I'm currently waiting for my doctor to call me back, the first time he called my phone went straight to voicemail, because it felt like it apparently. The second time we got cut off, so he left me a voicemail saying he'd call back in half an hour. This has freaked me out, why? I'm not entirely sure, I'll still get my prescription in a few days and I've lived over twenty years on no medication so what's a couple more days? Since being aware of anxiety I've started to question my instant rage/upset reactions over things. Why does this make me angry or sad? Is it really that big of a deal? If I can't come up with an answer I know that it's not really the person or situation, it's me.
I'll start at the beginning of this realisation saga. In June, my mother died. She died from cancer but it was still very quick and unexpected. She's fought for years and was completely fine until the week before her death. Having the strongest and most reliable person in my life disappear from me has been traumatic to say the least. But I beat myself up when I cry. Why? Because I'm a strong person, like my mother, we deal with what we've been dealt and we move on and tell bad shit to go fuck itself. She's never told me I have to be strong but I've decided I do. Allowing myself to cry has been difficult, I hate it when I get upset and I want the painful memories and dreams about her death to stop haunting me. I want to remember the good things without feeling the stab of 'I'd give anything to talk to her again', an over used bullshit line I never saw any worth in until now.
Now after everything had calmed down and normal life tried to carry on I was getting pretty ill. A lot of stomach issues that I was familar with from college. Painful cramping, sharp constant pains in my upper abdomen, not able to eat much, frequent trips to the toilet and general shit feeling. I decided I must be intolerant to something, my Mum was lactose intolerant and she developed it randomly in her life so maybe I had too. I went to the doctor, the same one who's calling me, and he listened to my blathering. He told me that he thought it was anxiety but he would still follow my route of intolerance, instructing me to keep a food diary and write down everything I eat as well as when I had symptoms in the hopes a pattern would form and I'd find what I was intolerant too.
I find it slightly annoying when I'm not right. There was no pattern with food, however there was one with dates, I had symptoms on days I had to travel for business, when I needed to pick up a partner from the hospital after an operation and other days that can be seen as stressful. I was always tired as well, not matter how much I slept and I felt constantly on the edge of illness that never actually became a cold.
Near the end of my month of food diary I also developed insomnia, trying to explain insomnia to someone who's never experienced it can be difficult. Though luckily I found this cute comic that I think shows it pretty well. It's from www.Timothywinchester.com btw, it's cute and funny.
I started to keep insomnia diaries of the thoughts that were keeping me awake, hence the idea to start this blog. When I went back to the GP, I admitted defeat, there were no patterns in food and slowly I'd become more and more aware of how constantly stressed and worried about everything I was.
Admitting that I needed help was one of the hardest things to do. I handle things myself, I'm not weak. But admitting you need help is one of the strongest things you can do, sitting there and letting everything take over you when there are great options to stop it is a huge weakness. Taking that first step on the journey to working things out is petrifying and now I have a lot of respect for people that do it.
I've been referred for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and been given options of different medication. I'll talk about meds in another post as this one has become too long. This is what brought me to today, there has been a lot of realisation over my life, now I'm aware of what my 'anxious' moments are I can spot them all through my childhood and teen years. I feel slightly silly that I've never noticed it until now. Blaming others is a big problem, I'm angry and irritated all the time because people are stupid and are doing stupid things and I'm irrationally worried over this because of XYZ. Once I stopped making these excuses to myself I realised my train of thought wasn't where it should be.
I nearly cried on the bus because a partner sent a slightly sarcastic text to me. I shouldn't be reacting like that. I admit it. I need help.
No comments:
Post a Comment