Patience is a virtue...

The side effects of my meds are taking a little longer to go away than I anticipated, I'm still pretty dizzy from them especially in the morning hours. But I'm learning patience with myself, and learning not to panic about what might be happening to my body. Reading the labels on the medications helps to know that these are normal side effects and should pass after a couple more days. I'm also learning to be patient with myself in my recovery from codependency and other issues like that, and that's real important.

Diminishing depression

This new medication I'm on is really helping my depression, and even bringing my anxiety down a few notches! Hooray! Now that my depression is down a bit I can start to focus a little more on diet and exercise, at least once my coordination improves (a side effect of the meds that I'll get used to in a day or two), I know from experience that exercise definitely helps alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It's hard to believe that I actually want to do physical activities now, that's a real milestone for me, I hope it lasts! :-)

Side effects...

I haven't been posting much the past couple days because I've been having some strange side effects with my new medications, they're making it difficult to concentrate much or do any reading, staring at the computer screen is a little difficult. Hopefully in a day or two I'll be used to the new medications and can post some more experiences, I've got a lot more to write about as soon as things settle down inside of me a little bit.

Journaling...

I've been spending a lot of time journaling lately. Let me say that it really helps to get my thoughts out on the computer screen (I'm talking of both my on-line and off-line journals). Really helps me deal with the strong emotions I've been encountering lately, and then blogging my successes no matter how minor or small to this website is very therapeutic.

Added links page...

I added a page to the links on the left which has links to sites I find useful to me in my recovery. Later on sometime I'll add descriptions to the links about why I chose to include them.

Added my background story....

I added a page to the links on the left called a history of my disorder, which briefly describes my dysfunctional behavior history and how I came to start my recovery.

Shower

This may sound funny posting about taking a shower, but that is a real event for me now. My anxiety gives me lots of problems taking care of my hygiene, and I am often terrified of taking showers. Yesterday I took a nice, long shower, took my time and practiced a little of something a friend of mine calls "self love" - that is, taking care of hygiene is the most basic component of self love.
It wasn't easy for me, my anxiety was peaking the whole time, around level 5, but I fought it, and it's worth it. I can't do it all the time, but when I can I approach it by using positive self-dialog, saying things to myself like "It's OK to love myself".

Pushing through...

My anxiety level is about level 5 right now, I'm fighting it and trying to get some things done. I haven't gotten much sleep and I haven't been eating well and that wasn't helping anything so this morning I made sure to have breakfast and then I got right to work filing my taxes and other miscellaneous stuff, trying to keep on a roll. With anxiety, often the hardest part is getting started, but staying on a roll is almost as hard. When I try to stay on a roll I try my hardest to keep my thoughts focused on the work at hand and not be distracted back into my obsessive anxiety.

Updated Anxiety guide with What's it Like? section....

I just spent a lot of time updating the anxiety guide to make it easier to read and added the "What's it Like?" section to the end of it. Go check it out.

Breakthrough added...

I just added a Breakthrough document to the site. This is a page where I talk about my breakthrough regarding my serious abandonment issue. You can access it via the link on the left hand side of the page under "Breakthroughs"

Suicidal Tendencies.....

Last night I had some severe emotional distress - the kind that comes when I do a lot of introspection. I broke through another wall inside of me, and breaking through walls is something I've been doing a lot of lately. When I have a breakthrough, the emotions I uncover are very strong. This breakthrough was to a dark side of me that I'm not prepared to discuss in public, and that ended in my thinking about suicide. I wasn't serious about actually doing it, but those who have contemplated it will know how deep of a depression it can be. I got through it by reading a lot of anti-suicide websites, taking my medication, smoking a lot, and finally, writing a stream-of-consciousness paper. For those of you who don't know what it is, it can be good therapy, especially if you are currently in therapy so that you can go over it later with your therapist. It can be quite revealing, but more importantly is it gives you a medium to express whatever's on your mind, let it all out, no matter how dark or depressing it is. No one has to read it, no one even needs to be around. Basically, you just get a piece of paper and write, or sit at the computer and type, or get a tape recorder and just talk. You just let your mind go, don't worry about forming complete sentences or paragraphs or punctuation or anything like that. Just get those thoughts out. I did that, and it helped me, both in the immediate sense of alleviating the suicidal musings but it also helped me uncover some things I have repressed and never told anyone about. I am now going to get the next available appointment with my therapist so I can discuss these things with him.

