It wasn't the worst day today but not the best either. I slept later than I meant to and have been beating myself up mentally for it all day. Thinking "there goes a few hours you'll never get back you idiot". I find myself randomly thinking back to last week, last month or whenever and thinking about how whatever I was doing, I was living just like now but it was back then and will never happen again. That may be confusing, was kind of confusing for me to type out. My OCD has truly grabbed a hold of the passage of time as something to obsess over. I feel like I'm living day to day and looking at hour to hour as ripping pieces off of a calendar and watching it shrink. Constantly thinking about how the weekend went by fast, or the past week flew by or whatever other measure of time. I was sitting on the porch watching the rain earlier and the thought of it almost being Halloween popped into my head and made me have a shocking thought back to last Halloween when we went trick-or-treating and how it didn't seem that long ago. But then I was thinking about when my wife and I went out for New Years this year and that seems further back than Halloween. I don't even know what to make of that. Only thing I can think of is that it's because there is pictures on facebook from Halloween that I've seen since then so it's fresher in my mind or something. It seems my mind will find anything to make me feel like everything is going by in hyper speed. Makes it next to impossible to "live in the moment" as we are supposed to. I feel like throughout the day today when my wife and I were out shopping I was looking at the clock constantly watching time go by and obsessing about it but my mood would be okay and I'd be somewhat normal but then some thoughts would pop into my head and I'd start feeling really down. I found my self driving counting off seconds and thinking, "every single one of these seconds is gone forever". My mind is staying overwhelmed with a million different thoughts about the same thing. Even with the medicine I've been taken to last me until Wednesday, while it may make me not anxious, I just get really down instead. It makes me wish my mind had a mute button, oh and wish for a pause or slow speed button for time, but then again who doesn't want that?
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Well, it's Saturday but not much rest. My wife had to go take for test for her certification for her job, and I had to run some errands with my mother and brother then I took my wife to show her my bus and do some household shopping when she got back from the test. By the time we got back home it was almost 8. I haven't had much anxiety today to speak of, but I seemed to go the opposite way for a few earlier and ended up pretty down/sad. I'm definitely still having intrusive, dark and sad thoughts that can ruin my mood pretty fast. I'm really trying to hold it together until Tuesday at this point I guess. I have a deep seated fear that even reworking my medicine isn't going to help me. Like I have had some 'ignorance is bliss' bubble about reality broken and I'm never going to recover from it. All I could think about earlier was how miserable I have been this past week, but yet how fast it feels like it went by now. And then how fast today went by and basically any other measure of time until now I could think of. It makes me feel like I'm being suffocated when I think about it. It just brings my mind back to feeling like my life is going to be over before I know it. Yeah I guess it was nice not feeling 'anxious' over it but in turn I felt quite depressed, and hopeless. It bring in the thoughts of "what's the point?" and similar. I don't like feeling and thinking so negative. I think I've mentally faced my moms, my wifes and myself's deaths multiple times this week and experienced my heart feeling like it's being crushed and crying every time. I told my brother I feel like this worry and fear is different than ones in the past with my anxiety. It's almost like it's so deeply rooted and inevitable that there's no way I'm going to get past it. I mean I didn't think I'd get over other anxiety episodes either, but it is definitely scaring me. I told my wife earlier that I just keep wishing for some button to either slow or pause time, because I feel like I'm living in fast forward and it's suffocating. Obviously I'm sure most humans wish something similar but I'm sure most also aren't consumed by it where it's all they can think about. I just really wish I saw the light at the end of this horrible tunnel. I love my wife, my daughter and the rest of my family and want to enjoy my time with them without constantly having nightmares and thoughts about leaving or losing them.
Had my second Department of Transportation mandated physical this summer for the job today. The initial one was the job offer physical and this was the annual one all drivers have to do I guess. Bad news is I'm still fat but the good news is I've lost 12 pounds since the last appointment earlier this summer. I think that may be from not eating because of my anxiety, but I guess it could be because I stopped drinking soda too. But hey, I'mma be skinny soon! (not really) Anyways I found some medication I had from a while back to take "as needed" that I forgot I had. The past couple of days I have taken it and today I had the first good day in a while. I was initially a bit down when I got up but by tonight I was a lot better. I went to the store with my wife and brother and actually joked and laughed and whatnot which is refreshing. I'm not 100% but I won't be until I get my medicine straightened out, hopefully Tuesday when I can get an appointment. But being able to beat back bad thoughts, think positively and be excited and optimistic about my new job and other things for once in a while is quite nice. This isn't going to be a very long post, but I guess that's good because long posts usually aren't happy. If anybody reading this is in a bad situation as well and needs someone to talk to, feel free to contact me. I understand and will be here for you as much as I can. Anyways, time for dinner!
