I wake up with my chest tight before the alarm even goes off. The job itself is fine once I'm there. It's the 90 minutes before that are wrecking me.
Peer support, not treatment. Everything here comes from people describing what they personally lived through. Nobody is a verified therapist, doctor or mental-health professional. If you need clinical care, please also speak to a professional — see safety resources.
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Three years of waking at 5am with my chest already tight, before a job I genuinely liked.
Treating it as a body problem first. Cold water on the wrists, a walk before screens, and eating something before caffeine. Anxiety on an empty stomach with coffee is a different animal.
Move one thing you dread to the first 20 minutes of the day. The anticipation was always worse than the task.
Morning dread was information for me — not that I was broken, but that I had no buffer anywhere in my week.
Answers grounded in personal experience help most. Use a prompt to start, or write freely.
Please share your own experience rather than clinical advice, and never present yourself as a medical professional.