What's it like?

I'm working on some additions to the Guide to Anxiety Levels called "What's it like?" to help explain what it's like on the inside for me at each level. Trying to explain it in a way everyone can understand isn't easy, but that's what I'm trying to do. My anxiety level is down to 3 now so I can focus on my work more easily.

Anxiety, anxiety, go away, come back again some other day....

My anxiety level peaked at 7 for about 6 hours today, and now it's down to level 6. I got it down by using one of my old defense mechanisms, which is distracting myself by daydreaming. It's not easy to do at first with all that anxiety, and the obsessive intruding thought patterns that I have, but with a lot of coaxing it can be done. Taking a double-dose of Lorazepam helps as well :) I've found daydreaming to be an effective method of dropping anxiety levels down from 1-2 levels. I prefer to think of day-dreaming as a "Band-Aid" type remedy, it's quick fix for a short term problem, but doesn't cure anything or get you to the cause of your problems. For more improvement, I need a combination of drugs (not the illegal kind) and therapy.

My psychiatrist is working with me to find the right drug or combinations of drugs that will help stabilize the chemicals in my brain. The hope is, that by re-balancing the chemicals in my brain, the majority of the anxiety will be gone as well as most of the obsessive thought patterns; and further, that with the chemicals balanced, I'll be able to actually feel good, or as psychologists call it, manic, in a healthy way.

Simultaneously, my therapist is working with me to uncover the underlying issues of my dysfunctional behaviors and low self-esteem, which, theoretically, can not be solved by medicine alone. Due to financial burdens, I can only see my therapist once every two weeks, which is not nearly enough to be productive, so thankfully he has agreed to allow me to engage in e-mail correspondence with him, which is a big help.

Lastly, and again simultaneously, I do some of my own therapy on myself in a variety of ways. For example, I am learning that I can express both my creativity and my "anxiety about my anxiety" through this web site. Another way is by going through the great workbook I introduced in my last post. The workbook is tough, and for serious people. I first read the book "Facing Codependence", and then went through the workbook. I'm still on the first chapter, where I am constructing a history of abusive (defined as less than nurturing) events at the hands of caretakers while I was in the ages from birth to 18. This involves a lot of introspection. I was very surprised to find that I have over 60 independent events, and I believe there are many more that I still have repressed. I then put this history into a table, and examine my emotions at the time of the event, and how I feel about that event now. This is a first step towards getting at what the author calls the "shame core" and finding out how I react to certain situations and how this led or leads to my codependent behaviors.

Book Recommendations....

Periodically I'll recommend books on this site. The current book I'm using is a workbook for codependency that I highly recommend. You'll find links to these books in the lower-left corner of the site.
Book Description
In her pioneering Facing Codependence, Pia Mellody traced the origins of codependence back to childhood and a wide range of emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and sexual abuses. Now in this innovative new workbook, she presents a step-by-step journal-keeping method for moving toward recovery from codependence. Based on such concepts as the "precious child" and the five core symptoms of codependence, along with the Twelve-Step process of recovery used by Codependents Anonymous, Breaking Free provides strategies and insights for attacking the fundamental problem in codependence--the lack of dependence on self.
In a three-part approach to recovery, Mellody first shows recovering codependents how to move beyond denial of their childhood history of abuse. She then offers techniques to identify concrete ways in which the symptoms of codependence operate in their lives. Finally, Mellody guides users through the process of identifying and recording specific instances of improvement in their lives as an aid to greater self-awareness and further recovery.
About the Author:
Pia Mellody, a nationally recognized authority on codependence, is a consultant at The Meadows, a treatment center for addictions in Wickenburg, Arizona.

Troubles with new guide....

I'm having some troubles with the new anxiety guide page, which I am trying to sort out now, hopefully the issues will be resolved today.

