A really big part of my anxiety is the mind chatter and I thought I'd share a sample with you
I hope I don't come across as a total mentalist but it would be interesting to see if anyone could identify !
This is a glimpse inside my mind chatter from this morning. Lets call the two bits of my brain chatting AB ( anxious brain ) and RB ( rational brain )
To set the scene : I drove my six year old to school and made my way into the school hall to watch her class assembly
AB : Shit - should have got here earlier . Now I have to step through seated children to get to the chairs at the back. What if I tread on a kid
RB : Shut up and walk
** I find a seat and assembly starts **
AB : What if I faint ?
RB : Why would you faint - you haven't fainted in 12 years . Why would you faint. Oh just shut up
AB : Look I'm just saying , if I did faint ... then I would really frighten E ( daughter )
RB : Oh for F's sake ... you're not going to faint ..... shut up and watch the assembly
** watch for a bit **
AB : Gosh I feel really hot
RB : Shut up - don't even start with the " what if I get so hot I pass out " rubbish. Watch the assembly
** watch for a bit **
AB : Okay I'm just saying I'm going to stretch out my feet so they're not so hot and If I did faint then I could maybe faint quitely on that bit of the floor there
RB : SHUT UP .
*** finish watching assembly **
AB : Maybe I should just go home after instead of shopping for the casserole stuff just incase I get all panicky in the shop
RB : Shut up - I don't care if you get panicky in the shop - it wont kill you - you're going now shhhhusssh
AB : Okay
** See little one quickly - tell her assembly was fab - go shopping and guess what - I'm fine **
I'm obviously not chatting like that to myself all the time but thats a fairly example of when my irrational anxious and panicky side comes out
I'm so glad I can joke about it now - it makes ALL the difference
Happy thanksgiving to all my US online peeps - enjoy that turkey
Thursday 24 November 2011
Friday 18 November 2011
Online CBT
I've just looked at my notes from some online Cognital behavioural Therapy I did a year ago when I started to take steps to overcome the anxiety and panic which had hit me.By coincidence the notes were from almost exactly a year ago minus a couple of days
I just want to go back and give myself the biggest hug. I'm obviously so lost and confused and frightened about what was happening to me :-(
There were some notes I made after a panic attack while I was in the house with OH and daughter ( then aged 5) one weekend afternoon and its just so sad to read how my main concern was to try and hide it from them so I didn't upset my little girl and how I was worried that I wouldn't be able to cope with doing day to day basics if this was going to keep happening
It shows that once you realise that once you managed to get over the fear of the actual panic and anxiety feelings then life just feels managable again
I actually had some low level panicky feelings while driving with OH to pick up stepson yesterday and instead of it being an issue then I was just mildly irrated with the hyperventilation feeling and made an effort to chat away and I forgot about it within a couple of minutes
Although I'm a bit sad about how much I struggled when I read back then I also can see now just how far I've come and how its made me take a good look at my life and make sure that I'm trying to do things which enrich my future rather than just floating along and taking whatever is thrown at me with a feeling of bewilderment
I'm definately going to redo the course over the next couple of weeks when I get some downtime . I only got halfway through last time so it should be an eye opener to see what is in the second part.
If anyone ever reads this who is back where I was then I promise you the key to starting to get better is realising that it wont hurt you however uncomfortable it feels at the time. Once you stop avoiding situations just incase you panic then you stop worrying about panicing and bit by bit then the panics power fades
I'm really finding blogging therapeuatic at the moment - and it great to see so many other people writting interesting posts in their blogger. I cant go to sleep at night now without checking out the updated blogs on my list
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Action Time
The mad few anxiety ridden days out of the blue seem to have settled now and I feel much less jittery and icky.
The good points of the last week are that I've decided that I can't sit on my laurels and just wait for anxiety to pop along every few week - some positive action is needed as I've been a bit inert lately
I've been trying to avoid stodgy food , drink more water and I'm trying to add a half hour walk to my morning routine. So far so good ( well for the last two days so early days really )
This strolling about is going to require something to keep me amused if I'm to keep it up. I've been popping on my headphones and doing a walking meditation on my iphone as I scamper about but I think there are probably only so many mornings I will be able to listen to the soothing lady telling me to feel the air on my skin and breath in and out . I'm trying to work out how to get audiobooks on my phone which should do the trick
Always keen to buy equipment for any new venture I popped on to ebay and bought some new headphones as mine are broken slightly. In a fit of madness I ordered ones with a faux leopard fur covering the headphone over ear bits - what WAS I thinking .
While I'm on a roll then I'm going to start working through some CBT online again. Its a free course which I did half of a year ago ( site called Live Life to the Full) . When I first did it then I was all a whirl with confusion and fear over this new found panic and anxiety and I remember thinking I was going to be waiting in fear for the next panic attack forever. I think its going to do me a lot of good re-doing the course with fresh eyes now that I know more about anxiety and panic and know that its not something to be terrified of.
