger It.  To disappoint It.  Upset It.  Surely, I must have done something.

It was like a demon sitting on my shoulder waiting to inflict psychological and physical pain.  It draws tears from my eyes and attempts to hide my will to live, because living is too hard.  I’m tired and drained from my battles, but how can you fight something that you can’t see or touch.  Only feel. 

I watch people laughing, having fun.  Working, dreaming of success.  But those trivial things other people take for granted appear so far away from my grasp.  I want to cry, curl up into a ball and fall asleep because maybe… just maybe, when I awake, It will be gone.  Like a bad dream with no entitlement to manipulate my mind and hurt me again.

And then I awake.  The first thing on my mind – has It gone?  And that is my first mistake.  A terrible error I have made each morning for the past six hundred and thirty days, because the minute I wake I always think about It and the fear creeps back inside and threatens me. 

I cling on to the lifeline that people have survived this before me, and that one day I will be able to watch people around me with the knowledge that I could soon enjoy life without anguish.  That I will be able to experience healthy debate with another human being without being struck down with fright and ache.  That every bone and muscle in my body will stop attacking me when I want to laugh out loud and enjoy something I once had taken for granted.
  
I pray one day my life will be back in my own hands, and that It will leave me alone.  That my wife can keep me going, and that one day my dreams can come true⎯and I will find pleasure and fulfilment like normal people.

Please excuse the corny (no pun intended) reference to the infamous line from Field of Dreams.

Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, heard those voices telling him: "If you build it, he will come.” And my word⎯did they come: Shoeless Joe Jackson and other dead baseball players emerged from the cornfields to play ball! If he’d ignored those voices, Kinsella wouldn’t have signed on for the project in the first place. And the same can be applied to all you authors out there who decide to promote the LIKE BUTTON your Amazon Author page!

Did you even know that there was a tiny little LIKE button hiding in the top right hand corner of your Amazon Author Page? It’s just to the right of the Facebook and Twitter share buttons. Surprisingly, many authors are unaware of this golden nugget of a button, despite it having been there for years. 

The definition of LIKE: ‘…used to draw attention to the nature of an action or event.’ <SOURCE: GOOGLE>

You may be wondering why I’ve felt the need to write a complete post dedicated to this old piece of news. The answer is simple: I have heard whispers - a buzz even - floating around the author airwaves. Namely, Facebook! It would appear that Amazon are changing the way they promote authors and their books through their gigantic network. Reviews are still Gold Dust, but it turns out that Amazon may prefer to throw traffic at authors who are liked. Go figure!

In a nutshell, my fellow authors, you need to get people doin’ some LIKE’IN!


LIKE MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE, AND I’LL LIKE YOURS BACK!


* You don’t need to be an author to like an author’s page. If you like ’em, like’em, because it all counts. Your LIKE will help the author, and it’ll only have taken you a few seconds to do it.

* If you’re an author, and you would like to swap LIKES with me, simply leave the URL to your author page in a comment (along with “DONE YOURS”) on this post. Not only will I reciprocate your kind gesture, but the link to your author page will end up floating around in cyberspace for other authors - and potential readers - to pick up and click.

This is my Amazon Author page: 
http://www.amazon.com/Ian-David-Noakes/e/B00K0HBTBW


**Can’t find the LIKE BUTTON? No problem, because you can always click the GOLD FAVORITE BUTTON instead.

Thank You,
Ian David Noakes