Just added the Anxiety Guide

I just added the Anxiety Guide table to this site, you can use the link below or the link in the left colum below the archives. This guide is for family members and caregivers to better understand my anxiety levels and how best to help me at each level.
anxietyguide.html

Anxiety level at 3.....

My anxiety level is at 3 right now, that will mean more when I get my guide to anxiety levels up on this site later on, I'll have to figure out how to convert spreadsheets to HTML first though. I'm trying to keep my anxiety from getting worse by working on this site and doing something productive with my "Anxiety Energy"

Just Upgraded

I just upgraded to the pro and ad-free hosting versions for this site, you'll see many improvements and such over the coming weeks, such as:

• Links page
  
• About page
  
• FAQ page
  
• My levels of Anxiety guide table
  
• Some documents I have written about breakthroughs I have made
  

Thoughts about the site....

I'm thinking that I should keep most of my thoughts in my off-line journal, and just post my more positive experiences with my anxiety, like success stories, or how I was able to deal with the daily trials, that sort of thing. I'm concerned about getting too personal on a public forum such as this, and I'm afraid that if I write too much about family members or friends they might become offended, in other words I'd be creating a boundary issue, and for us codependents we never learned proper internal boundaries so it's hard for us to be aware of other people's boundaries.

Trip to the psychiatrist...

My psychiatrist today adjusted my meds a bit and told me to see him again in three weeks. The adjustments were small, so I'm not expecting an improvement in that amount of time. I told him of my concerns about side effects and that I feel I'm getting worse. My cousin asked him if he thought I could qualify for state disablity and he said probably and that he would sign for it if we brought in the paperwork. After we got out of his office and went to the counter to pay, I realized I had forgotten to ask the Dr for more prescriptions and free samples, and had to go through lengthy explanations with the staff befind the counter to get this done, which immediatley caused some shame-based anxiety to develop inside of me. I started having thoughts that these people thought I was just trying to sponge some free meds off of them and that I was inconveniencing them by not coming back the next day to get my prescriptions, but hey I can't drive due to my disability! Then we had to wait in the lobby while they took care of getting the meds, and the lobby was too scary for me so I had to go outside in the courtyard and have a cigarette.

On the way home, I was fretting about money, how to pay for meds if they stop giving me free samples, my cousin wants me on this welfare disability thing and I felt some shame about that. I had to keep telling myself that things will work out, to focus on the here and now and not on what might or might not happen in the weeks or months ahead. Thinking that helped a little bit.

Insight into my OCD

I just had a minor insight regarding the obsessive-compulsive component of my anxiety disorder. I've been emailing my therapist about OCD, I wasn't convinced that I have real OCD because I don't engage in any rituals. At least not physical ones, like washing hands ten times in a row or anything like that. But he encouraged me to take a look at the inner rituals, that is, am I doing any mental gymnasitcs because that can be a symptom.

I think I found it.

I talk to people in my head. I'm always trying to explain things to people in my head. Sometimes it gets so bad I don't know if I've had a real conversation with them or not, because I'm always talking to people in my head. This has caused problems for me in the past, because I'll think I've told somebody something important when in reality I haven't.

I just got done having a, let's call it a "virtual" conversation in my head, trying to explain how disabling my disorder is to people, who don't really understand the severity of my dysfunction, and trying to get my cousin and my therapist to intervene and explain things to people so somebody doesn't try and tell me things like "Just take a shower so you don't smell, you have to do it". Or "Finances are really tough we can't support you so you need to get a job." Or "Just snap out of it."

Anxiety Concerns...

I'm really concerned about my anxiety today. I feel that I'm getting progressively worse. It's almost impossible for me to do daily tasks like take a shower or do the dishes or harder things like paying bills. For example I can't even file my taxes, even though they are done and just need to be printed out and sent in. I'm becoming progressively more confined to my room, my pacing is getting worse. And I talked to my dad today and I think that even after all the explaining I've done he doesn't understand how disabling this disorder is. I can't even drive anymore. This evening I'm going to see my psychiatrist and I'm having my cousin go with me and drive me there, hopefully he can make positive changes to my medications.

Welcome!