Introducing Me!/Long, Very Long
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| Sat, 12-30-2006 - 4:42am |
If you are overwhelmed by how much I type I am so sorry. Take a break, come back to it later (if you are interested). I just have SO much to get out! I am just not quite sure where to start.
I am 27 and through counseling (no longer in counseling) I have discovered that I have more than likely been having anxiety attacks since I was around 2 or 3 years old. I have 2 older sisters (8 and 6 years older) and a younger brother (by 2 years). All 4 of us have problems with anxiety. We had a rough childhood but I try to remind myself that it could have been a lot worse. Both of our parents were abused pretty badly and we were lucky in the fact that they chose to break that cycle. However we were still exposed to their parents and were abused by our dad's parents.
The first time I have a memory of having an anxiety attack was when I was 7 years old. At the time I had no idea what was going on, but now knowing and looking back I can say, "Oh! That's what happened that day!" Knowing made so many moments in my life make sense. My siblings and I have sort of seperated ourselves into 2 groups. The nice ones and the crazies is what I call these groups. I am in the nice group (of course!) with my oldest sister. The other 2 I really only associate with because I love their kids to pieces. Us nice ones try really hard to please everyone else, to fix our families problems and tend to ignore ourselves. The crazy ones are selfish and don't take care of their kids and are very addicted to drugs. Sometimes seeing their numbers on caller ID is too much for me because they both only call me when they want something and I just don't have it in me to give to them anymore because of how much they have used me along with the rest of our family.
My oldest sister and I are alike in so many ways and get along very well. Our problems with anxiety are very similar. She deals with depression more often than I do though. I have gone through times where I have anxiety every single day for 4-5 months. I can't eat when I am anxious. Even putting a bite of food in my mouth makes me feel sick, chewing and swallowing is impossible. Last year at this time I was down to 110 lbs and was living off of ensure and boost drinks. It was a very exciting for me when I started gaining weight again!
My biggest trigger for anxiety is when I feel like things are out of my control. Even when it is something that was never in my control to begin with. Until I began seeing the right counselor who helped me to understand these things about me I completely wrecked relationships. Once anxiety is upon me my thoughts and feelings become completely irrational and somewhere deep, deep down inside I know it but it takes a while before I can convince myself of this. I don't really like to take medicine because of how easily addicted some of my siblings can get to things it's sort of a fear of mine. I have medicine that is to be taken on a need to basis. I always wait until it gets to its absolute worst before I take it.
So for the past few weeks it has been getting bad again and I am trying to figure out why, what is it that I feel is spinning out of my control? I just can't quite put my finger on it. I just started working for a new company so I am not able to see a doctor or counselor until my insurance kicks in. Also, I travel a lot for work. I don't really have a home I live in hotels in the Northwest reigion. I can never say where I will be when and just use my dad's address for mail and such. I have yet to find a counselor that is willing to do sessions over the phone and it is almost impossible for me to make an appointment and keep it. At the very least, and not very often, I work 10 hours a day. Usually 12, lately 13-14. I could say, okay I am going to be working in Seattle I'll find a counselor here. But the very next week I could be in Portland or somewhere in Eastern Washingotn. I know I need counseling, I still have so much to learn and work through. I just have no idea how I am going to accomplish that. The job that I am doing right now is not something that I plan on doing for the rest of my life but for now I really enjoy it and this is the first time I have ever enjoyed working so I don't want to quit to stay in one spot to get counseling. It's all just a confusing mess for me right now.
I guess right now I am just looking for a place to go where people may understand me and what it is that I go through.
Thanks for listening/reading. Any advice or helpful hints are way more than welcome and appreciated!
And oh I think my oldest sister posts on here once in a while so I just want to say LOVE YOU! ;)Thank goodness I've got you!

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Hi,
Welcome! This is a great group here, with ladies ready to listen, so come by anytime. ;)
I can certainly relate to the feelings of wanting control and stress/out of control issues setting off anxiety...that is a major trigger for me.
I also love to travel, so can relate to your liking the job. DH and I were team drivers for awhile and also spent 2 yrs on the road without a "home base" and moteling it for our time off. Those were good times, but it does make some things difficult.
Smiles,
Dee
Welcome! It's nice to see you on the board;) Sorry that the anxiety has returned. I have had spells where I just couldn't put my finger on the cause. I know that's really discombobulating. Sometimes I just tell myself to quit analyzing/controlling
I am very similar in a lot of respects (as many of us are-)
Thank you for the welcome! I do find I tell myself I need to move on a lot but it's hard to actually do so. Sometimes I think the guys at work must think I am crazy because I will suddenly say out loud something like, "You're okay, you're fine. You need to take some deep breaths and calm yourself down." My dad does know of my anxiety although he doesn't understand it. I work for him and I can say, "Hey dad I'm starting to get pretty anxious so I need to take a minute to figure this out."
