I really thought I was on the up-swing, but clearly I'm not. Recent news that one of my children will need a major surgery, continued pressure at work, and the return of my recurring pain has put me right about where I was before I crashed.
The oddest part for me is the crawling feeling on my skin. When I get like this my body becomes hyper-attuned. Every sound, smell, taste, and especially touch is heightened. I don't want anything touching me except maybe the flowing water of a warm shower. Walking down the hall the sound of my pant legs popping was grating.
Yesterday I did everything I could to avoid human contact. People asked me at church how I was doing and I avoided the question. How can I explain to them what I'm feeling if I can't figure out myself? My wife has started to key-into the fact that I'm not doing well, but I don't know what to tell her either. She asks me if I want to talk, and I do, but I don't know what to say or how to express myself.
I feel like I am caught in a strong current being pulled around, bounced off of things, and unable to rest. It's just a constant swirl.
I just want to hide. Burry myself in the side of a mountain, deep within its heart where there is no sound and the world cannot touch me. I want to be able to just let my mind unwrap everything on its own. To rest.
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Monday, July 15, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
Is it so bad to go mad?
One of the things I have found interesting about INTP's is the number of people who have said something along the lines of, "I seriously thought I had mental illness..." I've been there too and often, and often too often. But I have begun to wonder what it is that I am afraid of and why I don't just quit wasting time and step off the edge and into the abyss that I am so sure is there. After all, if it's not there then I can quit worrying about being insane and start worrying again about world peace, hunger, and whether or not the Rolling Stones disprove everything I have ever heard about substance abuse. If, on the other hand, the abyss really is an abyss and I really do go mad then at least I can be happy in knowing that my fears were justified and I can go about my business believing that a rock I found in the road is an alien from the Galactic Empire come to tell me that I have been selected to rule the universe from a hostel in Southeast Los Angeles.
Of course, the things that pull me back constantly are all the responsibilities and important stuff that the world tells me I should be concerned about. Not unparadoxically these are the exact same items that keep pushing me to the edge. And so back and forth I go just exactly like a madman trying to decide if the automatic door at the supermarket is out to eat him. Ergo, I am already quite mad and probably (based not completely on, but fully confirmed by the above) a raving lunatic. Strangely enough, I think the rest of the world pretty much knows this and is waiting to find out if I am the kind of lunatic who turns out to be brilliant, the weird uncle, or the guy you see on continuous live news coverage.
The last one is clearly short-term thinking and just doesn't work out for an INTP. After all, if we're going to be that kind of crazy then we're going to do it right and go into politics. Otherwise at some point a person ends up being swarmed by people in tactical gear and the social pressures of so many people screaming and yelling at us and even touching us while telling us what to do would be pretty uncomfortable. Worse, should I survive, I would have to sleep in a concrete building with a few thousand people who inherently cannot leave other people alone. So it's either that or go to inauguration balls with people of exactly the same character, but slightly better taste in clothes and fewer scruples about who they sleep with. Either way, that whole type of crazy just isn't for me.
That leaves the other two options. Now, I already have various assorted nephews and nieces who all think of me as that strange guy who's supposed to be related to them, but that they know nothing about. I suppose I could just be happy with some such small achievement and start sending them copies of my combined analysis of Tolstoy, Dr. Seuss and Nitsche for Christmas, but it doesn't seem right to leave it at that (particularly since that list of authors doesn't include anyone from the southern hemisphere). No, I have decided that if I am going to go mad then I might as well go the whole way and become brilliantly mad.
And so that's where I am at a bit past 1:00 in the morning. It's not a pretty place to be, but apparently it's where I am so who are you to judge? If you haven't gone stark bonkers yet then you're just being all theoretical which might get you published in a journal or two, but never gain you any real respect amongst we the leaders of the Galactic Empire.
So what brought all this on? Earlier tonight I was catching a documentary on Henry Ford. Actually, I caught the last third of it last night, then the first third this afternoon and the second third tonight (ah the wonders of modern television). I was struck by the fact that Ford just bit the bullet and became completely what he was. Admittedly a lot of what he was turned out to be a vindictive jerk, but that's not the part I'm talking about. I'm talking about the single-minded obsession with making one type of thing and just making it better and better. The guy was badly embarrassed in court when he seemed to think the Revolutionary War was in 1812 rather than 1776. Newspaper editors called him a joke and then went home in their Model T's to houses that would just fit into Henry's bathroom. It would seem that Henry had the better way. He picked one thing that he did well, focused it on one thing he wanted to do, and then promptly ignored all the other stuff. I suppose that if he had failed to make an inexpensive automobile and thus change the world we would have called him mad.
