how to stop shaking from anxiety?

i’m 38 and i shake like a goddamn leaf when the anxiety hits hard. it’s not subtle, it’s not “just in my head,” it’s full-on tremors like i’m freezing in a meat locker naked. i hate it. it’s embarrassing, especially in public or at work. people pretend not to notice, but they notice—oh, they fucking notice. my hands twitch, my legs bounce, sometimes my jaw clenches so tight it hurts. and the worst part? it doesn’t even matter if i know it’s coming. there’s no warning bell, no gentle rise of stress i can manage—just boom, there it is. i’ve tried to outthink it. i’ve tried grounding exercises, breathing like some enlightened yoga douchebag, and even imagining myself in calm places. but when it hits, it’s like my body betrays me, and logic goes out the damn window. 🧠

the shaking doesn’t care if you’ve got a deadline or a meeting or a date. it shows up when it wants and ruins everything. i’ve tried to explain to people around me—like hey, i’m not nervous about you, i’m not having some freakout because of this specific situation—it’s just a chemical overload in my brain going haywire. but people don’t really get it unless they’ve lived it. and honestly, most of the time i don’t have the damn energy to explain it anyway. the worst part is pretending it’s not happening; forcing myself to hold a coffee cup steady when my hand clearly says otherwise. like what am i supposed to do, tape my limbs down? i can’t just vanish from reality every time it hits; that’s not how life works;

what’s also wild is how random it can be. i’ve had full days where everything seemed fine—slept well, ate like a damn adult, kept my caffeine low—and then bam, anxiety tornado from hell. it doesn’t care about logic or rhythm. i’ll be driving and suddenly my foot's twitching on the pedal, or trying to read a book and the words blur from the tension. the only thing that seems to work a little is stepping outside and pacing like an unhinged philosopher. the movement sometimes tricks my brain into focusing on walking instead of spiraling. but who the hell has time to go for a walk every time they get shaky? it’s not realistic when you’ve got shit to do, kids to feed, jobs to hold down, bills to worry about.

one time at a restaurant, i knocked over a glass trying to lift it to my mouth. the server gave me that awkward half-smile, the kind people use when they’re trying to be kind but don’t want to get involved. i could feel my face go red as hell, and i wanted to crawl under the table. my date asked if i was okay and i just nodded like a damn liar. i wasn’t okay. i was shaking so badly i wanted to run to the bathroom and hide until my system cooled off. i didn’t though. i stayed. i wiped up the water with a napkin and kept the conversation going, because that’s what we do, right? pretend it’s fine until it is, or until it ends.

so here i am, still figuring it out. i don’t have some miracle answer, and honestly, i don’t think there is one. anxiety like this is physical. it’s not always mental. it lives in the body like a parasite and shows up when it wants. maybe one day it’ll leave me the hell alone. maybe not. but until then, i try not to beat myself up every time the shakes come. i let my body freak out a bit if it needs to, try to slow my breathing, maybe grip something solid and ride it out. it sucks, but it is what it is. if you deal with this too, you’re not broken. you’re just trying to keep moving through something that’s hard to describe but very, very real. and if anyone tells you to “just relax”? tell them to kindly fuck off.

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