I have been on the fence about sharing this, some would say I have some anxiety about it lol. But in all seriousness, I felt vulnerable putting this post out there. But, it also felt really invigorating and exciting to share it, knowing that so many others suffer through anxiety as I do, and that this might touch them, even just a little bit.
So, here goes, I suffer from anxiety.
When I say suffer, I don’t just mean that I have anxiety or I was diagnosed to have anxiety, I mean I really SUFFER from anxiety. As far back as I can remember, I can remember being an anxious person. I take my worrying to a whole new level. I perseverate, I fixate, I obsess. My husband often says, “you’re not living unless you are worrying about something”, he knows me so well.
It can be the littlest thing that sets me off. Sometimes I have even forgotten what I was worried about, and then I worry that I can’t remember what I was worried about, it’s horrible! My mother doesn’t suffer from this horrible mind sucking abyss of anxiety. And while I am glad she doesn’t have to live like this, there are parts of me that hates her for it, because when she says “you need to stop” or “try and turn it off” I wish she would understand the turmoil that was inside of me. As if I hadn’t thought, “gee that’s a great idea, I should just stop.”
There is no end to anxiety, just transference, like energy. For example, two years ago my new barnwood dining table seemed to possibly be infested with some sort of bug. At first we thougth it was termites, and after spraying it and dragging it out in the snow the exterminator told us it wasn’t infested with termites and going to eat my whole house. So when I found out that the table didn’t have termites, I didn’t just feel instant relief, instead I shifted my anxiety little. Ok, so it doesnt have termites, great, but wait, uh oh, did I damage to the table by spraying it with that bug spray, the legs feel a little loose now that we moved it, will it fall apart? UGH! My anxiety just seems to shift focus.
I am pretty vocal about my anxiety, partly because I am an oversharer and partly because talking about things makes me feel better about them. I voice what I am anxious about so hopefully I will hear someone share a similiar experience that had a positive outcome to help me calm my fears. And may lightning strike you down if you share that it had a negative outcome because that just dials my anxiety up to a level of a million.
As the years have gone by I have learned how to cope with my anxiety, and at one point I was on lexapro. For three years I was on lexapro, and while it helped my anxiety it had other side-effects which ultimately led me to go off the lexapro, and now I am back to trying to live with my anxiety. I have found that reading, taking a bath, doing yoga, are ways to help me cope with my anxiety. Keeping my brain busy helps a lot. I wish that I could just make it disappear, but I know that will never happen. I have developed tinnitus, which if you didnt know is ringing in the ear. My ENT thinks it is because I have TMJ and clench my jaw when I am sleeping. This is caused by my anxiety, I of worry it’s brain tumor.
Do you suffer from anxiety? Do you lay at night awake with thoughts you just can’t turn off that have no real logic? How do you cope? If you do, then know that at 3 am when you are tossing and turning not being able to change your thoughts or turn off your brain, that you are not alone. I am probably laying under my gray and white paisley duvet worrying about something ridiculous.
And just to make you laugh, some great memes about anxiety.