Then there was another snippet of a travel show where some attractive girl is wandering around Vietnam and is talking about the last emperor of that country (who's burial place is unknown because the 300 people who buried him had their heads lifted so nobody could get to the dead guy's stuff that was buried with him). This guy knew what he liked and what he liked was having 50 different meals prepared for him every day from which to choose - and by different meals every day I mean he didn't want to see the same meal twice in a year. Seems eccentric, but on the other hand I am a glutton and I'm not so sure I wouldn't have set up a similar system if given the chance.
Also tonight I saw a portion of a really bad movie with an actress who got some awards (one for apparently being simultaneously fascinated and upset by a reference to fava beans in a show that was also mentioned in one of those non-reality tv shows I happened to watch last night). In this movie she's investigating some alien phenomenon or another which causes her to be simultaneously fascinated and upset (but not enough apparently to get an award). On the screen were shown some esoteric notes filled with scribbling that looked significant, but probably was just a set designer's high school algebra notes.
Suddenly it happened, all those disjointed concepts blended together and I thought, "Well, why not just go ahead and become mad?" What I mean is, why not just do what I do even if it seems insane to everyone else and even to myself? If that means going catatonic for a few hours then so be it. If it means that I finally outfit my pickup with a camper so I can take a nap at lunchtime while blasting Tchaikovsky then why not? If it means turning my backyard into a collection of small outbuildings each resembling a shed, but each with a different purpose then I might as well start buying wood and paint. If I want to fill a couple thousand notebooks with arcane scribbling that only I understand then dammit I have every right to do so!
As INTPs we are inherently different than the majority. People simply aren't going to get us. Unfortunately, we spend huge amounts of time trying to fix that by essentially trying to fix ourselves. Well, who's to say we are the ones that need to be fixed? How do we know that we aren't the right way up?
I think in the morning I might as well go mad. I've nothing better to do...
Of course, the things that pull me back constantly are all the responsibilities and important stuff that the world tells me I should be concerned about. Not unparadoxically these are the exact same items that keep pushing me to the edge. And so back and forth I go just exactly like a madman trying to decide if the automatic door at the supermarket is out to eat him. Ergo, I am already quite mad and probably (based not completely on, but fully confirmed by the above) a raving lunatic. Strangely enough, I think the rest of the world pretty much knows this and is waiting to find out if I am the kind of lunatic who turns out to be brilliant, the weird uncle, or the guy you see on continuous live news coverage.
The last one is clearly short-term thinking and just doesn't work out for an INTP. After all, if we're going to be that kind of crazy then we're going to do it right and go into politics. Otherwise at some point a person ends up being swarmed by people in tactical gear and the social pressures of so many people screaming and yelling at us and even touching us while telling us what to do would be pretty uncomfortable. Worse, should I survive, I would have to sleep in a concrete building with a few thousand people who inherently cannot leave other people alone. So it's either that or go to inauguration balls with people of exactly the same character, but slightly better taste in clothes and fewer scruples about who they sleep with. Either way, that whole type of crazy just isn't for me.
That leaves the other two options. Now, I already have various assorted nephews and nieces who all think of me as that strange guy who's supposed to be related to them, but that they know nothing about. I suppose I could just be happy with some such small achievement and start sending them copies of my combined analysis of Tolstoy, Dr. Seuss and Nitsche for Christmas, but it doesn't seem right to leave it at that (particularly since that list of authors doesn't include anyone from the southern hemisphere). No, I have decided that if I am going to go mad then I might as well go the whole way and become brilliantly mad.
And so that's where I am at a bit past 1:00 in the morning. It's not a pretty place to be, but apparently it's where I am so who are you to judge? If you haven't gone stark bonkers yet then you're just being all theoretical which might get you published in a journal or two, but never gain you any real respect amongst we the leaders of the Galactic Empire.
