I'm mental but too crazy to know it

My world as I knew it has recently been turned upside down. A couple of days before my wife and I were going to Ethiopia to get our daughter I started to get a sore throat, feel generally sick and consequently stopped eating and sleeping. The morning of our flight my mind began taking over with thoughts of fear and anxiety -

What if I get sick on the flight over?
What if I get more sick and they don't let me in the country?
What if I get sick in the country and need medical care?
Etc. Etc. Etc.

This thought process took over my ability to think rationally especially when I my body continued to show signs of not being well. So much so that when we got to the airport, I was feeling so sick (and scared about being sick) that my wife and I decided I should stay home.

WHAT THE F*CK! Are you kidding me? Is this really happening to me? Am I really going to abandon my wife at the airport and send her to a third world country all by herself to pick up our daughter? I must be loosing my mind.

Long story short, I kind of did. For years I have been bottling up anxiety and stress in unhealthy ways that when I was faced with a "big" situation, my body shut down as a defense mechanism because it could no longer handle the load. I have ignored the symptoms of stress / anxiety and also have not coped with the issues for 20+ years. The jig is up - time to face the truth.

What's the truth, I'm not really sure yet, but I do know this. How we process and deal with life affects our health and well-being. Ignoring things, blowing them off, not talking about how you are feeling, not being honest with yourself and the important people in your life - this can all lead to your body literally saying "no more".

I'm on my way to figuring out how to live a balanced, healthy, honest life. The key ingrediant is my wife. I've hidden my true self from her for years for fear she would be over-burdened by my crazy ways of thinking and dealing with stuff. For the first time in a long time, I'm letting her into my mental world and its scary but freeing as well. She is my rock, I can't imagine not having her as my partner working through rewiring my approach to stress and life in general.

So what happened with my wife and daughter? About 30 minutes before the flight took off, up walks my younger brother Kevin wearing a fleece sweatshirt and jeans with his passport in his back pocket. I looked at him and asked what he was doing - he said, "I'm going with your wife to pick up your daughter, everything is going to be OK. Go take care of yourself, I got this." And off they went.

I don't think many people in life get to truly experience first hand what it's like to have someone save your life. But at that moment, for me, it was a life or death decision that I go or don't go. My brother dove on the grenade so that I didn't have to go there - he gave me no option - let me off the hook so to speak. Now I still haven't let myself off the hook but I do know that I have never seen a more selfless act in all of my life here on earth and to walk around feeling sorry for myself would only deminish what he did for me.

Be well everyone, be well.
David