Have you seen The Sixth Sense...or is just me? (see what I did there?).
First - if you're feeling bad about being on the sick
read this from
The Daily Mash.
CityWorld at the Daily Mash
"it's actually rather shit" |
|
|
Today I'm thinking about anxiety and the why's and wherefores of it. I also want to be open about it, to see progress as it's happening and hopefully to be writing a recovery GAD blog, one day. It's easy to act like I'm ok but what goes on in my head needs to change, I think... (I'm sooo funny! you'll see).
This blog is a reminder to me, mainly - an open diary(?) - (so it might be a bit repetitive), and if you happen across it maybe it'll help as one amongst the zillions of similar blogs. If so I recommend you take up blogging, it really does help!
I change my clothes a lot when I'm
anxious, I think it's because
something terrible will happen if I don't. I think that's it. See? thinking again! It's no good doing that. When I get into that thinking and changing cycle it can go on all day. It's hard not to do it.I can decide not to do it then find myself doing it again. If I don't actually keep changing clothes I'm thinking about it. All that actually does happen is I get very very tired and depressed that it's come to this. The root of it is that I
worry A LOT. (<-see here for worry!). I worry and I don't even realise that's what I'm doing. And that's the thing. It's the thinking. Again! It's knowing this and not remembering which is also a symptom of anxiety. Having a terrible memory because most of it is taken up with trying to remember things so as to not get it wrong again. and so the vicious circle goes on and on. Is it
ADD or is it GAD? Does it matter?!
So, this week has been a lovely mix of obsessively changing clothes and lying on the sofa feeling knackered and pointless. Last week, I decided to go out once a day, just a trip round the block if nothing else. So I went to the shops and the next day to the hairdressers (it's been over a year, yikes). I was exhausted in the days after that, leading to a rubbish week all in all. But at least I got a hair cut. Today is a not get dressed day, the anxiety is much the same whether I get dressed or not today.
To counteract the anxiety I take Atarax (an anti-histamine) which makes me feel calm. The trouble is the next day I have a hangover from it, if I take lots to calm down. So I lose 2 days from one day of big time anxiety. I decide to not take them, then I have to take
one. I think 'just one'. and try and cope. Am having a meds review re anxiety so am hoping for something that works better, if there is such a thing. Valium is lovely and rum works well but both aren't an option for me especially as I worry about taking valium... Sometimes I just want to sleep, to not exist. Suicidal thoughts abound but I know from experience that I don't have what it takes to top myself. Taking Seroquel was lovely like that, I just became a couch potato so much so that now I'm 'happy' (resigned?) to be a couch potato, then I worry that I need exercise. Everyone's bodies need exercise, that's what we're built for... O well...fuck it! Stop!
Another recovery story
Sleep is a beautiful thing. A lovely way out of too much stress. Drug induced sleep isn't the answer I know this. Not getting dressed because I don't want to set myself off is also not the answer. Yea gods! One Day At a Time...It'll have to do. I want to stop taking my anti depressants to test if I'm 'better', the only problem is if I miss a few tablets the anxiety shoots through the ceiling. Bollocks!
I listen to this
meditation or one like it every night whilst falling asleep...has it worked yet???
-------------------------------
I forget the
gratitudes - that life is much better than it has been. Progress is ongoing e.g. now I don't need to have a tantrum, I can observe it happening to
my inner child (on a good day!). I can accept I have one and don't have to
BE one...
I can accept that
I don't have to blame myself.
That there are many people who are good at recovery and I can learn from them i.e.
‘You are still learning to be well and it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes'.
The fact that I finally managed to get a degree in Art (even if the muse has dried up at the moment). My son is a healthy young adult. That's my biggest gratitude. And I am immensely grateful to people who have helped me without me even knowing it.
So many in fact, when I think about them. See? = reminders!!
-------------------------------
Another little habit is obsessively playing games on my iphone, (am lightly learning a bit of spanish...) or looking at twitter, or anything else that keeps me from thinking. I do find loads of interesting sites to take my mind off 'me' and the obsessing. Then, I can obsessively stay on the computer looking these things up for days (I sleep in between days though, no mania here!). At least it's a change from lying on the sofa and monging out with the tv. I don't want to say
OCD, I don't wash my hands or count things etc. I just change my clothes a lot if I get hooked into that behaviour/have a whirly head/check the door is locked a few times, sometimes... I don't want another fucking label! Labels don't help really apart from giving something a name and saying 'o that's what it is'. oh...
I know what helps but I get so stuck in the mind, in the thinking. What helps? This
video about creativity - when I do creative stuff my mind is occupied with what it needs to do. Painting is my thing so why don't I do it? because I am too busy worrying and talking shit to myself that's why, and worrying that I'm not actually much good etc! The worrying and the obsessiveness that used to be part of the creative process have somehow replaced the creative stuff...vicious circles...blah blah blah!
