Tag: anxiety

Anxious Tuesday

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, chronic physical pain, depression

I have had a hard time trying to write today. I only wrote a half page at Starbucks and then my brain conked out. I got antsy which didn’t help matters. I don’t know why my anxiety has been up lately. I think I have too much on my mind. Plus, not having any funds to get things is another stressor. I should be getting some funds soon from the Otterbox that I sold but I don’t know when that will happen. They had some problem with my account so I had to fix it and it won’t be transferred until the 20th. I hate the waiting game.

I had therapy. We talked about my anxieties surrounding just about everything. She wanted to know how my appt with my psychiatrist went and I told her. She asked if I brought up TMS and I said I didn’t. I just plain forgot. I don’t know if I want to go through TMS anyways. I heard their protocol is pretty strict but I have bipolar disorder not major depression so I might not even be a candidate for it. I know I am mostly depressed more than I am manic but still, one hypomania episode gives you the bipolar diagnosis. I don’t have many in my life. Three that I know of, one that was drug induced and the other two were far and in between but it caused significant downs that I really don’t want to go through again.

We also talked about my former therapist and how nervous I am about sending her my book. I am afraid of rejection so we talked about that. It’s an unsubstantiated fear. I know, mentally, that she won’t reject the book, but emotionally is another story. I don’t know if she will contact me once she gets my book. I hope that she does, but she is under no obligation to do so. After my mocha, I mailed out the book, swallowing my anxiety. I even wanted to go back to the post office and have them cancel it after I walked away but I didn’t. God, this is so stupid. I wish I never came across her address and then had the “bright” idea to send her my book. My therapist keeps telling me it will be okay and that she will enjoy the book and know that I am still alive. It’s been almost 20 years since I last had contact with her. I just worry that the book will come back as return to sender. I will be crushed if that happens.

We also talked about this book that I am reading about shame and perfectionism. She thought it was about trauma work and I told her it was anything but, much to her disappointment. The book has got me thinking in terms of DBT stuff and putting things together and such. Who knew that I would remember DBT stuff when I least expected it. The author of the book talks kind of rag time and the exercise she gave wasn’t too clear in terms of understanding in plain language, or in language that is relevant to what she is asking.

My mood has been okay all day, despite being anxious. I think it’s because I woke up at 0530 in pain. That always puts my mood in a damper because I don’t know how the rest of the day is going to shape up. Right now the throbbing has returned, which could turn into pain. I took a pain pill when I came home and might take another in a little bit. Pain always stresses me out because I can’t do anything I want to do. I was able to go to Starbucks but tomorrow I think I am just going to make my Brazil coffee at home and not go out. I don’t know what is making me so nervous. It could be pain or it could just be that I am worrying over nothing. I am also working on my second book, which my therapist was thrilled about. I have 43 pages done so far. I really want to get it to at least 200. But I got to be in a writing mode and lately, that hasn’t happened, which is nerve racking. I just can’t get settled or think I just can’t write unless it is at a certain time. The truth is, I can write at anytime I want. I have no one telling me this, just me, though I think the stupid voices are influencing me. I am constantly being watched the past few days. I think I need to take a trilafon and just chill out. I do feel a delusion coming on, well, more disordered thinking. I saw my cousin tonight and I swear he was talking to me though his lips weren’t moving. His voice got into my head and I couldn’t shake it until I was a block or so away from the house. I was returning milk for my mother. Apparently, my sister bought the wrong one and I had to be the one to return it. I really don’t know why my thoughts get so disorganized at times. I guess it’s just part of the illness that I have. Usually medication helps me but lately it hasn’t. I might have to go up on my meds eventually. I have been on the same dose for so long. Plus, I am now taking a generic rather than the brand name. I was afraid something like this might happen.

I started writing a letter to my therapist about the book that I am reading. It originally was supposed to be just a word doc about the book. But every time I went to the blank page, my mind would blank out. I forgot instantly what I was thinking. It happens every now and then and I think that is another reason I have become so anxious. I fear losing my writing ability above all else. I hadn’t had a cathartic writing in a week and that is what I am basing my book on. But one thing I have learned, is you can’t force writing or it will be shit. So I went to pen and paper and started writing her this letter as it always frees my thinking when I write to my therapist. When I told my therapist this, she got all excited. She is such a nut. She says that if I write to her more, she might actually check her mail more often. She hasn’t received my letter about the abuse yet. She had to have received it by now as I mailed it last week. I am hoping that is going to be a topic for tomorrow.

