One funny thing about anxiety that I've noticed is that it really turns thoughts negative. I can be anxious and thinking things I don't want to think and just feeling negative in general but then I'll calm down and the anxiety will dissipate a bit and I can notice an almost immediate shift in my thinking to more positive and reassuring thoughts. It's crazy to me how anxiety can affect thinking like that so readily. Also I can be feeling somewhat normal like this morning but have a thought that sends anxiety rushing into my chest and do a 180 in my emotions. But luckily this morning it didn't last that long. For now I'm going to enjoy my break and relax, because tomorrow I have to take my daughter back to the dentist for a couple fillings, so I won't get much of a break. Here's to living in the moment!
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Before I started this job, I used to listen to my wife complain about Mondays and even though I understood why she hated them, I couldn't really relate. I mean what difference is the weekend or week when you don't have anything to do regardless of the day? Now I definitely can relate though, and understand why she always said the weekends aren't long enough. It doesn't help that I've been feeling like crap with whatever sinus problem I've been having this weekend, but yeah. After kids driving me nuts and having to be up at 5 AM every day, the weekend definitely offers a welcome respite. I don't hate my job or anything like that, but the kids and heat can make day to day pretty trying. I'm also getting paid in a day or so and most of my pay check is already basically signed over for money I owe, which I guess is another thing I've always heard people complain about that I'm learning first hand now. But regardless, that's money owed that's not being saddled on my wife alone, so it's still good.
I can't really decide if my days at work go by slower or faster than before I was working. Of course they go by at the same pace, but I mean how they feel like they go by I guess. I mean obviously the days where I slept super late went by faster since you don't experience time going by when asleep. Of course in a way having a routine and tasks/job to complete seems to make days go by smoother because I'm not sitting around bored. Of course they can feel like they drag a bit too because it's so hot and the kids are testing my patience. I really spend too much time thinking about this time passing crap. I'd love to be able to just live and let live without obsessing over uncontrollable things like that. I do think my medicine (Zoloft) is working, because I came across a rather depressing existential type post on Reddit that I feel like would have made me pretty messed up if I was like I was the other week. After all, a stupid post like that is what brought this anxiety on to begin with. I really need to learn to avoid those types of things. Maybe I'm secretly a mental masochist? Thing is, I know I'm not alone in these types of fears and worries, but most people seem not to dwell and obsess on/over it. Of course it definitely makes me understand how so many people get hooked on drugs and alcohol to cover up their sorrows. I mean of course, I guess that's really what drugs like Zoloft and Effexor do as well in a way, although they are actually supposed to help fix some chemical imbalance that leads to anxiety/depression etc. though I guess. But regardless, it seems most humans will do just about anything to escape from reality even if only temporary, and frankly I can't blame them. Well it's the weekend again and after what felt like a long week, it's welcome. Of course I'm feeling pretty guilty at the moment because I slept later than I wanted to. With the fact that I was up last night a lot because of a bad ear ache so I was super tired, you'd think I'd appreciate the extra sleep. It just makes me feel bad thinking about it though. I of course welcome the ability to sleep later on the weekends after having to get up at 5 all week, but still planned on getting up at least somewhat early until the ear ache kept me up. I guess it's all part of the anxiety over the 'time passing' crap. I did start taking my new dose of Zoloft (100mg up from 50mg) so hopefully it starts working even better. My wife and I also get paid in a couple days, and even though the majority of my check is already signed over for stuff I owe, that's still money that's not coming out of my wife's pocket. I almost go 'in trouble' at work Friday as I missed my morning appointment to have my bus at the shop for it's service. I got a message from my boss and had to leave early and rush down to the shop so they could do it before I had to be at my first school for my afternoon routes. That was pretty stressful but at least I got it done, because if I wouldn't have then I would have had a mark on my record of a missed service date. I'm not sure exactly what this entails but it doesn't sound good. Of course if anything was to make me go nuts in this job it'd probably be a tie between some of the kids and the heat. But I've made it this far, so I know I can make it further. Was finally able to get my daughter a new phone that she has been needing pretty desperately as her current phone barely works anymore. It's things like that that make me thankful to be bringing in money. She's also gotten to ride on my AM routes with me a couple of times when she had her doctor's appointments this past week and liked that. She'll actually be doing the same twice this next week because she has two more dentist appointments to fix some cavities. It's nice to be getting important things done like that, to me. I'm just trying to not let it get overshadowed by stupid anxious worries and bad thoughts, but thankfully it has become easier with the new medicine it feels like. But like I keep telling myself, just have to take it one day at a time. (While not freaking out about the day going by too fast. Haha)