Had to practice our routes this morning starting at like 6 and had meetings at 10-11:30 then from 1:50-5. This wouldn't have been so bad probably if it wasn't for the fact that I got 0 sleep last night. Luckily other than my state physical tomorrow afternoon I'm off for a few days. I guess the plan of action is to get into see the psychiatrist my brother sees to try and see if my medicine needs reworked. All I know is the obsessive and intrusive thoughts that have taken up residence in my head are really making me miserable. I feel like I'm constantly trying to shake bad thoughts out of my head and reassure myself with positive thoughts. It has been a never ending battle in the past week. Every time I've had problems with my anxiety I find myself obsessing over and dwelling on thoughts about whatever's making me anxious to try and break it down and make sense of it and in turn hopefully find some kind of reassurance. This though... I have no way to know how to make sense of the inevitability and finality of getting old and dying. To be here, with all my thoughts, feelings, memories and everything else that makes me human and then in a split second it all be over and never return, while the world goes on as normal. It's like going to sleep, but never waking up, which when I think about just makes me feel like I'm going to go nuts.
It has long been a phobia for me but not one I usually obsess over directly. I mean I can't comprehend or even begin to wrap my mind around any of it but while it is the object of my anxiety, I feel like I can't stop trying. And it's not just thinking about me dying either, I have horrible thoughts about my wife, daughter, mom and brother as well. Like I just picture myself when we're old holding my wife's hand while she is in hospice care slipping away and it makes me start bawling. I mean I know nobody (or mostly nobody) wants to die, but surely most people don't spend this much thought and energy on it and torment themselves emotionally in return. I have counted just about every way I can think of to think about how much time "statistically" I have left before I get old and die. I mean I've counted it in days, weeks, months, and years. All of this just for my mind to tell me "so short, you'll be old and dead soon" basically. I've even done the same with how much time until I turn 30, or 40, or 50 etc. As you can see it is a lot of obsessing, but I can't seem to stop myself from doing it no matter how much I try. I'm terrified I'm going to be doing this forever, just looking at my life in any way to make it seem as short as possible and making me feel like my time is running out. I mean I'm hoping that getting my medicine straightened out will help as I've always feared death but never usually found myself obsessing and having this much anxiety over it. I'd get a sad thought but I'd just brush it off and be fine, like normal people I guess. I just know that living daily with this amount of anxiety and depressing feelings and thoughts is not the way I want to live. I wish I could say, "Today was the day my anxiety went away!". But of course that would be a lie. I still tossed and turned all night last night, and slept late today. I finally got my morning route sheets so mom and I went and drove around them getting a feel for them and I made some notes. The first two (the elementary) routes are pretty short and easy. The middle school route is a good bit longer with turning in and out of neighborhoods and turning around but I should be able to learn it pretty easy. I really hope I can sleep some tonight because I have to be up early for the practice runs on the bus in the morning and will have various meetings all day as well. Luckily Friday all I have is a physical appointment at 2:30. It's not really feeling any easier but I'm trying to push through my anxiety and other down feelings and do what I need to do. I feel like I'm at constant war with depressing thoughts in my head, and it's quite mentally tiring. I feel like by the end of the day everyday recently I've ended up in tears from all of my negative emotions being built up throughout the day. I feel stupid for it and I feel like my wife thinks the same. Thinking about and worrying about things that I can't control is par for the course for my anxiety and OCD but it's frustrating because I can sit here and say "I can't control that so I shouldn't be freaking out over it.", but actually making myself not care about it feels next to impossible.
I'm trying to take everything a day at a time and I usually wake up feeling okay, and I even feel pretty calm when I'm lying down in bed (even though I can't sleep) but throughout the day my mind starts more and I end up feeling crappy. If I could find that magic answer (not that there is one) on how to stop obsessing over and freaking out about getting old and dying then I'd love to find it. I mean when just about everything I see ends up with me turning it into a way to remind myself that my life is so short and I'll be old and dying before I know it, it keeps me pretty messed up. I mean it's not like I'm 50, I'm 25! I have a whole other lifetime (lifetime as in how long Ive lived) to live through just to get to 50 and even 50 isn't old anymore. I find myself unconsciously doing math in my head just to make myself feel like my life is short. Like my mom is watching election news coverage and I'm sitting there going, "Well there's only 'this many' elections left in my life, dang". I'm actively trying not to do that by shaking the thoughts out of my head but it isn't easy. On top of that I can't really tell where nervousness/stress over all the new job stuff ends and my anxiety over whatever thoughts or whatnot actually begins. I'm going to try to get an appointment to talk to a psych doctor about my medicine to see if I need an adjustment or what. Until then I guess I'll just keep trying to take things one day at a time. So when I woke up this morning I didn't get the initial rush of that anxious insides shaking feeling which was nice. I got up and went to the DDS to get my CDL and took it by to my trainer at the bus offices so she could make a copy, so I got done the main things I needed to get done today. I have still felt anxiety on and off today but I'm trying to fight it instead of just letting it have its way. I'm mainly trying to block out negative thoughts that are feeding and fueling my anxiety. Instead I try to tell myself positive things to override then negative. It has seemed to be helping a bit anyways. I still think this anxiety is mainly from my stress/nervousness over starting this new job so hopefully starting it and getting more comfortable at it will help me to be more calm. As I sit here writing this I am rather tired from not getting a good nights sleep but at least I did what I needed to do I guess. My main goal for now I suppose is to keep trying to fight negative thoughts and think more positive as much as I can. I just know that I hate feeling anxious and/or depressed and very much enjoy any reprieve I can get from those feelings.
