Anxiety
These past few weeks I feel like I have been on a hamster wheel. It just keeps going around and around sometimes it slows down or I get distracted and other times it speeds up so fast I feel like I have no control. I never used to think that I had anxiety. I mean we all get nerves here and there and worry about things sometimes. Normally in the past I was able to talk it out with someone or pray and it would pass and I would be on my way. This year I have have been struggling a little bit more with anxiety then a few weeks ago it got really bad. I am not one to freak out over a new symptom or something because its a part of having a chronic illness there are so many symptoms that pop up. About 2 weeks ago my anxiety got way out of hand. I don't know where it came from or what was all of the sudden making it worse (I haven't switched or changed meds in a long time so I don't think its a side effect but who knows) so which in turn was causing me to get even more anxious because I didn't know what I was anxious about. That mixed with the symptoms I get from POTs was making me not feel good at all. I knew I probably needed to schedule another appointment with my doctor but at the point I was still thinking I could just "get rid of it" like I had been doing. I noticed at night time my anxiety would get so bad. I think its because its dark and everything is quiet so you just think. I normally have the TV on but that wasn't helping. It was like I was having anxiety mixed with paranoia at night. I have experienced paranoia it was when I was taking Lyrica and it got pretty bad which is part of the reason I was pulled off that medicine and the withdrawal process was awful. Last week I was in the middle of what I am thinking was probably an anxiety attack and I would hear a noise and I would look in the living room and I would see this face. It wasn't a scary face it wasn't anyone I knew or was afraid of it was just a normal person. This only happened about a total of 3 times but the one night I experienced it twice in a row and it freaked me out. I called my doctor the next morning and made an appointment. (* I have not been officially diagnosed with anxiety) I will be going later this week. I could have gotten in a lot sooner but I didn't want to make a big fuss or anything. Since I scheduled that appointment I have not had any hallucinations or whatever those were. I did a lot of praying and researching and realized I wasn't alone. There are people that experience hallucinations during a bad anxiety attack because your anxious and then you think you see something so your brain is playing tricks so I am not sure if what I was experiencing is qualified as a hallucination. I ended up buying one of those Himalayan salt lamps because someone had said it was helping their anxiety. I figured it would either help me or I would be left with a pretty lamp, and while it has not cured my anxiety it has definitely helped. I just had little mild anxiety at times. Im not at the point where I was a few weeks ago when my heart would beat so fast and I would be shaking and sweating. I am glad to be out of that.
I had become so frustrated with myself. Sometimes I couldn't figure out what I was getting anxious about and the other times I was so irritated that something so simple was causing that much anxiety. As you have noticed I haven't blogged in a while. I was getting anxious about blogging that it would be a topic no one would care about or it wouldn't make sense, then on the flip side of that I would get anxious because it had been so long since I last made a blog post. I would get anxious in the middle of a conversation because I was experiencing brain fog bad these last few weeks I was scared I was going to forget something or say the wrong thing. I would get anxious about my outfits that they looked silly or that my hair was a mess. This weekend I noticed a change I wasn't getting anxious over every little thing! We went shopping yesterday and I had fun I never felt anxious at all yesterday! It then hit me that maybe I wasn't feeling anxious about all those little things but I had thought thats what was making me anxious during those times. As I thought about it a little more I began to realize that my anxiety was maybe coming from the pain and just dealing with a chronic illness. As I really thought back I realized when my anxiety got really bad was after I met with the new pain specialist locally. He was such a good doctor and I have nothing but good things to say about him. The problem with these types of chronic illnesses is that there really isn't a lot of pain relief options because it hurts you more then it helps you. It just masks the pain so you would think your doing better but in turn you would just cause your body to go in to a flare-up because you over did it. He wondered if I wanted to try another medicine that Fibromyalgia patients use its to help with nerve pain. He said given my history with Lyrica I didn't have to take it because the side effects can be similar. He said that was really the only thing to help me. I can't do physical therapy and stuff like that because its worse for me and we don't