Deeply Disturbed

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, suicide, writing

Deeply disturbed

I woke up early this morning and found that a teen in my state “encouraged” another teen to take his life. She is now being charged with manslaughter because he didn’t want to go through with it but she egged him on. I am disgusted and disturbed by this. What is more disturbing is that the story is trending! That is what brought it to my attention. In a town I never heard of, this happened. And to think that someone had to die to make the news. It is very sad. And what really pisses me off is that when there are suicide prevention efforts being rolled out, they don’t trend at all. Like Facebook, for example. They just implemented a new way to find out about a person’s status and get them help, if need be. I don’t know how it works, as I have not seen it. I am sure it must be done through the reporting feature on the status. Too bad Twitter doesn’t have this feature. I also argued on Twitter to use the hashtag suicide when giving out hotline numbers and such because you never know who will see them. Often times, people will retweet a number, but not the hashtag, and I feel it gets lost in the system so to speak. I once trolled the hashtag and found that not one person was helping these people who were desperately conveying their suicidal thoughts. I tried to help one that looked very dire but got no response back. And this was within minutes of posting the tweet. Sometimes, people won’t respond to strangers and I get that but putting a hashtag and then saying you are going to do something to harm yourself is just playing with fire. I wish Twitter some day has the reporting system.

Then I get word that the Duck Dynasty star get an award for his anti-gay remarks he made. WTF is this world coming to?? That to me is the most disgusting award you can ever have. Yes, the guy has a right to his opinion about gays. I will give him that, but to receive an award?? Come on! It just boggles my fricken mind. I really can’t wrap my head around this one.

I started working on a new short story today. I must have written three sentences before my mind went blank. But I started and that is the important thing. Tomorrow I am going to try and go to Starbucks to finish it. I hope I can get it to at least three pages. I am handwriting it so I really need six pages. It will be a bitch to type up but maybe I can use Dragon so I don’t have to type. I feel bad that I bought this fricken software and have not used it much since I first got it. It is kind of difficult to use because it doesn’t give you a book guide, you have to search on the computer what you need to tell the program to do. And sometimes, especially when you want to correct something, like “delete this word”, it will type it rather than delete it! It can be frustrating to say the least. That is why I don’t use it often. They say it gets better with use, but when I get frustrated, my accent comes out and the words with “r”s get fucked up. There are no “R”s in Boston as I like to say.

My damn father called, twice today. The first time was to see if I was coming over. I knew my other sister was coming over so I said no. The second was to tell me he was feeling dizzy. I grew concerned because he has so many health issues. Then I found out he took a pain pill and that was the cause of the dizziness. Damn fool. If he told me that, I would have just told him to lie back down until it left him. Sometimes I get dizzy with my pain meds and I know the only thing to do is to lie down. Now tomorrow I have to make an appointment with his doctor because of the reason he took his pain medication. I am not happy right now. I got really pissed off because I was having fun in a chat room when he called. After the phone call, I couldn’t calm down so I left the chat. My fun was gone in an instant. The first time all week I got to socialize with people who understand what I go through and it was crushed.

I never made it to Walgreens to pick up my prescription today. I really wanted to get Reese’s dark peanut butter cups. I must not have really wanted them that bad because I didn’t leave the house. Actually, I had planned on it but I had an anxiety attack with chest pain this afternoon. I didn’t want to tax myself going out as I didn’t know if I was going to get that fatigue feeling again or not. I planned on staying safe before things go really bad. I hate when I have chest pain with anxiety. It was really awful. But I was breathing normally and I wasn’t having any symptoms of a heart attack. My pulse was normal, well normal as can be with anxiety. I forgot to take my BP meds this morning so I took them when I realized I forgot. I had these chest pains before and knew Ativan would take it away. If the med didn’t work, then I would be worried, which would just make my anxiety worse.

It is snowing again. We are expected to receive another 3-6 inches, a dusting really compared with what we have had. If it snows more than that, we will break the previous record of snow fall in a season. Right now the record stands at 107 inches. Currently our snow fall is 101 inches. My writing partner and I have a running joke of shipping snow to her to New Mexico. I told her I would gladly ship it to her, no cost. I don’t know if it will still be snow by the time it got to her. It might be water. There is a guy, also in my state, that is selling the stuff from his back yard at $119 (USD)/box. Guess that is one way to get rid of it. Otherwise, it might not melt till June or July!

going against orders

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression

I’m not supposed to be writing this blog because of doctor’s orders, but I just read a blog that got me thinking about writing.

The blog I just read was about anxiety. She talked about how she had an anxiety attack while doing her civic duty. It was bad enough to get her excused from being a juror. She didn’t plan on having the attack, it just came on suddenly and she realized she needed help. She also took a break from her blog for a month to get herself together. I met this woman through twitter and she is normally a funny person. She does silly things and make me laugh. I have never suffered anxiety to the degree she has. I am mostly depressed. But hearing her suffering made me feel bad for those with anxiety. I know it is terrible. I am not saying I am an expert. I only had three anxiety attacks in my lifetime, the full hyperventilation and feeling like you are going to die feelings.

