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Monday 31 October 2011

Anxiety over nothing at all


Feeling nervous about an upcoming event - I can work with .

Anxiety over finances or relationship trouble - I can work with

However what I just dont get is anxiety over nothing which doesn't pass within a few minutes

Since last night my whole body feels tense for no reason . I lay awake and tense until 3am last night , every muscle clenched and couldnt seem to wind down.

Its now 3pm the next day and I feel the same .

The only way I could even try to explain it is to say I feel like my whole body is tensed in fear like I imagine you might be if someone was pointing a gun at you.

I get really baffled over this bit of anxiety - how can I learn to relax if I can't work out whats making me tense

I had a funny spell of what I think is derealisation yesterday evening. I was washing up while my daughter was having her bath and as I put the sauces from dinner in the cupboard I felt like I was watching my own hands but that they weren't really my hands. I suspect there is no way to even explain this unless you've experienced it.

Its only happened to me a couple of times before and by jove its weird. When I realised that my hands looked odd to me then I got that low level buzz of " oooooh shit " panic. My instinct was to run into the living room and tell OH I felt funny and to let him take over E's bedtime story but what would that achieve ? So I forced myself to continue washing up and then went up and did the bedtime routine. Felt okay for a couple of hours and then when I went to bed the weird uber tense feeling hit me like a ton of bricks and I couldn't shift it via massaging my feet or a lavender bath. Reading wasn't even a possibility and when I did fall asleep I had odd dreams about being chased so I even felt tense in my dreams ( most likely I was still tense and so it entered my dream as such ) but either way ...... ANXIETY YOU SUCK

I get confused between derealisation and depersonalisation but I'm sure its one of the two. I've no intention of googling it as I find with anxiety that reading about stuff just spurs it on as its mainly mental causing the physical ( in my own experience anyway )

One example of me believing that its mental causing the physical is that since I've been typing about it then I started looking at my hands on the keyboard and they looka bit weird again. Hmmmm.

So today has been a bit sucky. I felt better when I put the Archers omnibus on the radio and started the housework. I then got a work email on my iphone requesting that I organise a large event for three days time ( deadline for the client to place the order was a week ago but clients are forever pulling this short notice nonsense ) and I got tense again.

So I can handle it better now .... I feel tense but theres now a reason

Seriously WTF

I'm going to try and coax out a payment from my client and have a bath with some neroli oil my postman delivered today and see if this damn jittery feeling will get the hell outta here. It might as well because I'm going to be continuing with my life whether I feel jittery or not.

Grrrrr.

Saturday 22 October 2011

Relaxation is my holy grail

There is an Italian phrase  Il dolce far niento which I believe translates to the sweetness of doing nothing

I miss the sweetness of doing nothing , I really miss it . I used to be able to chill out and  just do what I wanted all weekend . If I desired to stay in bed and read all day , I did . If I wanted to have a few drinks on a Saturday night - I did . No feeling tense or worrying about a possible hangover 

 The irony is that It isn't a case of not being able to find the time to " do nothing" ....it's the sweetness part I'm struggling with . I just don't seem to be able to  relax 
I'm trying so hard to chill out that I'm rigid with tension with the frustration of not being able to relax . 

My daughter is spending the half term week with her grandmother and I am going to try and get into the groove of sweet nothing . Feeling anxious about feeling anxious is just the cherry on top of the ridiculous pie.  

Sunday 16 October 2011

My anxiety history ( part three )

By the start of this year (2011) I somehow managed three months where the anxiety and panic faded slightly which was more luck than design

In April I had an ear infection which made me feel like I was walking on a slanted floor and everything restarted. I also started taking Saint Johns Wort in a bigger dose which I also think made my anxiety worse. I say **think** because anxiety doesn't seem to have much method to its madness

I tried many things to make improvements such as mindfulness mediatation , guided meditation , lavender baths ,epsom salt baths , a multivitamin , Vit B12 , Magnesium , CBT online (free via a UK based site called Live life to the full ) , exposure to the situations that were making me panic , reducing caffeine and Claire weekes books to name but a few .

In the summer this year I finally reached the point where I realised that what I was actually scared most of was feeling scared , anxious and panicky
That might seem obvious to anyone who has never had anxiety and panic attacks but believe me from inside the situation then those feelings are so very intense and real that its so hard to step outside yourself and see beyond the racing mind , thumping heart , shakiness , wooziness and the tenseness of waiting for these feeling to happen at any moment , in any situation

Once I realised that I was more frightened of the feelings of anxiety , feeling like I couldn't breathe , feeling shaky , feeling confused and tense and that when these things happened they were indeed horrible but werent going to kill me..... then that was finally when I managed to start making progress with anxiety

to be continued

Saturday 15 October 2011

My anxiety history ( part two)

After my little taste of anxiety then the whole rollercoaster kicked into action big time and the fact that I didn't really understand what was going on kept the whole scary ride going

Just before the house move I started to have whole days ( unsually when under work pressure ) where I felt I was struggling to catch a full breath and would spend a couple of minutes in low level panic until I managed to take a deep breath . The the whole thing would start again
I knew I was hyperventilating and did some reading around the subject and tried to carry on as normal but it wasn't fun and I still found it frightening

To add some fun to the party then I also started having full blown panic attacks where the hyperventilation would make me feel confused , my face might go tingly , my heart would start hammering and I would feel so scared.