You want answers to the eternal 'why?!' and then you get them and you don't want them. What you
really want is a cure, a magic wand to take it all away. At the moment I just feel crushed, this stuff is keeping me down. They say you are where you are supposed to be but feeling stuck is painful. I don't want to get up in the mornings sometimes, sometimes it's 'oh God not another day!' but I have to as my cat goes on at me for hours otherwise, and, luckily it drives me out of bed. Good ol' kitty, poor ol' kitty.
I know a good anti negative talk idea is to turn those voices up in your head, make them into mickey mouse type voices. Bring them out from the shadows. Then you can see how silly they are. You may as well call the negative internal voices
Disapproving Rabbits, they are as silly and, when you truly look at them, as effective.
A disapproving Rabbit
The thing with anxiety, like depression (and most mental illnesses), is that it's sneaky. It sneaks up on you and suddenly you're in the middle of it. It's not like when I was at school and if asked a question off guard my mind would go blank and panicky. I was good at the sarky replies, of course, having well developed defence strategies like most teenagers, but it was all just a cover. I got older and learned to be a bit more sociable, So now it sneaks up on me, that's never changed really. Suddenly I'm noticing I'm freaked out. But maybe that's progress - noticing it. I don't know, I just want it all to stop! wahhhh! Sometimes, I just want my bottle. (little alcoholics joke there).
Anyway,
GAD
- Now I have a name for it. It's like when I discovered I had
depression. There was a name for it. There were shops full of books
about it. Other people had it! Cripes! Or
PTSD or that I was an
alcoholic etc etc.
We know it's all fear based.
Recovery is based on overcoming and managing this fear. And recovery
isn't easy for all of us suffering from excessive fear. Even if we know
that's what it is. On the Black Dog Tribe site there's a video for
'what helps?'.
Talking to others who have the same as you is what helps. Which is not
so easy when you have a fear of groups. (oh! it goes on!). Thankfully there are online
sites allowing one to keep a distance. And Lady GaGa's anthem Born This Way, of course.
Anxiety makes my head spin. Sometimes memories come up from eons ago, sometimes things make perfect sense and then they don't again. How frustrating is that?! Noises are
all meaningful at times (triggers), and I remind myself 'it's not anything to do with
me ffs!'. Ditto things going on outside where I live. People are just living their lives. As this article on Soulseeds says
'nothing is personal'. It's all
just a disease of ego. Diseases of ego are very very tiring. This also can lead to self blame - am I refusing to learn, refusing to 'let go'? In some ways possibly, but until you're ready, you're not ready... 'Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly', after all.
I watched the Marilyn Monroe documentary where she says words to the effect that not to be noticed is not to exist. When we look at her life story, her mother having mental health problems and her effect on MM it's not surprising she built up all her defence strategies to protect herself. It's what a person does when life hurts. It's a perfectly reasonable human response to a difficult childhood (see inner child link). That's what ego is about. It tells you it's completely necessary for
everyone in the world to accept you and love you because otherwise you just aren't acceptable...And a lot of them do, because a lot of them suffer the same as you. I know that to love in general (not in the particular), I don't have to like. Love = compassion but you don't have to be friends with all those you feel compassion for. You do
have to be friends with yourself though...always a work in progress...
NB I look to MM because she's a very famous example. I don't love
celebrity. But celebrity is the contemporary equivalent of the
archetypes, after all, since film stars happened along really.
Archetypes work well from the Greek and Roman gods to TOWIE. Maybe
that's why we are all obsessed with celebrity even if we don't worship
it.
This everything is connected idea also makes the anxious go into overdrive but then I read articles like
this one by Brian Cox, rockstar scientist and Very Interesting Chap. I can be a space pixie but New Age stuff also makes me laugh:
"The problem is that it sounds like woo woo, and quantum theory attracts
woo-woo merde- merchants like the pronouncements of New Age mystics
attract flies – metaphorically speaking".
Although, in the same article, he also accepts what anxious people already know - that life is
too fucking complicated!:
"To understand something as simple as a rainbow, we have to allow each
single particle of light to explore the entire universe on its journey
through the rain. This is magical, and there is plenty more in the
library of science".
So apart from the universe and the Theory of Chaos and Quantum Physics, I also worry about silly little things. Why do I
make such small molehills into mountains? GAD (and the single life) thats why. The other thing about seeing other peoples stories is I
don't say 'don't be stupid!' or 'ffs!' to others mental health problems and that throws into sharp relief the way I talk to myself. When I can catch it, 'I say it's ok, don't worry, it'll get better. It will pass' ad infinitum. And it does...till it comes back....Another thing is a group of Mad People together in conversation is very funny. Ever been to an AA meeting?
You see yourself in others and it's so silly. But there's a difference between empathy and being laughed at. L e t s f a c e i t :)
Knowing you have a mental illness is the start of recovery. I still find that hard to accept at times. I think hey, I'm fine! but then of course I stay in far too much, I'm on my own far too much and sometimes I'm a bit 'mental' i.e. in my head, far too much.
My eyes are going funny. Time to stop!