I wasn’t going to do much today but I did some stuff anyways. I got my prescription for my antibiotic and then went grocery shopping. That wore me out. I came home, ate, and then took a nap. I have been sleeping on and off most of the day. My friend called me about two hours ago. He called to tell me he got my book and started reading it. I think he felt deceived in that it is not a happy book. But then, I never said that it was a happy book. The title alone says that it has to do with my suicidal career with mental illness. It doesn’t say that I am bringing up rose gardens. My book is like my blog, raw and sensitive.

I got a few more twitter followers today. I am almost up to 140. I would say that is a good number for me. I didn’t realize that you couldn’t post the same tweet on twitter. So I have had to be creative in my posting about my book. And to do so with 140 characters is a challenge.

Anxiety has morphed into terror

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, depression, mood disorders

I am thrilled to find out that a friend of mine this is in a clinical psych grad program matched to Baylor College of Medicine. That is the same place that one of the suicidologists that I follow did his internship. In fact, I am reading on of his books right now, “Myths of Suicide”. I just started it as I couldn’t really get into Andrew Solomon’s “Far From The Tree”. I am on the second chapter and still have at least another forty or so pages to go to finish it. It is a long book, more than 900 pages. I kind of am planning on reading a Civil War battles book that has been collecting dust. I need to have two books going at the same time, one on suicide/depression and a history book on the other. A friend had given me a book on madness for my birthday/Christmas but I really can’t read that right now. I think I am headed for another psychotic break as the stress I have been under has been really bad. Between my book and my father’s health issues, my therapist says I should take a vacation. I just don’t know where I would go. I can’t afford a car and I don’t have a credit card to rent one. That would be my joy, to get back behind the wheel again and just go for a long drive some place like to the casinos or something. Or, to my family, I can always go into the hospital. But the hospital isn’t fun.

I finally got the courage to email my psychiatrist about some side effects I have been experiencing with the abilify. I have been having hypersecretion of the salivary glands. I have not drooled, but I am close to it at times. I just don’t know if it will get worse. It took almost a year of being on it to get this side effect. And I don’t think my blood pressure medication would cause this. I just don’t want to worry about cavities or anything like that. I don’t think it will but you never know. I just know my mouth is constantly watering like I am hungry but I am not. Between the increase in saliva and the rubber ball/elastic feeling, I say I should probably lower the dose or something, but if I do, and I have a psychotic break, then what? I have been on almost all the new drugs out there and I don’t think changing my meds right now in time will be a good idea. Only if I am in the hospital will that be possible and I want to stay in hospital to make sure I don’t have any weird side effects. I don’t want to start the medication, be on it for three days, then get discharged. That is not good care in my opinion. I know that is the way the hospital works but I don’t want to be one of those cases. If it was an antidepressant, than sure. I know that antidepressants take longer to work than antipsychotics. I just don’t need to play with my medication when my stress levels are already through the roof. And if I do need to mess with them, I rather be in the hospital to do it. I haven’t heard back from my pdoc yet. I just hope she isn’t in email jail. Lately I have noticed that her replies are a different domain than the one I am sending out.

Today I had at least two panic attacks. The first was while waiting for my PCP. My pulse was elevated and I had to explain that it was because I just walked between the buildings before she called me. Which is true. I just signed in after walking through the buildings and had not sat for more than a few minutes when they called my name. The second attack was while I was on the bus. It was an old style bus with stairs by the entrance. Lately stairs have been giving me anxiety. I am terrified that I am going to fall, even though I have not had any indication that I will. It has been a growing paranoia for me. I guess it is because I can’t trust my good foot anymore since I have been wobbly if I turn the wrong way. Now I am having slight chest pains that I can only attribute to the anxiety that I have been feeling the past few hours, even with taking an Ativan and some wine. And I think my doc would have picked up something when he listened to my chest today if I were having a heart attack, or the beginning of one. But my increase in my pulse he passed over as pain related. No one in my family has ever had a heart attack under the age of 40 and I don’t want to break that record. So add hypochondria to my diagnosis.

I really need to discuss the anxiety issue of the stairs with my therapist. I think talking about it will help. Sad part is that I know it is a real possibility with me because I have had two falls over the holidays. One going up and one going down. Some how the anxiety has morphed into terror. I know it is irrational. As long as I am not carrying boxes while going up or down stairs, I am ok. But even when I am not, I still panic. And I have two flights of stairs to go up when I go into my house and up to my room. I just have thoughts that I am going to miss a step and fall and get hurt really bad. Though at this point, I don’t know how much of it is a wish or a fear. I just hope I never do fall. I don’t need more problems than what I have.