Mom with a side of anxiety

   Last year, I was diagnosed with social anxiety and depression. I was seeing a therapist and put on medications. Christmas was rough, I started having panic attacks in public settings. I had at least 4-5 in a span of two weeks. I went back to my doctor, had a dosage adjustment and have only had one panic attack in six weeks.

    I took a big step and landed a part-time job. I started last week. It's a great fit for me, even with my social anxiety. I'm working in the warehouse of the local comic book store we frequent. I spend a large majority of my time alone. and I couldn't be more comfortable with that. I have tasks to accomplish and focus on and just keep going. I can not tell you how wonderful it is to be working again! And, thanks to the owners and managers of the store, I'm working around Mac's schedule. I could not have asked for a more awesome group of people to call co-workers!

    Everything sounds like it's going great for me, right? Honestly it's as close to perfect as I can get. Until the last 2 days. Friday night I forgot to refill one of my medications. I had plans to do it Saturday, but forgot. I finally refilled it yesterday. Saturday night I had one of my all-too familiar anxiety fueled dreams. The most awful part of these types of dreams is that, even after I wake up I still feel stuck in the dream. I don't shake the emotions the dreams bring up, even after I'm awake. I feel like I'm in a fog the whole day. I try my best to "power thru" the day, but it's not always possible.
   This morning was worse. Even though I had taken my medications last night, I fought for sleep until after 2:30am only to be tormented by more anxiety fueled dreams with a side of near panic-inducing nightmares. I woke up so anxious I couldn't take being touched///not even by Nixon. These are the days I HATE anxiety! Nixon is the most affectionate child, always giving hugs and telling us "I love you". It hurts when I have to tell him I can't be touched right now. This morning, a hug from Nixon made me feel like I was going to jump out of my skin and scream! Mac tried comforting with a simple hand on my shoulder and I nearly lost it.
 
    Skipping a day or two of my medications is not something I do regularly. In fact, I usually refill a week in advance to avoid a gap in dosages, but shit happens. Now I'm trying to get back on track and not let these demons dwelling in my head win.

    I didn't feel like writing this post. Mac suggested it. Sometimes he has a good idea. I'm glad I wrote this, because for every good day I have it gets easier to think I'm "cured". Days like today remind me of how far I've come and how quickly I could regress if I fail to take my medications. I don't want to be on meds forever, but this was an unexpected affirmation that for now, I still need them.

Insane, coping or just cracking up??

  This past Saturday, Mac gave me the day to myself. We did our usual breakfast together, as a family, and then we came home and I was "free"!!! I gathered my camera, cellphone (this is not always with me. Unlike back in the states where my cell was glues to my hand, here it's frequently left in my purse or on a shelf forgotten and unused for days), iPod, tablet, wallet, hoodie and car keys. Tossed the essentials in my purse, kissed the boys goodbye, grabbed directions to my first and only planned location for the day, and headed out.  I spent a little over 5 1/2 hours just driving around the island, stopping randomly to take photos and following my gut on where I wanted to go. I went to a sunflower festival, one castle ruin site, I drove to an island off Okinawa stopping at a rest stop on the bridge halfway there and watched the locals fish, I went to a tomb on the island and got the weirdest vibe that I was most unwelcome there and promptly left, continued driving on the island until I reached a small beach where I was befriended by a most curious little calico kitten. The whole time, I don't remember one thing I thought about. I let myself be free and not dwell on much of anything. I thought of my sister while walking through the sunflower maze because she loves sunflowers! I thought how odd it was that an obviously stray kitten, would just wander up to me and lie down beside me like she's known me all her life or as if she had been expecting me, when I'd witness her shy away from the few other occupants of the same beach. I considered myself lucky that she granted me the pleasure of her presence and I thanked her for her company when I left to head home. 
    For those few hours, I remembered how it felt to be alone in my head.


    Until I got home and started to reflect on my day. Then my anxiety seemed to get the best of me and it was in a most ridiculous manner. I drove over 2 large bridges to get to the small island I spent apart of my day exploring. After I was safely home and had tucked Nixon into bed, I started thinking of things that could have gone wrong. What if there had been an earthquake and one of the bridges was destroyed?? How would I have gotten back to Mac and Nixon? I didn't even know the island I was on and I didn't speak enough Japanese to get by! How would I have asked for help or a place to stay in that kind of situation?? I was really freaking out, even though I was home and none of that happened! I was just walking around, assuming I'd be safe alone, with only my camera/car keys and cellphone in a foreign country being very obviously not from there! I'd felt perfectly at peace while doing it, but for some reason when I came home and saw my husband and son, I felt like I had taken HUGE risks doing it and still don't get it. Shouldn't those feelings have been coming up WHILE I was out there doing it?? 
    Wow, I might be a little more fucked up that I gave myself credit for!! (Yes, I do realize I NEED to make another appointment with my mental health doctor. It just amazes me how these things seem to creep up on me despite my best efforts to just be normal and relax.)


    Lately, with the move and Nixon's tantrums and defiant attitude, I feel I'm never alone in my head. I'm constantly making lists and trying to check things off one by one. Or I'm going over a situation for 2-5 different possible angles and I'm questioning and doubting myself and the way I handled it. I read too much into everything these days because I'm spending so much time alone with Nixon, since Mac is on midnight's and having to go in on days off (today and  yesterday) to get our travel packet done and handed in. It's shit like that, that's out of my control that really push my into overdrive! If it were up to me, that fucking packet would've been done and in by Feb 1st. But now we're almost to the middle of the goddamned month and it's still not fucking done! The longer it takes, the longer we wait to get travel dates and I need a fucking travel date because I NEED to know my cats are coming home with us!! But it seems that no matter how many times I explain this to him, Mac does what Mac does and just tells me to relax!


   Relax....as if it's magically going to get better because he said a word and told me to do it! Well, It doesn't get better. In fact, I can "relax" during the day, but you know what ends up happening? I end up with panicky dreams and tossing and turning nights because MY MIND WON'T FUCKING RELAX UNTIL SOMETHING FUCKING HAPPENS!!  


So insane or just cracking up?? I haven't decided yet. I know what the issues are. I can control them while I'm awake, it's just while I'm sleeping that they get the better of me....


And now, some photos from my Saturday Alone :)

inside the sunflower maze

the castle ruin site

view from the top of the many stairs I climbed

marker at castle ruins

sunflower with a bee

sunflower field!

my little calico friend

the tomb with the wonky vibe

men fishing off the pier of the rest stop

    

also on the same small alcove with the wonky tomb
I found it simplistically beautiful

Lunch or friend??? I never got the answer to that question.