Here I am, day two of this. I was so worried last night that I was going to feel like the night before because that's how it usually goes. Of course I made it until I tried to lie down and go to sleep and proceeded to have a come apart yet again. I ended up getting out of bed because I didn't want to wake my wife up and I went downstairs and talked to my brother for a while. Eventually I felt a bit better and was so tired by the time I came back up I was able to go to sleep even though it was really late. If all this is coming from the anxiety/nervousness over my new job then it was definitely made worse when my trainer called me and informed me that the routes I were supposed to get weren't mine anymore because the guy that was supposed to be retiring decided not to retire at the last minute. So now I will be driving for three other schools that I don't know where they are. Of course it doesn't really change much because learning the route is the main thing and I didn't know the routes for the original ones either.
When I woke up earlier, I could already feel it in my stomach and chest, the anxiety immediately started rising. The past couple of days were more depression than anxiety mostly because I just felt dread and sadness, but when I woke up the anxiety was unmistakable. My mind is being bombarded with negative thoughts and I'm fighting them, trying to brush them off and think positive instead but it isn't easy. I was literally sitting there telling myself the opposite of what I'm worried about to try and convince myself and calm myself down. I know I haven't done well so far in a lot of ways but I'm improving and I'd like to enjoy that and be happy that I'm improving but this is overshadowing it now. I guess I'm just trying to take it a day at a time. These worries that are bombarding me are so frustrating and even more stupid to me than the usual hypochondria stuff my anxiety usually hits me with. I'm young and have a long life ahead of me, but I feel like some old guy having a mid/late life crisis, like my life is almost over or something, which is crazy. I could live to be 100 years for all I know, and I'm only 25. Of course anxiety is never rational. A lot of the time today though I'm not even really thinking about anything and still have that anxious feeling inside that I can't shake and I hate the way it feels. I really hope I can get a handle on this, because even though I'm not going to let it ruin this job, it's going to make it a lot harder to deal with. I found myself awake at 4 AM last night having what I can only describe as an existential crisis. I think it may have been because I didn't take my meds but regardless it happened and I found myself crying in the living room writing out a journal entry on a notepad trying to get the thoughts out of my head. It's kind of funny that most of my anxiety in my life has been over health anxiety and worrying about having something that is going to kill me prematurely but there I was last night worrying about days and weeks going by too fast and how short life seems while thinking I'm going to be old and near dead before I know it. Of course the common theme is still dying, because that's what my anxiety is always really been about I guess. Also of course the thought of leaving or losing my wife caused me just as much pain. I just got a new job, and it's been causing me a lot of anxiety and nervousness so I'm sure that contributed to my anxiety last night. It's like I will start feeling anxious for whatever reason but then my mind just latches onto anything it can to freak out over. I really hate feeling that way, especially when I'm up by myself at night. Of course my wife doesn't understand why I ended up freaking out about that randomly last night, but neither do I really. Trying to explain anxiety to somebody who doesn't have it is near impossible especially when I can't even explain it to myself most of the time. I've had existential type thoughts plenty of times, I mean who doesn't? It just usually lasts a minute at most and then is gone, but for some reason my anxiety decided to throw a freak out party over it. I mean really as much as my anxiety has convinced me I'm going to die in a week because of some un-diagnosed health problem, just thinking that I will live to be old and frail should be a comforting thought! The thought of medical advancements and how much more sophisticated and cool medical science is now that it was even 20-30 years ago has always given me some comfort, because I feel like by the time I get older then even crazier awesome things and cures/treatments will be commonplace. For all I know my wife and I will live to be 100, live basically three more lifetimes from where we are now and die a few minutes apart, but not knowing I guess is something that has always caused me some anxiety. I just hope starting this new job will give me some purpose and something to put my mind into so I can focus on something other than my anxious thoughts. We'll see soon because I start in a few days!
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