Feel free to ignore this. I write this here because I have no other outlet that a boss or a parent wouldn't see and I fear the type of attention this would bring, positive or negative. This feels like it's going to become one of the most insane, hypochondriacal things I've ever written, but if I don't get it out while I can put thoughts into words, eventually my symptoms will exacerbate and I will be at a total loss for words and won't remember this moment. I don't know why, but this feels like something that should be made semi-public. Maybe someone out there totally gets my insanity and I don't have to go through this alone.

To my recollection, this has been persisting for the past 3, maybe 4 years. I fall into a heavy sleep and wake up feeling this intense pressure forcing my ribcage up and I have to consciously stop myself from breathing or it seems like I'll burst an organ. Just now, I woke up from a nap feeling like I had no control over my central nervous system, over these reflexes (which yeah, I know, we really don't, but I thought they were there to protect me), and if I didn't somehow take control, my ribcage would burst.

I feel like I should take this to a doctor, but I have no idea which doctor would take something like this seriously and which doctor would chalk it up to hypochondria and there's a part of me that's afraid to persist. There's also the side of me that loves Oliver Sacks books, House, Mystery Diagnosis on the Discovery Channel and all of these people who overcome this fear so that we should learn more.

Please don't judge me for what I am about to say. I am the most hypocritical budding special ed teacher on earth. If I were to unexpectedly conceive a child that would be born with severe physical or mental disabilities, the pro-lifer I seem to be on the surface would rather abort this child than see him or her passed between teachers and specialists only to never be able to survive without around-the-clock care. If I were to persist and find out what the hell is wrong with me only to learn that I'm severely disabled or abnormal in any way, I feel like if there's no lasting cure for whatever this is, I feel like I'm of absolutely no use to my future students whatsoever.

Either I become false inspiration as a fellow person with abnormalities somewhere along my spinal nervous system. "Hey boys and girls, your own teacher was just like you and look how great she turned out! She takes care of herself and isn't pushing shopping carts at Wal-Mart!" As I said before, I fear any attention this will bring, positive or negative. Everybody will be watching me and if I don't say or do just the right thing, that's the impression I have left for good.

If there's no lasting cure, I'm either false inspiration or I'm going to go about doing what I planned to do and no one will ever know until conditions get so much worse and the role model will become helpless and dependent herself.

As much as I would like to believe otherwise, there is very little room for abnormalities in this world and that scares me so, so much.