So what brought all this on? Earlier tonight I was catching a documentary on Henry Ford. Actually, I caught the last third of it last night, then the first third this afternoon and the second third tonight (ah the wonders of modern television). I was struck by the fact that Ford just bit the bullet and became completely what he was. Admittedly a lot of what he was turned out to be a vindictive jerk, but that's not the part I'm talking about. I'm talking about the single-minded obsession with making one type of thing and just making it better and better. The guy was badly embarrassed in court when he seemed to think the Revolutionary War was in 1812 rather than 1776. Newspaper editors called him a joke and then went home in their Model T's to houses that would just fit into Henry's bathroom. It would seem that Henry had the better way. He picked one thing that he did well, focused it on one thing he wanted to do, and then promptly ignored all the other stuff. I suppose that if he had failed to make an inexpensive automobile and thus change the world we would have called him mad.
Then there was another snippet of a travel show where some attractive girl is wandering around Vietnam and is talking about the last emperor of that country (who's burial place is unknown because the 300 people who buried him had their heads lifted so nobody could get to the dead guy's stuff that was buried with him). This guy knew what he liked and what he liked was having 50 different meals prepared for him every day from which to choose - and by different meals every day I mean he didn't want to see the same meal twice in a year. Seems eccentric, but on the other hand I am a glutton and I'm not so sure I wouldn't have set up a similar system if given the chance.
Also tonight I saw a portion of a really bad movie with an actress who got some awards (one for apparently being simultaneously fascinated and upset by a reference to fava beans in a show that was also mentioned in one of those non-reality tv shows I happened to watch last night). In this movie she's investigating some alien phenomenon or another which causes her to be simultaneously fascinated and upset (but not enough apparently to get an award). On the screen were shown some esoteric notes filled with scribbling that looked significant, but probably was just a set designer's high school algebra notes.
Suddenly it happened, all those disjointed concepts blended together and I thought, "Well, why not just go ahead and become mad?" What I mean is, why not just do what I do even if it seems insane to everyone else and even to myself? If that means going catatonic for a few hours then so be it. If it means that I finally outfit my pickup with a camper so I can take a nap at lunchtime while blasting Tchaikovsky then why not? If it means turning my backyard into a collection of small outbuildings each resembling a shed, but each with a different purpose then I might as well start buying wood and paint. If I want to fill a couple thousand notebooks with arcane scribbling that only I understand then dammit I have every right to do so!
As INTPs we are inherently different than the majority. People simply aren't going to get us. Unfortunately, we spend huge amounts of time trying to fix that by essentially trying to fix ourselves. Well, who's to say we are the ones that need to be fixed? How do we know that we aren't the right way up?
I think in the morning I might as well go mad. I've nothing better to do...
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Anxiety and mindfulness
I was reading a series of posts about dealing with stress today at the Refuge and hit on something that I think is important not only for dealing with stress but also for doing tasks and progressing with projects. Here's the whole post. NRJC had just suggested that exercise is a great way to deal with stress. I completely agree, but I began to dig a bit deeper...
I think NRJC is right, but in a way different than just physiology (and I completely agree about the secondary physical/psychological effects of exercise). Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting myself to exercise because I treat it as a task to be completed. On the other hand, there is something to some exercises that can be very calming for me. In fact there's an analogous situation that has a lot of similar attributes that I find comforting. Let me see if I can put it together.
The analog is driving a car on a long trip. Out where I live it's not uncommon to drive on freeways or highways for a couple hundred miles (typically four or five hours of driving). If I take that trip alone and I do it right I find at the end of the road that I am extremely calm, relaxed, and focussed. I'm "centered". I hadn't really put that together with exercise until this morning when I started dealing with my own minor panic attack.
I think of a panic attack for me like a thinking storm. It slowly builds and the dark clouds start to come in from the horizon, but before I know it my mind is racing and filled with thousands of thoughts that I simply cannot control. External pressures of the expectations of others are like a storm surge making it even worse. I soon feel overwhelmed and that fight or flight instinct starts to kick in hard. When I was teenager (or a teenanger) I put holes in a few walls, found myself screaming at the empty house, and raging internally. It got so bad that at times I dropped out of the world for days on end. Nobody knew what was going on or how to help me. Like NRJC I am very aware of how dangerous this emotion can be in myself. My temper is something to behold and I keep a very tight rein on it.
I am still struggling with my storms, but at least now I'm gathering some intel that seems to be helping. So here goes...
First, I have to make up my mind that right now I am going to deal with my mental health. I have to recognize that I'm in the midst of a thinking storm and that I need to deal with it. Everything else is of secondary importance because if I don't handle it soon I am going to be useless to the world.
