Hard Anxiety, Gentle Cure

Link: Gentle & caring:
"Sometimes we just wish that all the disturbing thoughts will go away and die, but yet we still get agitated because they don’t seem to want to go away. The more we push them away, the more they come back. This sort of pushing and having an idea of a world without disturbing thoughts is a kind of attachment.
And so we solve this problem by acting like this: At the moment of the birth of each thought, bring your mind back to the soft, gentle chant: 'May I be well and happy. May my mind be calm and wise. May all beings be well and happy.' "

I did a search for hard anxiety on Google and found the above page, I think it's a good one-pager to read.

Last night I did go out for an hour and just browsed around a one of the major electronic stores, and that did seem to do the trick for getting rid of most of my anxiety, came home and ate dinner, took care of a couple around the house things, then got distracted watching TV and playing my favorite video game, then finally went to bed and got some decent sleep.

The anxiety of not knowing what to do

It's Sunday, and I don't know what to do. My sleeping patterns are, as usual, screwed up, and I'm groggy right now. I've been feeling anxiety all day, because I'm not sure what to do. Home alone, nothing on my to-do list, bored, with this feeling that I'm supposed to be doing something, maybe important, but not knowing what it is. And everything I think of to do to distract myself sounds boring, so then I go back and lie in bed.

I think I'll head to one of the big electronic stores or something and just browse around, for something to do; I kinda feel like I need to be around a crowd of people. Usually I avoid that kind of thing, but being at home in my "comfort zone" I'm feeling anxious, so I'll go do something that would otherwise make me anxious and see if that makes me feel any better.

I slept right through the time I was supposed to take my morning Xanax, so that means I skipped a dose, not really sure if that has anything to do with that, since that was eleven hours ago and I've taken my regular doses since then.

Anxiety T-Shirts

I was thinking about making some T-Shirts or stickers or whatever for us people with bad anxiety, with a humorous twist. I don't know.. maybe something list a twist on the "No Fear" bumper stickers and T-Shirts that were popular.

Send me an email by clicking on my name below if you have any ideas or thoughts on this, I could sell the shirts from this website real easy without any hassle for me, and I don't think they'd be too outrageously expensive, I know we're all poor so I'd set it up where I'm only making a few cents on the t-shirts or stickers or whatever.

Happy holidays

Well, happy holidays everyone. It's been stressful and will be for a few more days, it'll be tough for a day or two as I have to try and keep my aunt away from the place for a while so we can set up her surprise Christmas present. What really makes it tough is that since I still have problems sleeping normally, it makes it much harder to not be groggy, lack of proper sleep makes my anxiety more pronounced and thus harder to do things.

Thanks to everyone for the nice gifts I received today.

Hectic week

Man, this week is hectic. My cousin's in San Diego recovering from surgery, I'm having a lot of anxiety as I have to do a lot of running around taking my aunt to and from work and to my cousin's place to take care of her place and what not, with my anxiety it's getting harder for me to do much running around of errands even if they are close to home.

I've been trying to continue to relax and watch some movies to chill out in between times. My inability to keep a regular sleeping pattern is still causing problems, I usually have to get up to take my aunt to work just at the same time I'm crawling into bed exhausted, which makes it even harder to drive since I can hardly keep my eyes open.

People have been telling me more often that my pupils seem dilated, looking as if I'm stoned or something, probably from the meds I'm on, but when I look in the mirror and pass lights in front of me my pupils seem just fine to me... so, whatever, not sure what significance to attach to that. I'm up to 100mg a day of Lamictal, haven't really noticed anything different other than that my apetite seems to be returning to almost normal.

So, things have been hectic, worrying about my cousin and stuff, we weren't sure what hospital she was at and we weren't able to reach her for a few days so we were worried that there might be problems but it looks like everything's O.K., she'll just have to stay there for a week or so for follow up testing.

But, on the good side, it looks like the flu or whatever I had is gone, I got over it in two days, I think drinking a ton of that pink grapefruit juice did the trick.

It looks like there are still some problems with my emails, some are getting through and others are not, I'm still trying to work things out with my friend who runs my email service. So, if you email me and don't get a reply or you get an error message, just try again in a few days and hopefully we'll get it all straightened out.

Ugh, now I'm catching a flu or something

Ugh, I had a good night last night hanging out with a new friend, and then I wasn't able to sleep until almost noon, and I began to get sick, aching all over... I think I'm catching what my aunt has been sick with.

I'll have the place to myself for a few days, which will be kind of nice as my aunt has to go off on a trip. I rented a bunch of movies and got a book from the library for something to do as I lie aching in bed. :( I'll be drinking a bunch of pink grapefruit juice, that usually works for me to get rid of colds and stuff, hopefully it'll work this time.

Meanwhile, just to let all of you know who have been emailing me, I've been having troubles with my email provider, it might take me a few more days to get everything sorted out, so please be patient :)

It's getting harder to come up with titles for my posts LOL

Anyway, the group session wasn't much, just our first session and a little short, basically there are three of us plus my therapist, and we basically just introduced ourselves, we're going to try and make the sessions longer and meet once every three weeks and see how things go.