Gosh that all sounds very productive doesn't it. Time for a cup of tea
The good points of the last week are that I've decided that I can't sit on my laurels and just wait for anxiety to pop along every few week - some positive action is needed as I've been a bit inert lately
I've been trying to avoid stodgy food , drink more water and I'm trying to add a half hour walk to my morning routine. So far so good ( well for the last two days so early days really )
This strolling about is going to require something to keep me amused if I'm to keep it up. I've been popping on my headphones and doing a walking meditation on my iphone as I scamper about but I think there are probably only so many mornings I will be able to listen to the soothing lady telling me to feel the air on my skin and breath in and out . I'm trying to work out how to get audiobooks on my phone which should do the trick
Always keen to buy equipment for any new venture I popped on to ebay and bought some new headphones as mine are broken slightly. In a fit of madness I ordered ones with a faux leopard fur covering the headphone over ear bits - what WAS I thinking .
While I'm on a roll then I'm going to start working through some CBT online again. Its a free course which I did half of a year ago ( site called Live Life to the Full) . When I first did it then I was all a whirl with confusion and fear over this new found panic and anxiety and I remember thinking I was going to be waiting in fear for the next panic attack forever. I think its going to do me a lot of good re-doing the course with fresh eyes now that I know more about anxiety and panic and know that its not something to be terrified of.
Gosh that all sounds very productive doesn't it. Time for a cup of tea
Monday 14 November 2011
Nightime Anxiety
I count myself lucky that on the whole - my anxiety limits itself to the day or specific situations and it hibernates at night leaving me to relax a little
On Friday night I had three drinks and I struggled to fall asleep until about 2am and was up earlyish with my daughter. On Saturday night I didn't drink anything and I struggled to fall asleep until 2am and woke up at 7.30am as OH leaving for work woke up daughter
I therefore thought I would be set for a cracking nights sleep last night. I had five units of drink over the course of the evening doing some christmas shopping research online and then had two cups of herbal tea as I had started to feel flustered
I got into bed and felt a low level panic attack coming on My breathing went a bit hyperventilaty , heart felt fast and I felt a little confused and started the usual thoughts of what if this isn't a panic attack - what if I cant breath normally for someother reason .All the usually what if suspects
I know better than to just lie there after it hasn't gone away after 20 mins or so so I diverted my attention to wandering aimlessly round upstairs , plucking my eyebrows and took two Kalms tablets . All the things one does at 1am on a Monday morning. I felt the panic attack feeling go although the anxiety was still there and so I fiddled on my phone for a bit then put Iplayer radio on and listened to some comedy , went down and made a cuppa and dropped off about 2.30am
The point of this post is that I did good. I'm learning. I remembered to give the kalms tablets a try , I made an effort to remind myself that not sleeping isn't a major drama and tiredness the next day while inconvenient wont be a disaster
I think the only thing I would add in next time is trying to do a guided mediation or something
I dont feel anxious this morning really - some other times I have felt anxious about the fact I felt anxious and panicky and was tense incase it came back the next day which makes a cycle
I also think I know what kicked it off. Two things
The main one was I was writing in my private journal online about things not going so well with OH at the moment and the fact I dont know what to do about it. I think admitting there are problems out loud ( or on paper / screen ) made things a little more real and set off some low level panic. There has been quite a bit of sitting in silence tension between us this weekend and some tears on my part which no doubt aren't the key to relaxing
The second thing is silly but true. I was messing around with a mini breathalyser I have in the drawer and tested it and it showed a BAC result of 0.06 which shocked me a little as I felt that was high for consuming the equivalent of half a bottle of wine over four hours and I started to have some irrational thoughts about being drunk. After a cup of herbal tea the reading was nearly zero ( I tested it a few times and got the same result ) and I now realise I took the 0.06 reading straight after swallowing a swig of barcardi and coke instead of waiting 30 minutes so it was a false high. I am **fully** aware that this paragraph shows how odd this anxiety makes me at times
Okay off to stumble my way sleepy eyed through the day. I plan to be kind to myself today and I'm looking forward to bedtime already - its 9.48am !