Second, what seems to be the most important is to engage myself at multiple levels all at the same time. This is where I see the relationship between me driving long distances and the right kind of exercise. Here's the ideal situation I have found so far:
I used to be a martial artist (I have since had an injury that makes it nearly impossible to continue) and I found that katas helped too. Katas are a series of complex motions intended to teach proper technique and to string different techniques together. They can also be used while visualizing attackers. What I found was that a sufficiently complex kata would cause me to fall into that state of flow. I had memorized it and so I didn't have to think about what to do. However, it was still complex enough that I had to be mindful to keep it moving properly. By visualizing the attackers I was adding another layer of thinking for my mind to go through. Proper breathing added another layer. If I was alone with music playing I could repeat it over and over and end up feeling deeply calm afterward. It strikes me that Tai Chi and Yoga can do the same thing although I always found them a bit too slow to fully engage my mind properly.
Another place I can find this is in marksmanship. I like to shoot small bore rifle and pistol and also air rifles and pistols. These disciplines require the same things: exclusion of outside interruption, general focus on multiple variables simultaneously (safety, breathing, trigger control, body position, environmental conditions, etc.), and a challenge that requires focus but not being overwhelmed by any one single item. It's enveloping and I can spend hours at the range carefully firing at targets. Of course in that environment I avoid the music, but wearing the earmuffs gives me a sense of isolation. Afterward I am completely relaxed and centered again. I have done a little work with a bow and arrow and it's a similar experience.
Hmm....now that I think about it, that's really the state that I want to be in when I am doing anything. I wonder if these "rules" aren't applicable in other situations as well. For some reason my mind just jumped to the image of a Japanese tea ceremony and to writing Chinese calligraphy.
I think NRJC is right, but in a way different than just physiology (and I completely agree about the secondary physical/psychological effects of exercise). Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting myself to exercise because I treat it as a task to be completed. On the other hand, there is something to some exercises that can be very calming for me. In fact there's an analogous situation that has a lot of similar attributes that I find comforting. Let me see if I can put it together.
The analog is driving a car on a long trip. Out where I live it's not uncommon to drive on freeways or highways for a couple hundred miles (typically four or five hours of driving). If I take that trip alone and I do it right I find at the end of the road that I am extremely calm, relaxed, and focussed. I'm "centered". I hadn't really put that together with exercise until this morning when I started dealing with my own minor panic attack.
I think of a panic attack for me like a thinking storm. It slowly builds and the dark clouds start to come in from the horizon, but before I know it my mind is racing and filled with thousands of thoughts that I simply cannot control. External pressures of the expectations of others are like a storm surge making it even worse. I soon feel overwhelmed and that fight or flight instinct starts to kick in hard. When I was teenager (or a teenanger) I put holes in a few walls, found myself screaming at the empty house, and raging internally. It got so bad that at times I dropped out of the world for days on end. Nobody knew what was going on or how to help me. Like NRJC I am very aware of how dangerous this emotion can be in myself. My temper is something to behold and I keep a very tight rein on it.
I am still struggling with my storms, but at least now I'm gathering some intel that seems to be helping. So here goes...
First, I have to make up my mind that right now I am going to deal with my mental health. I have to recognize that I'm in the midst of a thinking storm and that I need to deal with it. Everything else is of secondary importance because if I don't handle it soon I am going to be useless to the world.
Second, what seems to be the most important is to engage myself at multiple levels all at the same time. This is where I see the relationship between me driving long distances and the right kind of exercise. Here's the ideal situation I have found so far:
- Be alone. I need to be apart. If I am with others then I have a wall up or I'm playing chameleon to their personality.
- Not only do I have to be alone, but I also have to know that I am not going to be disturbed. When I drive I silence my cell phone. If I exercise I tend to go somewhere where other people will simply not be or where I don't know anyone. The key is that no part of my life can intrude new information during this time period. It's mine alone.
- Have stimulating music playing. I love a lot of different kinds of music, but for this I really need complex classical music. I need the complexity of the music to give my brain something to jump around inside of and not become bored by. For a while I find myself listening to the cello and the brilliant complexity and skill there. Then I am listening to the violin. Then the flute. Then the kettles. Then a horn. Then I race back to catch the cello again. My mind is constantly carried along. The very best music will invoke mental images unbiden that give me all the more to pay attention to. I have found some blues and jazz does this too.
