What I’ve learnt

It’s been just a little over a month since I’ve started taking my anxiety medications and there are some things that I have learnt over that time…I have learnt a lot! Mainly about myself, but I wanted to share my experiences with you and maybe we could learn together!

• Coffee – I loved coffee but oh my goodness! I stopped having it for a while and I went to have a cup recently and “Oh my Goodness” You can feel how your mind becomes messed with up coffee, especially when you haven’t had it for a while. It’s almost like being on a low dosed mind altering drug.
• Eating well – I have been a LOT better lately and I have actually been losing weight. It’s been amazing! I feel when I eat a lot of bad food I just feel sick. Probably something to do with what is altering my mind to suffer from less anxiety can’t cope with bad food very well. It needs nutrients!
• Activity – I guess because mine isn’t a social anxiety, I have been trying to do a lot more things. So I’ve been doing a lot more things, so I’m not thinking about anxiety all the time.
• Saying all that as well – I’ve been finding on how I’m feeling that there are certain things I just cannot watch anymore. For the moment, if I see a program regarding mental health I have to be really carefully about not setting myself off.

• Yourself – Sometimes it can feel very lonely to be going through this. What I’ve learnt is that even people who say “get over it” Do want too help. They just don’t understand. I’ve learnt to speak more up for myself.
• Relaxation – I am natural worrier, it’s the hardest thing in my life to just “relax” and not worry. This is my hardest lesson. It’s also though how I am trying the hardest in my life to just “relax”. I feel if I could truly learn to do this, my anxiety would just ‘go away’. When I start to feel a bit anxious, I like to sing a song in my head and just repeat. While I find something to occupy my mind with.

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Taking a step backward…Step FORWARD!

Maybe not the best way to set up a Monday, but I felt like it was a point that I wanted to talk about, of something that happened to me over the weekend. I felt like I had taken a huge step back.

*Just warning…If you do suffer from a anxiety and you’re having a bad day, this post may not be for you today. Even though there is a positive message behind it. I don’t want to be responsible for any triggering.*

Friday morning i had the day off of work and with how well I had been on Thursday, I had decided to head out and do some shopping on the Friday morning. Lately I have been ordering pretty much everything online, because I don’t know how I am going to be from one day to the other.

Taking you back to last year, after an traumatic incident, I have developed an, well I think, a really odd form of anxiety. Too break it down, because someone, who will remain nameless at this point, decided that no, they could not pull over (even though we went past a McDonald’s, a gas station AND a public toilet) and let me out to get to a toilet. I spent 20 minutes basically trapped in a car, actually NEEDING to get out. After the person had left me hanging all day while I drunk tea all day and no food. We were supposed to go clothes shopping, but they had to do some things in the morning. Which was fine, but once it got to 3pm, I was starting to get annoyed. I didn’t know if we were eating, was I supposed to eat first. I was actually in the middle of a text to let them not to bother, when they finally showed up. Our clothes stores close at 5pm on the weekend.

So giving that they finally turned up, we basically run out of the door, which was a bad idea. I didn’t go to the toilet before we left and I had been drinking all day, to fill my stomach. I had been filling my bladder instead.Since then whenever I am in a car, or travelling. I get anxious and feel like I need to get to a toilet badly. I have been getting better with help of hypnotherapy.

I was actually getting better, until a couple of weeks ago. I had one bad night, where I don’t even know what happened, but my stomach hurt and I just had to go. Then it feels like it’s gotten worse, with a rare good day here and there, and just this Friday morning I nearly ended up crying in a shopping mall. It was horrible and I hate it.

I felt SO fed up, I’m tired of fighting it because it’s feels so stupid. When I do go, even in the woes of panic, nothing happens…I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating it is, how tiring it is. I can’t just do things on a whim and even when I plan things, it still doesn’t always work out. I’m alright coming back and forth from work and sometimes travelling to my partners house I do really well.

Then I have mornings like I did Friday…

I try not to be too hard on myself, I’m doing well every well else, just more necessarily when I have a “duty”.

 That’s the whole thing though, I am so tired of it, that I now have a plan. I had stopped doing all the things that had helped when I started to get better, because I swear just that one bad moment has seemingly ruined it all.

1. So instead of doing it once a week, like I was before. I’m not going to be mediating and listening to my hypnosis tapes, at LEAST every second day. Definitely the night before long trips.
2. I have to promise to myself to not be so hard on myself.
3. When I go shopping by myself, if I need to leave, then I need to leave…It’s alright
4. I have to start walking my dog again, because that was what honestly what started to heal me before. Whether that be a 5 minute walk or a 30 minute walk, I handle what I can handle. That’s what I used to do before. The walks got longer and longer over time.
5. No coffee before long drives.
6. Mostly, it’s okay to admit I am not okay, but I will be. I am not going to let this defeat me.
7. Trying to figure out a way to calm my mind down before I get into a car, especially with those unexpected trips.

I would actually really like any ideas, or any suggestions about any of the above, or if you want to share…Please feel free…No judgement!

Anxiety in Literature

(I’m not 100% sure that Babur is even a real person)