I have had anxiety, or what I can identify as actual anxiety since around my late teens. Really though, now that I look back, I see signs even in my childhood years that make a lot of sense to me now. When I was little I remember asking my mom, every single night, a line of questions about whether things I was worried about (like tornadoes) were going to happen that night. It was like a ritual every night. I had to ask those questions or I couldn't go to sleep. I look back and I see a lot of things like this in my life, where I felt like I had to do certain things or it would cause me some kind of discomfort or harm if I didn't. I still to this day feel like I have to get the numbers on the gas pumps to stop to where the individual numbers add up to an even number. I don't know why, but I feel like its something I need to do. Most of my anxiety over my life has been over obsessive thoughts, mostly thinking something is wrong with me health wise. I feel like I'm the poster child for OCD in a lot of ways yet it took me til pretty recently to even consider that I had it. I haven't doubted the anxiety since my first panic attack when I was 17 visiting my wife (then girlfriend) and woke up in the middle of the night freaking out over nothing and ended up sitting and crying holding onto her. I still don't know what brought that on, other than me being sick with strep throat at the time. I have had a few other panic attacks but most of my anxiety over the years has been just generalized anxiety, with various periods where it basically took over my life for a week or two at a time. I learned later after a few periods of freak outs over imagined health problems that hypochondria/health anxiety is a form of OCD. It makes sense though sense it causes you to OBSESS about your "health problem" and to COMPULSIVELY symptom check.
I feel like looking back at how I've been my whole life, I was destined to be an anxious mess at some point in my life. It just happened to wait until my late teens to really hit me. I've always been a pretty emotional person (not something many men want to admit). I've historically been quick to anger, but also feel sadness and other things really deeply and I'm sure that doesn't help with anxiety and negative emotions it brings about. This most recent anxiety brought on by a stressful time in life and probably the loss of effectiveness of my medicine, is different but the same in different ways. My main problem with it has been obsessive thoughts that are quite negative and that I don't want in my head, let alone to dwell on them. Thankfully adding on Zoloft to my Effexor and also some Klonopin has started to make a difference. I'm not 100% back to myself by any means but I have noticed positive changes. Today I went and they raised the Zoloft to its 'full dose' of 100mg from the 50mg I was on and gave me a refill for Klonopin. Coming down to half dosage from full on the Klonopin has brought back out some anxiety in the past week, but it's mostly in the morning and wanes throughout the day. I still have the thoughts I fight, but they seem to be at least a little bit easier to kick out. I think being busy, even on stressful days, with the new job has helped by giving me something else to focus on. I'm just hoping raising to the full dose on the Zoloft will continue to get me to where I need to be mentally. In the meantime, I have kids to get home so I better get going! You ever just stop to think, that we are animals? I mean we have self awareness and some other unique things that seperate us from say, our pets, but at the basic level we are just animals. This self awareness though, is both our gift and our curse in my opinion. Look at a 150 year old tortoise. He or she has no idea how, in many humans opinions, lucky he is to live to be that old. They just live day to day, try to meet the basics that keep them alive and as far as we know, give it no thought. I was watching a TV show yesterday called HAPPYish, and there was a part in it about self administered lobotomies and how great they were. I found myself thinking, "Hell yeah, no crappy thoughts and no anxiety, that'd be nice". But of course the ultimate message of that part was that while it would take away the bad, it would also take away the good, and basically turn us into zombies. All the anxiety I've had in my life, and there has been a lot really sucks and I hate some of the negative thinking I'm still having but I don't think I'd ever want to give up all the nice things that have and will happen. The joy, happiness and all the other wonderful emotions we feel are so great because of how horrible their opposites feel after all.
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