- There must be mindful physicality. In the car it's the constant adjustments to keep the car on the road, the speed changes to handle the flow of traffic, and the situational awareness of all that's happening. If it's exercise then it has to be a low-to-moderate aerobic exercise (walking a bit faster than usual, etc.) that does not require a great deal of thought and should not be overly exerting where it's unpleasant. Instead, it should be an almost subliminal, but effortful physical motion that tells my mind "Pay attention to this. Keep doing it carefully. Make an adjustment here. Make an adjustment there." Exercises like weight lifting, intense aerobics, etc. are not good enough for giving me that sense of flow I need.
- Controlled breathing can be another way of giving the mind something else to think about.
I used to be a martial artist (I have since had an injury that makes it nearly impossible to continue) and I found that katas helped too. Katas are a series of complex motions intended to teach proper technique and to string different techniques together. They can also be used while visualizing attackers. What I found was that a sufficiently complex kata would cause me to fall into that state of flow. I had memorized it and so I didn't have to think about what to do. However, it was still complex enough that I had to be mindful to keep it moving properly. By visualizing the attackers I was adding another layer of thinking for my mind to go through. Proper breathing added another layer. If I was alone with music playing I could repeat it over and over and end up feeling deeply calm afterward. It strikes me that Tai Chi and Yoga can do the same thing although I always found them a bit too slow to fully engage my mind properly.
Another place I can find this is in marksmanship. I like to shoot small bore rifle and pistol and also air rifles and pistols. These disciplines require the same things: exclusion of outside interruption, general focus on multiple variables simultaneously (safety, breathing, trigger control, body position, environmental conditions, etc.), and a challenge that requires focus but not being overwhelmed by any one single item. It's enveloping and I can spend hours at the range carefully firing at targets. Of course in that environment I avoid the music, but wearing the earmuffs gives me a sense of isolation. Afterward I am completely relaxed and centered again. I have done a little work with a bow and arrow and it's a similar experience.
Hmm....now that I think about it, that's really the state that I want to be in when I am doing anything. I wonder if these "rules" aren't applicable in other situations as well. For some reason my mind just jumped to the image of a Japanese tea ceremony and to writing Chinese calligraphy.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Afraid to Start
I'm stuck. I hate being stuck. Every once in a while this happens, but it's been happening a lot more lately...as in, for a decade now. I get started on a project. I get it rolling and people start to rely on me. Then what happens? I get stuck. I procrastinate. I can't start. I won't start. I spend all of my time trying to figure out how to do the job perfectly without ever actually doing anything directly related to the job.
I have strategies to combat this, but they all sound hollow when the time comes. I stare at my computer screen or the stack of papers on my desk. I want to do the right thing, but I can't. I just keep staring.
The guilt starts to build up in me, then the frustration, finally I just shrug and accept it. Another day lost. Another day I can never get back spent fighting myself.
All I can think of is to go into the office tomorrow, shove everything to the side, and go back to my old morning routine. What choice do I have? Stay in the same stinking place forever until everyone knows that I'm messed up?
I want to go curl up in a corner. Only problem is, I'd be right there with me.
Why don't I want to work on this stuff? I think a lot of it is how mundane it all sounds. I'm facing a bunch of customer-service items, not anything truly challenging. What's there to research? What's there to occupy my mind and keep me engaged. It just seems like a horrible shade of gray. If it were black or white I would be fine with it, but the gray just goes on forever.
There has to be something of interest to do with it all. I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Guess I'll surf the web for a bit in search of enlightenment. Maybe the answer is out there....yeah, like it's been there for the last ten years and I haven't found it yet?
I have strategies to combat this, but they all sound hollow when the time comes. I stare at my computer screen or the stack of papers on my desk. I want to do the right thing, but I can't. I just keep staring.
The guilt starts to build up in me, then the frustration, finally I just shrug and accept it. Another day lost. Another day I can never get back spent fighting myself.
All I can think of is to go into the office tomorrow, shove everything to the side, and go back to my old morning routine. What choice do I have? Stay in the same stinking place forever until everyone knows that I'm messed up?
I want to go curl up in a corner. Only problem is, I'd be right there with me.
Why don't I want to work on this stuff? I think a lot of it is how mundane it all sounds. I'm facing a bunch of customer-service items, not anything truly challenging. What's there to research? What's there to occupy my mind and keep me engaged. It just seems like a horrible shade of gray. If it were black or white I would be fine with it, but the gray just goes on forever.