know what all is going on with my body. I had thought about the medicine after the appointment and I started getting anxious thinking about possibly having the same side effects as I did on the Lyrica and I didn't want to gain a lot of weight again. This medicine isn't a cure all anyways. I asked a lot of questions in some facebook support groups and decided I did not want to go on this medicine. I called the office to let him know I decided not to take it. They said there was nothing else they could really offer me, which I knew because he said the medicine was really the last thing he could offer. I think after that phone call was when the anxiety set in, or when now looking back I noticed the change. I started to feel trapped. That this was the rest of my life trapped in pain and in a wheelchair and a scooter. That I would never be able to just go for a drive and do what I wanted to do independently with no help. I started wondering would any doctor ever really figure out what was going on with me? I felt stuck. Those feelings had started to slowly disappear. I was just a bundle of nerves. My anxiety has not completely gone away but it is better then what it was a few weeks ago. Im still going to my doctor because I know that this is not normal and I don't want this to be a constant battle anymore its exhausting on top of everything else. Anxiety is real and its not something anyone should be ashamed of. Anxiety affects over 40 million people in the world so no one is alone or should feel alone.
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7
I had become so frustrated with myself. Sometimes I couldn't figure out what I was getting anxious about and the other times I was so irritated that something so simple was causing that much anxiety. As you have noticed I haven't blogged in a while. I was getting anxious about blogging that it would be a topic no one would care about or it wouldn't make sense, then on the flip side of that I would get anxious because it had been so long since I last made a blog post. I would get anxious in the middle of a conversation because I was experiencing brain fog bad these last few weeks I was scared I was going to forget something or say the wrong thing. I would get anxious about my outfits that they looked silly or that my hair was a mess. This weekend I noticed a change I wasn't getting anxious over every little thing! We went shopping yesterday and I had fun I never felt anxious at all yesterday! It then hit me that maybe I wasn't feeling anxious about all those little things but I had thought thats what was making me anxious during those times. As I thought about it a little more I began to realize that my anxiety was maybe coming from the pain and just dealing with a chronic illness. As I really thought back I realized when my anxiety got really bad was after I met with the new pain specialist locally. He was such a good doctor and I have nothing but good things to say about him. The problem with these types of chronic illnesses is that there really isn't a lot of pain relief options because it hurts you more then it helps you. It just masks the pain so you would think your doing better but in turn you would just cause your body to go in to a flare-up because you over did it. He wondered if I wanted to try another medicine that Fibromyalgia patients use its to help with nerve pain. He said given my history with Lyrica I didn't have to take it because the side effects can be similar. He said that was really the only thing to help me. I can't do physical therapy and stuff like that because its worse for me and we don't know what all is going on with my body. I had thought about the medicine after the appointment and I started getting anxious thinking about possibly having the same side effects as I did on the Lyrica and I didn't want to gain a lot of weight again. This medicine isn't a cure all anyways. I asked a lot of questions in some facebook support groups and decided I did not want to go on this medicine. I called the office to let him know I decided not to take it. They said there was nothing else they could really offer me, which I knew because he said the medicine was really the last thing he could offer. I think after that phone call was when the anxiety set in, or when now looking back I noticed the change. I started to feel trapped. That this was the rest of my life trapped in pain and in a wheelchair and a scooter. That I would never be able to just go for a drive and do what I wanted to do independently with no help. I started wondering would any doctor ever really figure out what was going on with me? I felt stuck. Those feelings had started to slowly disappear. I was just a bundle of nerves. My anxiety has not completely gone away but it is better then what it was a few weeks ago. Im still going to my doctor because I know that this is not normal and I don't want this to be a constant battle anymore its exhausting on top of everything else. Anxiety is real and its not something anyone should be ashamed of. Anxiety affects over 40 million people in the world so no one is alone or should feel alone.
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