Last night I went again to Border's book store, where they have an open-mic night in their little cafe' once a month. This time I met a couple women and struck up a conversation with them, and something one of them mentioned reminded me of one of my adventures in Germany, so I decided to add my name to the list and got up and told the story of when I was hiking in the Alps and almost fell off the mountain. Earlier, I was thinking about leaving after the first or second person used the mic, my anxiety was pretty bad, but then these women started talking with me so I decided to stay and enjoy it, we stayed for about an hour after the open-mic thing was done, talking. That was really nice, I so rarely get to meet people my age and actually talk to them, rather than just a real short conversation that doesn't go anywhere. We exchanged email addresses and stuff, so maybe I'll start finding some friends to hang out with. I still don't know my way around here very well yet, it would be nice to have some people show me where the fun things to do are and all that. Of, course, assuming I can get over my anxiety long enough to actually go out and have fun, which isn't very often.

My memory still seems to be getting worse, even after asking the women their names a few times, I still can't remember them... I've always had trouble remembering people's names, even after them repeatedly telling me, and I feel really bad about that. I've always been pretty oblivious to a lot of things, and my poor memory seems to keep getting worse. It's possible that the medications I've been on contribute to a worsening of memory. It's like as soon as someone says something, I almost immediately forget it, if during that time my anxiety is a little high.

Stuff

One of the psychologists at my clinic, the one who ran the support group I used to attend, gave me a take-home evaluated/scoring form for attention deficit disorder, mostly out of curiosity on his part. He talked to me briefly about some kind of idea of using some kind of "primal therapy", at least I think that's what he called it... kind of think of me sitting in a room with the psychologist, and he pushes all my buttons until he can get me into an emotional breakdown where I release a lot of the pent-up emotions... just learn to let go of these emotions and get them out, and then after that start applying the cognitive strategies I've already learned to put the let-out emotions back into balance. In other words, he thinks we might be doing things backwards, that is, some of my otherwise healthy "coping strategies" may be making things worse for me, and will continue to do so until we can get to the root causes of my problems.

I also talked some more at length both with him and my regular therapist about the possibility of Parkinson's disease being a possibility for me. We skimmed through the typical symptoms, such as listed in the DSM-IV, and from that it sounds like it could be a possibility. Problem one is that Parkinson's is very hard to officially diagnose even with brain scans. It's also possible that the meds I've been taken cause some of these symptoms, although as I look back, I can say that most of these symptoms pre-date the taking of medication.

Once my state-run HMO insurance plan gets all settled, I'll start taking some more "check the box" type tests, written tests, that the psychologist can use to get yet another perspective into my problems.

My therapist, psychologist, and even my psychiatrist, are beginning to think that all of the cognitive-behavioral therapy and "talk" therapy won't be able to help me... or more accurately, it won't be able to get me closer to a cure. The idea is that there is something else deeper that needs to be resolved first, whether it's a neurological problem, or releasing decades of pent-up emotions, or both, we're not sure yet and that is why I'll start taking both written tests and brain scans and such.

All of these cognitive-behavioral techniques and talk therapy and things like self-esteem boosting and compassionate self-dialog and many other things are "good things" and really help a lot of people with anxiety disorders, I have seen many sufferers of anxiety related disorders improve dramatically with this type of help, so I don't want to discourage anyone from giving them a shot.

In the short term, I will continue to see my regular therapist every two weeks, and also attend a small group session mediated by him once a month.

Tomorrow is my first session with this new group, and I'll turn in this ADD test then.

I have a feeling this is going to continue to be a very, very long ride, it seems from my point of view that there is not one or even just a few prominent causes, but a complex mishmash of problems, each by itself only slightly abnormal, that together as a whole have put me where I'm at. Trying to fish out each of these little things and finding a way to fix them without "upsetting the cart" will take a long time, but I'll stick it out as long as I can.

I made the call to cash out the measly sum I had in my retirement account to further help me in the short term with medical costs, especially since many of my family members are in a financial or medical crisis.

Other than all that, daily life is still the same struggle I have been going through for some time now... simple tasks like doing the dishes or running short errands are very difficult, I often tremble and break dishes and things like that, my mind wanders a lot, sleep is still troublesome for me, and I spend most of my days lethargic and groggy, avoiding most things but also trying to push myself a little bit to keep me from becoming too sedentary... I am and have been very sedentary for a long time.

One of the chickens has hatched :)

Well, this weekend I got a spiffy letter from the Congressman I talked to about my Social Security back-pay, and the letter said I'd have the money directly in my checking account in ten days, then today I look at my account and the money is already there! Woohoo! That will definitely make things easier for the short-term, as I try to transition to this MediCAL insurance/HMO thing.

I'm still having an even harder time going out now, Sunday I went to my cousins for the afternoon and evening, watched a couple good movies and had a great meal and all that, but I started to feel the same way I did during thanksgiving, like the walls were closing in and my emotions all felt strange.