There has to be something of interest to do with it all. I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Guess I'll surf the web for a bit in search of enlightenment. Maybe the answer is out there....yeah, like it's been there for the last ten years and I haven't found it yet?
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Frustrated
During my short time since discovering my INTP nature I've come to realize that there really is a duality to being me. There's the "me" that I identify with and act from and then there's the "other me" that is emotional, pushy, and kept under a tight leash lest he get out and do something embarrassing or hurt someone's feelings (or worse).
What's frustrating is that the other me has a lot more control over my life than I realized. It's like someone else is there sabotaging me. On the other hand, that someone also seems to have a pretty good handle on certain aspects of my life and I can't seem to hear what he's trying to tell me.
Right now I am absolutely full of anxiety. That other guy is screaming bloody murder at me and I keep telling him to shut the hell up. It is not a constructive conversation. Honestly, I just want to cry and I am not a person who cries.
So what's going on?
I am completely burned out emotionally and there's not much left for me to work on. A lot of it comes from the constant physical pain I've been in for the last couple of weeks. A lot of it is from the massive workload I have been under. I just did a brain sweep and it's a pretty extensive list of a lot of important things. Other pieces include my messed-up medications. Others just the frustrations I can see in other people as they try to deal with me. Other parts are the loss of quiet times in my life recently. Burnout thy name is INTP. :-/
Pain
The physical pain is an enormous drain on me. It's absolutely relentless. In short, my back has four bad discs and a couple times a year those bulged discs will begin to pinch a nerve or two. Soon my muscles try to compensate and I get muscle spasms. This can last just a day or two, but sometimes it will last for months. When it gets really bad I have to go in for cortisone injections in my spine - which is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. I've noticed over the years that a lot of the problems are related to the weather. As a storm rolls in the barometric pressure drops and I think those discs bulge ever so little more starting the cascade of problems all over again. This spring we've had one storm after another roll in and it's beaten me down.
I keep trying to work through it, but the thing is, this kind of pain can be extremely sharp and so it can't be ignored or even suppressed. At times I think it's getting better then the next day a storm rolls in or I move the wrong way and I'm right back to where I began. The only relief I get is through drugs or by laying flat on the floor or in my orthopedic bed. Neither place is conducive to doing any real work.
Finally, spinal pain seems to send my endocrine system on overload. My body is flooded with hormones and I get mood swings. As an INTP though I tend to ignore my mood and emotions and so they build up. It's exhausting.
Work
As for work, I seem to be caught in the desire to do things "right" or not do them at all. I am terrified of making mistakes that will hurt other people or be the wrong move and waste time. So I spend huge amounts of time just trying to make things "just right". Then nothing gets done. Then it piles up even higher. Then I worry about that.
In Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book he points out that there needs to be a P/PC balance in life. The P is production and the PC is production capability. In essence what he is saying is that you have to have a balance between actually doing work and improving how you work. You have to have both, but it has to be in balance. It's kind of like the old "work smarter, not harder" adage, except that he points out that you still have to work.
In my case I get perpetually stuck in the PC arena. I want to keep building ever more perfect systems of doing things rather than just getting things done that can be done. It's paralysis by analysis.
Maybe some of it is just my default way of handling things. If I am stressed then I want to fix the problem and the underlying cause. So I focus on that underlying cause more and more hoping that once I nail it down the rest will just follow.
I don't have any answers right now. I just know that I feel like running away...
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Coming unglued
I'm having my first good panic attack in over a month. My senses are on high alert with everything keyed-up. I'm on-edge and ready to fight or scream or cry or just curl up in a corner and start shaking.
My mind is racing, my back is hurting like hell again today, I have a stack of work a mile high, I want to get things under control and haven't had time to work on my personal organization system, I feel like I haven't spent any time with my kids, I think I may be in over my head at work (again), I have a lot of things just languishing and commitments piling up. On top of that I'm feeling some of the wonderful after effects of my muscle relaxers and pain medications - not quite withdrawals but still sucks. Oh....and I ate something that's not agreeing with me. It might be the corn chips I had for lunch (I'm allergic to corn...and stupid) or it might be the hot pepper sauce I slathered on my burger tonight.