I also just want to add that I have never been *FREE* from my anxieties. I have simply had moments of having it under control. It is an ongoing battle and one I know I will have to fight a lot in my life. Those small victories will one day become large victories I hope.
Destressing is a tough one for me. For most of my life when something upset me I was the girl who became instantly emotional and a lot of things made me just burst out in tears. And that does still happen a lot. But recently my instant reaction is anger and then the tears come later. I'm having a hard time understanding this, along with other things.
I use to find that writing really helped me a lot. I could sit down with a pen and some paper for hours and when I was done my thoughts were more organized instead of all over the place and I had learned/discovered at least one new thing about myself. Now it is almost as though I am forcing myself to write anything and what I do write is basic and there is no pouring out my soul onto paper as it once was. Like I lost touch with some intimate gift and I don't know how to find it again.
I recently started sewing (by hand). Only because I'd bought material and my sister was to make pillows for my boyfriend with it. Her sewing machine is ancient and the material is a very thick fleece. The machine couldn't handle the fleece so I decided to do it myself because he'd already been promised these pillows. I never expected it to be so relaxing! It is boring, it is repetitive; yet somehow I can get so lost in it.
I have been teaching myself how to crochet but that frustrates me to no end sometimes so I have decided it's best I hide from the yarn and needles until my anxiety is under better control.
As for my support group there are only two people I find myself opening up to these days. My oldest sister, because she understands this to an extent that no one else I know does; and my boyfriend.
I have two friends that I once told everything to. For different reasons I have been pulling myself away from each of them. In one of the relationships the give/take ratio was equal on both ends. Of course there were times when that changed because of unfortunate happenings. For example a break up, a death in the family. When we talk now it is all about her and her life and what she is dealing with. And it is like a broken record. She's not happy with her boyfriend because she is not getting everything she wants out of the relationship yet she is not willing to give him her thoughts and opinions on anything so how can she expect him to give when he has no idea what her needs are? Financially she gives, gives, gives, gives and he just takes it all. Most of our conversations are about those things and I got fed up to be honest. One day I asked her what she was going to do about the problems and she said, "Probably nothing other than tell you." When we are talking my issues and concerns are no longer brought up because once upon a time she listened, but she stopped somewhere. I would be trying to talk to her over the phone and she would be zoned out watching tv or holding an entirely different conversation with someone in the room with her. I can recall once we were on the phone and she asked how I was, I told her I was stressed out. She said, "ME TOO!" Then went on and on and on about her problems with her boyfriend. I listened, gave her my thoughts and opinions. When it seemed it was my turn I started venting and literally in the middle of a sentence she started going off on her stuff again. When she was done she had to go. So, basically I don't feel she is concerned with me anymore and I don't feel I have anything left to give her at this point in my life. I have come to a point in which I am feeling it is in my best interest to focus on myself and get myself better and make myself be my number one priority.
My other friend has three kids, one of which has a disability. Her disabled son sees three specialists every week, goes to two different play groups with children like himself. Then she takes her youngest daughter to two play groups a week also. And her oldest is very athletic. She has a busy, busy life. When we do find time to sit down and talk I avoid my problems for the most part because she already has enough on her plate. It doesn't help that she is practically a single mom. She started having problems with panic attacks about a year ago and from what she has described they are very different from my anxiety. She can't seem to differentiate the two and has almost become controlling in telling me what I should do and when. When someone tries to control anything in my life I go in the very, very opposite direction. We have discovered it is best for our friendship to just leave my anxiety and her panic out of conversation unless we can specifically say, "I am having an anxiety attack because..." and give it an exact reason.
My boyfriend is WOW to me. Truly a gift. I hold nothing back from him and he wouldn't want it any other way. In my past relationships I either had not yet identified my anxiety or was in the process of learning about it (on my own at that point) and it, along with other things, caused severe problems. I have always said it would take someone special to handle me and oh boy I was right! When I met him I was still in counseling and my anxiety was under control. Only crept up on me once in a while. When things started getting bad I told him I know I can be hard to handle during these times and if at any point he needed a break from it that I wouldn't blame him or be angry with him over it. He said, "No, we are a team now and we will get through this TOGETHER. And every time we have to fight this thing it will be easier than the time before because we will know even more about what we are dealing with." We live 800-900 miles away from each other (depending on where I am) and it is amazing each time we get to visit. We joke about it because he says that the first hug always gives him this nice little warm rush of adrenaline. I say mine finally goes away. And it does and it totally shocks me every single time. What is it about this man that his touch can chase my anxiety away? I do get a little worried at times because I know I have come to depend on him. He is okay with that and I am most days, so why should I fear it? I try to let myself know that it's okay. There are things he depends on me for as well, we are together and plan to be for the rest of our lives, so it's okay to depend on him at times.