On Friday night I had three drinks and I struggled to fall asleep until about 2am and was up earlyish with my daughter. On Saturday night I didn't drink anything and I struggled to fall asleep until 2am and woke up at 7.30am as OH leaving for work woke up daughter
I therefore thought I would be set for a cracking nights sleep last night. I had five units of drink over the course of the evening doing some christmas shopping research online and then had two cups of herbal tea as I had started to feel flustered
I got into bed and felt a low level panic attack coming on My breathing went a bit hyperventilaty , heart felt fast and I felt a little confused and started the usual thoughts of what if this isn't a panic attack - what if I cant breath normally for someother reason .All the usually what if suspects
I know better than to just lie there after it hasn't gone away after 20 mins or so so I diverted my attention to wandering aimlessly round upstairs , plucking my eyebrows and took two Kalms tablets . All the things one does at 1am on a Monday morning. I felt the panic attack feeling go although the anxiety was still there and so I fiddled on my phone for a bit then put Iplayer radio on and listened to some comedy , went down and made a cuppa and dropped off about 2.30am
The point of this post is that I did good. I'm learning. I remembered to give the kalms tablets a try , I made an effort to remind myself that not sleeping isn't a major drama and tiredness the next day while inconvenient wont be a disaster
I think the only thing I would add in next time is trying to do a guided mediation or something
I dont feel anxious this morning really - some other times I have felt anxious about the fact I felt anxious and panicky and was tense incase it came back the next day which makes a cycle
I also think I know what kicked it off. Two things
The main one was I was writing in my private journal online about things not going so well with OH at the moment and the fact I dont know what to do about it. I think admitting there are problems out loud ( or on paper / screen ) made things a little more real and set off some low level panic. There has been quite a bit of sitting in silence tension between us this weekend and some tears on my part which no doubt aren't the key to relaxing
The second thing is silly but true. I was messing around with a mini breathalyser I have in the drawer and tested it and it showed a BAC result of 0.06 which shocked me a little as I felt that was high for consuming the equivalent of half a bottle of wine over four hours and I started to have some irrational thoughts about being drunk. After a cup of herbal tea the reading was nearly zero ( I tested it a few times and got the same result ) and I now realise I took the 0.06 reading straight after swallowing a swig of barcardi and coke instead of waiting 30 minutes so it was a false high. I am **fully** aware that this paragraph shows how odd this anxiety makes me at times
Okay off to stumble my way sleepy eyed through the day. I plan to be kind to myself today and I'm looking forward to bedtime already - its 9.48am !
Friday 11 November 2011
Lists , lists as long as your arm
I've always been a list maker ever since I was little.
My favourite part of any activity which requires organisation is sitting and writing down the lists of what needs to be done and when and planning everything. Not so keen on the actual doing a lot of the time which is a bit of a draw back to the whole plan succeeding
I've increasingly found over the last year that when I have a list of things to do then I get in a right tizzy and a panic from the very start. Even a very simple list can make my head spin.
I started to notice that whenever I had things to do on a deadline , even if they were simple tasks then I would start to feel weak and shaky. At one point then I would start to shake when I sat infront on my laptop and hyperventilate slightly
Seriously irritating . Having said all that then I've still managed to event manage all the events over the last year which I've needed to do to keep my business going so it goes to prove I can still do it shaking like a leaf inside so I just need to keep going and all will come good
I've stopped writing crazy long lists each day as it just makes me feel bad when I don't tick everything off and this last week I've had my main list with everything under the sun on it which is full of less important things and then I have a small daily list with the absolute to do-s on it and that seems to be working better for me on the calmness front. I've also been putting one thing on the list thats not work like catching up with a TV series or reading. Oddly enough having a relaxation item on my to do list helps
I'm still a work in progress but at least theres progress overall
My favourite part of any activity which requires organisation is sitting and writing down the lists of what needs to be done and when and planning everything. Not so keen on the actual doing a lot of the time which is a bit of a draw back to the whole plan succeeding
I've increasingly found over the last year that when I have a list of things to do then I get in a right tizzy and a panic from the very start. Even a very simple list can make my head spin.
I started to notice that whenever I had things to do on a deadline , even if they were simple tasks then I would start to feel weak and shaky. At one point then I would start to shake when I sat infront on my laptop and hyperventilate slightly
Seriously irritating . Having said all that then I've still managed to event manage all the events over the last year which I've needed to do to keep my business going so it goes to prove I can still do it shaking like a leaf inside so I just need to keep going and all will come good
I've stopped writing crazy long lists each day as it just makes me feel bad when I don't tick everything off and this last week I've had my main list with everything under the sun on it which is full of less important things and then I have a small daily list with the absolute to do-s on it and that seems to be working better for me on the calmness front. I've also been putting one thing on the list thats not work like catching up with a TV series or reading. Oddly enough having a relaxation item on my to do list helps
I'm still a work in progress but at least theres progress overall
Monday 7 November 2011
A veritable whirlwind of stress
My sweetness of doing nothing experiment bombed. Big time
As I indicated in my post before last , I managed the nothing part but the sweetness - no sirree Bob.
The pattern seems to be with my anxiety is that as soon as I notice a new symptom then I must panic in my head which intensifies it . After a few days / weeks then I can talk myself into accepting its not permanant and I can start to overcome the symptom.