I developed such a fear of the anxiety and panic that I become tense all the time just waiting for the next attack to happen. Of course , because I was so tense and anxious about them then it was inevitable that this would kick off another panic attack and became quite a nasty cycle

At one point I could spend the whole day from waking with a feeling of dread as I was so scared about what was going on , and then have a panic attack a few times over the day . When I wasn't having a panic attack then I was scared of having one and had anxious feelings

I understand now that I had in simple terms frazzled my nerves by always being "on guard " and waiting for the next panic or anxiety attack and I had become afraid of the anxiety and afraid of the panic attacks and so the cycle went on

I look back now and just want to give myself the biggest hug for keeping going while I didn't understand it all
I would drive to the school to pick up my daughter shaking and hyperventilating and somehow hold it together. I would read her a story at night while praying I didn't collapse and that she didn't notice I was rushing the story as I felt I wasn't getting enough air. My mind was constantly chattering and thinking about panic and anxiety as it was so frightening to me and I really didn't understand that the fear of anxiety and panic was what made it so scary

To be continued

Friday 14 October 2011

My anxiety history ( part one )

By the time I hit the big 3-0 birthday in early 2008  b I think I was aware I needed to reel things in stress and alcohol wise as I remember that my presents to myself were a yoga mat , anti wrinkle cream and a vague promise to do a detox. I was running my own business and was drinking about a bottle and a half of vodka a week ( 40 units ) while I got on with paperwork and business bits  while my daughter ( then aged nearly 3 ) was in bed

I was stressed but not anxious if that makes any sense

Two years (summer 2009) ago we moved house to a rented house that quickly became the house from hell. Roof leaks which got into the electrics and made them dangerous and a landlord who refused to fix anything claiming he had financial problems
I was still drinking about 40 units week but the stress was starting to show and I was having the odd mild panic attack

In summer 2010 we moved again ( to my current house which I love !!) and I cut my drinking down to less than 20 units a week.

To my shock - anxiety hit me big time and for the first time in my life I knew the difference between anxiety and nerves.

I can remember I was sitting in the living room one day and suddenly felt this pit of dread for no reason in my stomach. It was a bit like some one wearing a glove made of ice had put their hand inside my stomach and was twisting. It was really frightening and I felt shaky and "off"

In a bizarre twist given I was drinking much less then I read a website discussing alcohol withdrawal and decided that I was indeed suffering alcohol withdrawal

With hindsight - no I most likely wasnt and if I was then it was more emotional from not having a few vodkas each day to sooth my frazzled nerves but I went through a good few months where I cut right down on drinking as I thought those moments of fear , shaking and hyperventilation were due to alcohol alone

After a couple of months of this and minimal alcohol I realised the situation was a  double edged sword in that the feelings were not alcohol withdrawal at all but they were anxiety and panic attacks and they werent going away so easily without me learning to manage life without my little vodka friend  to help me

To be continued

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Afternoon drinking

I've felt uncomfortable while drinking a fair bit recently and I was looking at it from the point of view that I had become over sensitised to the evils of alcohol due to all my panic and anxiety of the last year and all the thought and action I have put in to moderating my drinking

Reading around some recovery blogs and starting to properly look at my own anxiety has meant that I feel like the fog is lifting slightly.

Even though my alcohol units are at a level I am happy with for the week then I'm not sure I'm comfortable with "how" I'm drinking. I drink in the afternoon. I sit sipping away at three , four or five vodkas while I plough through the paperwork or housework. Drinking in the afternoon isn't the end of the world , it isn't a cardinal sin and probably isn't going to make me start drinking like before as that was self medication and I just dont feel that urge anymore

The point is that while getting slightly tipsy in the afternoon and relaxing once in a while is no big deal and can be enjoyable ... well Im not really doing it once in a while. I'm doing it maybe four weekdays out of five. I'm not drunk but I do get buzzed.

I think Im doing it because I have memories of really enjoying doing it once in a while as a treat. When I have some dull work to do then I rustle up memories of vodka taking the dull edge of things and decide to "treat" myself.  Something in me knows that I'm doing it too often for it to be a treat and so the alcohol doesn't always work its magic like it think it will. I feel tense , or uncomfortable , perhaps slightly anxious and feel like I'm having to watch myself like a hawk to make sure I'm not getting tipsy. Its just not that much fun when I it becomes part of my routine most afternoons .Beit two drinks or five drinks , its just not got the same buzz about it when you do it too often.


How often is too often and whether I should be doing it at all are not the topics on my list on the moment.

I'm not saying that I'm not going to drink at all .

All  I'm saying to myself at the moment is that I'm not going to sit in the house on my own in the afternoon working and drinking habitually most weekdays.

I have no idea if this is going to mean I start fancying alcohol on an evening or whether this is going to be a big struggle or easy as pie or even turn out to have no impact on my uneasiness about alcohol.  All I know is that it feels like the right thing to do at the moment.

Monday 10 October 2011

Anxiety , Panic and me

I've reached the grand old age of 33 now and for as long as I can remember I've always had times where I've felt nervous or anxious over what could be silly little things or even for no reason at all.
To compensate then I've always kept it to myself  , locked away those feelings inside and pushed myself to carry on regardless and as a result I've gone most of my life feeling a bit ashamed of myself for being "weak"

That attitude culminated in me getting myself to the point where I was self medicating with alcohol to the point where I became very worried that I had a drinking problem . I moderated my drinking eventually and once my safety blanket was taken away then ironically it was then that anxiety attacks and panic attacks jumped out of their box , threw me over their shoulders and bundled me onto a rollercoaster ride which lasted just over a year and completely took over my life

It wasn't until I realised four months ago that I had become fearful of the anxiety and panic  itself that I began to be able to start to learn the skills I needed to deal with the attacks and then they lessened slowly but surely to the point where I still have them as mild feelings every now and then but I'm not terrified of them which means their power is limited    

I read someones blog recently and the sentence " you are only as sick as your secrets " seemed to leap out of the screen and burn itself into my eyeballs and I decided that now would be a good time to get everything out there and blog my little heart out and find other people like me

I'm not weak  , panic and anxiety is not a character defect and I'm not going to be ashamed any more about suffering from it