Sleep and exercise...I'll start with exercise. I get plenty of it at work. Most days my job is to hole watch and it's COLD outside so I jog in place a lot and things of that sort to keep warm. My legs are PURE muscle, something I am very proud of. When I am not hole watching I am either doing very physical work and that to me is so thrilling; or I am trying to find something to do to keep myself busy. When I am trying to keep myself busy I end up cleaning up a lot and the things I clean up are heavy. So while I am carrying them to their final destination I do arm lifts and such with them. Not exactly your normal form of exercise, but I do get plenty of it and I find it a lot of fun most days.
Sleep, ah sleep. It's a struggle. When I get off of work there are so many things I find I want to do. Write, sew, read, whatever it is it seems like I don't have enough time. When I walk through the door I head straight for the bathroom and take a shower, find something to eat. Then I set my sights on one of those three things. I find I stay up too late most nights trying to get so much of one or two things done. I regret it the next day and I am SO tired at work. Then when I get off I am so excited to have free time that I get quite hyper. Then on my weekends it's like all I do is sleep. I will think of things I need/want to do over the weekend but it's rare it ever gets done. I can sleep the entire weekend through and when I am not asleep I just want to be lazy. I will mostly just lay down and read for most of the time unless I am visiting my sister. Her kids are very, very, very active and yank the blankets off of me and tell me to get out of bed.
Food, fast food is SO easy! When I don't have a room with a stove and fridge I eat out a lot. When my insurance kicks in I do plan on talking to my doctor about how to eat healthier while living on the road. Also, I need more protien in my diet. I know this for a fact. I mostly only eat chicken and fish. Once in a while I will eat pork products, but I NEVER eat beef.
And as for the medications no, it is not something I can get past. I worry about getting addicted for so many different reasons. The klonopin especially scares me. My mom has been on it for about eight years. She also has anxiety but she absolutely has to keep it under control at all costs because her heart is a fragile thing. She has already had five heart attacks, two of which were massive. She had to go without her medicine for a few days and she had a seizure because the withdrawals were so severe. Right now I am on seroquel and I am basically in charge of self medicating. The pills I have are 25 mg and I can take up to four at one time. I have not, WILL NOT, allow myself to take more than two. And besides after two I am basically passed out anyway. I got on seroquel because I was in between doctors, mine had moved and I hadn't had the time to find a new one. I went to a walk in clinic and saw this one dr because of something entirely different then he happened to call and check up on me while I was in the midst of a horrible anxiety attack. I went to see him that night and he gave me the seroquel knowing my situation because it is non-addictive. Knowing that it is not an addictive drug I still fear it. Once in a while I will tell my boyfriend that I think I have to take it and he says, "It's okay love, try to remember that is what it is there for. It is to help you, not harm you." I just can't overcome my fear of addiction. I have been told it is a healthy fear. Beyond my immediate family I have a very, very large one and most of my aunts and uncles (almost twenty of them all together) have been/are currently addicted to something.
Through counseling I overcame this guilt I felt every single time I spent any of my very own money on myself. I could spend an entire check on other people and would cry if I bought myself a pair of jeans. So, today I feel some shopping therapy is in order! I went a little bit crazy when I first overcame it and bought TONS of jeans. Then I started gaining the weight and they no longer fit. Over Christmas I donated about 21 pairs to different women's shelters. Which felt amazing because I do get a certain satisfaction out of helping others. However I was left with only a single pair that still fit me. If you have ever seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, I have those magical jeans. They somehow manage to stick with me no matter how much weight I lose or gain. I have had them for years and years and wear them a lot yet there is no sign of them being old. No thinning stitches, no frayed hems. They are magic!
Thank you for your help. I do plan on giving that web site a very, very thorough look see when I get home.
I am so glad I found this board!!
Hi, I'm glad you found us!
Sheri Ann
Ok, let's get things straight here. A week or so ago, I began typing with grey because the black on white hurt my eyes. I kicked the size up to 4 because... well, I thought I required larger print. Good Lord in heaven, Sheri Ann! What is with this tiny purple print you're using? I swear I am using a magnifying glass.
I just read an article about the lack of vitamin A causing night blindness, so... you guessed it! I think I have night blindness. Now, I have some sort of trouble reading your posts. Tell me the truth. Is it me? Should I see the eye dr.? I am afraid to go if I have something the matter. Oh my... You will be my undoing, gf;) jan
Will this work for you older folks??? lol.
Sheri Ann
Hi Sheri Ann,
I like the purple (love those happy colors LOL), but the larger font is easier to read. ;)
Smiles,
Dee
Sheri Ann
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