I am an absolute wreck right now and I feel like everyone can see it but me. I think a lot of it has to do with messing with my anxiety medication. My doctor and I have been trying to figure out what's been going on with me for over a year now. I went in complaining about being really tired all of the time and having anxiety problems. He found out that the fatigue was a hormone problem and we've got that under control.
However, the anxiety has been a long trek. First we tried an SSRI. Yeah, that worked awesome, it was almost as good as being on opiates. Unfortunately the infamous side affects hit me and I got off of that as quick as I could. Then we moved to buproprion. He started me on a low dose and that seemed to help keep me from laying on the bed shaking like a leaf and pulling the blankets over my head. I was able to work, but I kept complaining about terrible insomnia. We tried Ambien, but I could even ward that stuff off. I'd just sit wide awake in a hypnotic state all night.
I mentioned it to the doctor a few months back and thought it was because my hormone replacement therapy was off a bit. We did a test and it came back normal (I'm still not convinced that it is, but that's a different discussion). So the nurse calls me and says that the doctor thinks I might be depressed. I snorted at her. Yeah, I'm not depressed. I know depression. We're old friends.
So, I finally go in to see the doc again for my yearly check-up. We go through the regular stuff and then he comes back around to the insomnia thing again. He asks me if it's depression. Hell, how am I supposed to know now? I can't sleep, my hormone levels are normal, maybe it is, but it's just different this time? So, he decides to double my dosage for buproprion. Fine, I figure, if it helps it helps. Besides the bupropion never really got me to stop stress eating all the time like the SSRI did.
That's not all though, the doc's also worried about sleep apnea. I don't say what I'm thinking which is "Dude, I can't freaking sleep! How can I have sleep apnea if I'm not, you know, ASLEEP!?" Well, we do an O2 test anyway. No big deal, just put a monitor on my finger all night and read my oxygen levels. If it drops significantly then I might have apnea (stop breathing while asleep). Except I spend all night awake watching the freaking monitor. You can read the whole story on The Refuge. It was not a fun experience.
I eventually realized that what I had experienced that night was a panic attack. In fact, it had been pretty much going all day. The next day I started doubling my buproprion dose. It took about two days and all of a sudden all of that background anxiety started to fade away and I could focus on work again. Until tonight I haven't had another panic attack.
So why did I mess with my medications? Because I thought I was experiencing some "unpleasant" side effects with my buproprion. It turns out that wasn't the problem, it was one of my other meds doing it (I think it was one of my pain medications), but that really doesn't matter much right now. I took a little "drug holiday" over the weekend so I could move from taking it in the morning to taking it in the evening. It wasn't too bad. I felt a little off, but I knew it was manageable. I was starting to think that my move was a good idea, but tonight I decided to move back to the AM schedule. I realized that the new schedule had the medication mostly out of my system by 5:00 and I found myself getting grumpy at home with the family and my sleep is kind of messed up again. I haven't felt like that in a while and I don't like it. So, I'm moving back. No big deal, just don't take it tonight and get back to the regular schedule in the morning.
So, here I am. It's almost 11:30 at night and I am awake. I took a nap when I got home because I could barely keep my eyes open. Now I'm wide awake again. My little personal oximeter is showing my pulse is up and my oxygen drops once in a while if I just forget to breath normally. I want to get work done, but it just isn't going to happen. It's just sitting on the kitchen table staring up at the light. I finally gave up and packed it all up again.
I'm guessing that all of it combined finally got me and with my buproprion dosage off I'm back to anxiety hell. I'm not scheduled to take my medication until in the morning. I have no idea what I'm going to do right now. So, I'm starting a blog after something someone else said on The Refuge. What the hell, it's better working my thoughts out in words than running through them in my head.
I think tomorrow I need to go back and do a mind sweep and just start cranking through a few things at work again.
I just figured out why my back is suddenly hurting again after yesterday being so good. Outside there are flashes of light. A thunderstorm just rolled-in. I'm a walking barometer and all day I've been feeling worse and worse. Guess my spine knew this storm was coming.
Now, will there be wildfires tomorrow filling our area with smoke again? Somehow I wouldn't doubt it. Off to surf the web again...
My mind is racing, my back is hurting like hell again today, I have a stack of work a mile high, I want to get things under control and haven't had time to work on my personal organization system, I feel like I haven't spent any time with my kids, I think I may be in over my head at work (again), I have a lot of things just languishing and commitments piling up. On top of that I'm feeling some of the wonderful after effects of my muscle relaxers and pain medications - not quite withdrawals but still sucks. Oh....and I ate something that's not agreeing with me. It might be the corn chips I had for lunch (I'm allergic to corn...and stupid) or it might be the hot pepper sauce I slathered on my burger tonight.