It sounds like it should be really easy to stop straight away but it would appear that however simple it sounds then I can't do it
So this weeks "every muscle tensed and feeling of fear like someone is pointing a gun at me " stayed with me for a few days and it was icccky
Although it seemed to start for no reason it was compounded by a huge last minute work booking , slow client payment which meant I couldn't do the necessary organising until payment cleared , then to top it off someone smashed our car window in the middle of the night ( why why why why would anyone do that for fun ? ) , and then once the job was over I had a great plan to sooth my muscles with a hot bath and wind down and the bloody arsing boiler blew a gasket and we've been without hot water or heating for 3 days now because boilers only ever break down late on a Friday when no parts are available don't they ?
Thats all a ramble really as plenty of other people have weeks like that without being so tense they are internally shaking so only I can fix that part
I had a few drinks on Thursday after the client event was finished with the staff . It didn't help. There was no whooooosh and relax - infact I got a bit more tense . I'm annoyed about that illogically ( or maybe logically ) You see that wooosh and relax feeling is fairly much why I drink alcohol so without it then I've lost my reason to drink at all.
Its all a bit chicken and egg . Do I drink because I have anxiety and it helps release the pressure valve. Or do I have such a dodgy pressure valve because I'm using alcohol to relax which is impreding me from learning other ways. I didn't fancy a drink Friday , Saturday or Sunday and felt no less tense infact on Saturday the muscles in my neck got so high up that I had the worst headache all day and had to go out and buy extra deep heat spray to unlock it ( as I couldn't soak in the bath - did I mention the boilers broken - did I , did I ?? lol)
I genuinely don't know. Its not like I'm drinking everyday or at whopping amounts but now my mind is worried about drinking then even little amounts send me more tense sometimes
My anxiety was so much in over drive on Saturday that I went out and bought a carbon monixide alarm to check my headache wasn't from the broken boiler leaking gas
And just to finish this crazy ass disjointed post the plumbers just left and he brought the wrong part and can't get the right one until tomorrow PLUS OH just called and somethings gone wrong with the car electrics meaning the brake lights aren't working so he's now heading to the garage AND I've just gone to spray deep heat on my shoulder muscle and blasted myself in the ear .
I need a deep breath and a few days of good healthy food and a bath!
As I indicated in my post before last , I managed the nothing part but the sweetness - no sirree Bob.
The pattern seems to be with my anxiety is that as soon as I notice a new symptom then I must panic in my head which intensifies it . After a few days / weeks then I can talk myself into accepting its not permanant and I can start to overcome the symptom.
It sounds like it should be really easy to stop straight away but it would appear that however simple it sounds then I can't do it
So this weeks "every muscle tensed and feeling of fear like someone is pointing a gun at me " stayed with me for a few days and it was icccky
Although it seemed to start for no reason it was compounded by a huge last minute work booking , slow client payment which meant I couldn't do the necessary organising until payment cleared , then to top it off someone smashed our car window in the middle of the night ( why why why why would anyone do that for fun ? ) , and then once the job was over I had a great plan to sooth my muscles with a hot bath and wind down and the bloody arsing boiler blew a gasket and we've been without hot water or heating for 3 days now because boilers only ever break down late on a Friday when no parts are available don't they ?
Thats all a ramble really as plenty of other people have weeks like that without being so tense they are internally shaking so only I can fix that part
I had a few drinks on Thursday after the client event was finished with the staff . It didn't help. There was no whooooosh and relax - infact I got a bit more tense . I'm annoyed about that illogically ( or maybe logically ) You see that wooosh and relax feeling is fairly much why I drink alcohol so without it then I've lost my reason to drink at all.
Its all a bit chicken and egg . Do I drink because I have anxiety and it helps release the pressure valve. Or do I have such a dodgy pressure valve because I'm using alcohol to relax which is impreding me from learning other ways. I didn't fancy a drink Friday , Saturday or Sunday and felt no less tense infact on Saturday the muscles in my neck got so high up that I had the worst headache all day and had to go out and buy extra deep heat spray to unlock it ( as I couldn't soak in the bath - did I mention the boilers broken - did I , did I ?? lol)
I genuinely don't know. Its not like I'm drinking everyday or at whopping amounts but now my mind is worried about drinking then even little amounts send me more tense sometimes
My anxiety was so much in over drive on Saturday that I went out and bought a carbon monixide alarm to check my headache wasn't from the broken boiler leaking gas
And just to finish this crazy ass disjointed post the plumbers just left and he brought the wrong part and can't get the right one until tomorrow PLUS OH just called and somethings gone wrong with the car electrics meaning the brake lights aren't working so he's now heading to the garage AND I've just gone to spray deep heat on my shoulder muscle and blasted myself in the ear .
I need a deep breath and a few days of good healthy food and a bath!
Wednesday 2 November 2011
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