I'm also once again casually looking into the facts behind Parkinson's disease. I talked to one of my friends who has Parkinson's, he's quite intelligent on the subject, and he was able to tell me quite a bit and give me some information to look up. Parkinson's is just one idea we have, one theory, to explain why all the meds and therapy, all the years of hard work to get over the anxiety and panic attacks and depression, have ended up with me being worse rather than better.

I also finally got my hands on the report of the sleep study I had, it was interesting to find out I had no Delta sleep at all, I transitioned between sleep stages like 54 times, and my REM sleep was short... which I thought strange since I seem to dream for very long and very vividly; I also kick my legs, grind my teeth, and snore a lot. Not getting any delta sleep would help explain why I have so much daytime fatigue.

Still having trouble keeping track of the days, hope I don't completely forget about sending out the holiday cards, I'm sure Christmas will sneak right up on me and I'll be stuck saying "oops".

I think I'll end this post now, my coordination is a little off and I keep having to go back and fix my typos.

Is it really an anxiety disorder? More like a complex mish-mash

Hmm, I don't think I'll be able to go into a whole lot of detail here, just because it would turn into a book if I did... but in my years of therapy and looking at my problems from all kinds of different points of view, and the fact that all of the excellent work I've been doing as far as using coping skills and self-esteem boosting things and other cognitive and behavioral techniques, while my ability to function normally continues to gradually decrease, we're thinking there's a lot more to this picture, as my therapist put it, "You're an enigma".

It's not just fear that is overwhelming me, or depression, or anger, it's also the other emotions, of hope, excitement, etc... they all, when I experience them, are over-powering. My therapist and I think it has a lot to do with my hippocampus and amygdala not regulating my emotions properly, my psychiatrist is holding off on making a judgment on that until we have some kind of scans to back up such a theory. It's amazing I've made it this far without actually attempting suicide or turning to street drugs or alcohol, I've built up such a complex mish-mash of defense mechanisms to kind of keep myself in check, but sometimes those defense mechanisms, at times, do more harm then good.

I've also been looking into some studies that show how it is possible, due to genetics, that there are people like me who are overly resistant to anti-depressants due to a gene mutation that changes the number of receptors on neurons and things like that.

For me, this is kind of interesting to research about, but it also throws me into a deep depression, feeling hopeless, feeling shame and guilt, because I look forward and see how long it is going to take before I can expect any improvement, from my research it looks like the best we can hope for, for the foreseeable future, is to simply slow down the rate of degeneration, so I have to distract myself and try to just focus on the moment.

Giving the gift of time - How to help someone with an anxiety disorder

Two good links, one for those people helping who are trying to help a person with an anxiety disorder, and one for the people who have an anxiety disorder help those who are trying to help them.
Giving the gift of time - How to help someone with an anxiety disorder
>Helping the people who are helping you when you have an anxiety disorder

Insert title for post here ;-)

Well, I see my therapist today, I'm going to talk to him about how I react when I'm away from home on trips, like with thanksgiving. I'm wondering if I should bother planning any trips in the future for a while, like I was planning on spending a week or so with friends and family in Michigan in January, but knowing how I react on trips I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not, and besides, finances are tough, other people in my family are having medical problems as well, so everyone's kind of stretched thin right now and having to deal with a lot.

Sunday I was pretty nervous during the day, I was home alone, and my family was returning home that evening, and for some reason I was real nervous about it, and then I just put all my nervous energy into cleaning the house and organizing a closet and stuff like that, and it made me feel a lot better, like I got something accomplished. Brings back memories of my early teenage years, I used to always get nervous when my parents were about to come home from work or whatever, worrying about whether I had been bad or good in their eyes, hoping for them to come home happy, while at the same time feeling nervous because then I wouldn't be alone... it's all kind of complicated and sometimes contradictory, has a lot to do with my anxiety and my codependence.

I'm pretty tired as I'm writing this, I should be in bed right now.

I'm glad I was able to set my boundaries during Thanksgiving in a healthy way, I'm proud that I handled it better than some of my past trips.

Tomorrow I also double the dosage of my Lamictal, hopefully within a couple weeks I'll be able to notice that it's helping, but after being on so many other meds so far, I'm not expecting much. My main goal right now is to try and squeeze by financially until I can get that money that Social Security owes me, money keeps getting tighter, especially with the holidays and all, and the more I think about it, it seems like the state insurance I have now will actually increase how much I have to spend each month, so until I get the money that social security has locked up for me, I'm not even bothering to tell my clinic that I have insurance so I can keep going with the payment plan I have currently as a cash patient. I wish I could afford to get back on my vitamins and nutritional supplements and all that, but I guess I have to be thankful for what I have. My aunt is really sick right now, I hope I don't catch what she has, I'll have to make sure I drink some orange juice or something to help boost my immune system.

I'm also a little nervous about my website here, I feel like I'm not contributing as much as I had hoped to, as usual I set my expectations of myself too high... after all I guess this site is really just a place for me to do a monologue of what I'm going through, something I can look back at later and see where I've been and things like that.

Well, I'm going to go wrap myself up in bed with a good science fiction novel... although I have a big urge to go eat a piece of left-over cheesecake first LOL.