I am an absolute wreck right now and I feel like everyone can see it but me. I think a lot of it has to do with messing with my anxiety medication. My doctor and I have been trying to figure out what's been going on with me for over a year now. I went in complaining about being really tired all of the time and having anxiety problems. He found out that the fatigue was a hormone problem and we've got that under control.
However, the anxiety has been a long trek. First we tried an SSRI. Yeah, that worked awesome, it was almost as good as being on opiates. Unfortunately the infamous side affects hit me and I got off of that as quick as I could. Then we moved to buproprion. He started me on a low dose and that seemed to help keep me from laying on the bed shaking like a leaf and pulling the blankets over my head. I was able to work, but I kept complaining about terrible insomnia. We tried Ambien, but I could even ward that stuff off. I'd just sit wide awake in a hypnotic state all night.
I mentioned it to the doctor a few months back and thought it was because my hormone replacement therapy was off a bit. We did a test and it came back normal (I'm still not convinced that it is, but that's a different discussion). So the nurse calls me and says that the doctor thinks I might be depressed. I snorted at her. Yeah, I'm not depressed. I know depression. We're old friends.
So, I finally go in to see the doc again for my yearly check-up. We go through the regular stuff and then he comes back around to the insomnia thing again. He asks me if it's depression. Hell, how am I supposed to know now? I can't sleep, my hormone levels are normal, maybe it is, but it's just different this time? So, he decides to double my dosage for buproprion. Fine, I figure, if it helps it helps. Besides the bupropion never really got me to stop stress eating all the time like the SSRI did.
That's not all though, the doc's also worried about sleep apnea. I don't say what I'm thinking which is "Dude, I can't freaking sleep! How can I have sleep apnea if I'm not, you know, ASLEEP!?" Well, we do an O2 test anyway. No big deal, just put a monitor on my finger all night and read my oxygen levels. If it drops significantly then I might have apnea (stop breathing while asleep). Except I spend all night awake watching the freaking monitor. You can read the whole story on The Refuge. It was not a fun experience.
I eventually realized that what I had experienced that night was a panic attack. In fact, it had been pretty much going all day. The next day I started doubling my buproprion dose. It took about two days and all of a sudden all of that background anxiety started to fade away and I could focus on work again. Until tonight I haven't had another panic attack.
So why did I mess with my medications? Because I thought I was experiencing some "unpleasant" side effects with my buproprion. It turns out that wasn't the problem, it was one of my other meds doing it (I think it was one of my pain medications), but that really doesn't matter much right now. I took a little "drug holiday" over the weekend so I could move from taking it in the morning to taking it in the evening. It wasn't too bad. I felt a little off, but I knew it was manageable. I was starting to think that my move was a good idea, but tonight I decided to move back to the AM schedule. I realized that the new schedule had the medication mostly out of my system by 5:00 and I found myself getting grumpy at home with the family and my sleep is kind of messed up again. I haven't felt like that in a while and I don't like it. So, I'm moving back. No big deal, just don't take it tonight and get back to the regular schedule in the morning.
So, here I am. It's almost 11:30 at night and I am awake. I took a nap when I got home because I could barely keep my eyes open. Now I'm wide awake again. My little personal oximeter is showing my pulse is up and my oxygen drops once in a while if I just forget to breath normally. I want to get work done, but it just isn't going to happen. It's just sitting on the kitchen table staring up at the light. I finally gave up and packed it all up again.
I'm guessing that all of it combined finally got me and with my buproprion dosage off I'm back to anxiety hell. I'm not scheduled to take my medication until in the morning. I have no idea what I'm going to do right now. So, I'm starting a blog after something someone else said on The Refuge. What the hell, it's better working my thoughts out in words than running through them in my head.
I think tomorrow I need to go back and do a mind sweep and just start cranking through a few things at work again.
I just figured out why my back is suddenly hurting again after yesterday being so good. Outside there are flashes of light. A thunderstorm just rolled-in. I'm a walking barometer and all day I've been feeling worse and worse. Guess my spine knew this storm was coming.
Now, will there be wildfires tomorrow filling our area with smoke again? Somehow I wouldn't doubt it. Off to surf the web again...
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