Tag: Anxiety

Tracking My Anxiety

Genevieve1 Comment

The anxiety began when I was eating lunch and scrolling through youtube, trying to find something interesting to watch. I scrolled faster, considering each thumbnail more and more briefly as the tightness in my chest increased. “Hold up,” I thought. “I’m supposed to be tracking my anxiety for my appointment next week. Let me write this down.”

Here’s how to overthink your anxiety record: First, I spent several minutes considering the medium I should use to document my anxiety; paper and pen seemed reasonable, but what kind of format? List? Table? Stream of consciousness essay? I also considered the kind of paper I’d use, be it sticky notes, that half-used legal pad in my bookcase, small notebook–ugh. Too many choices. Let’s go digital. Thank goodness the Notes app is pretty minimal, or I’d still be waffling on what kind of font to use. (Speaking of “stream of consciousness”, I just realized that I could totally make a PowerPoint presentation, complete with awesome clip art and slide transitions. That would really prove my therapist right when she said I’d probably find a way to make it complicated because I’m an overachiever. Challenge accepted.)

So far, I have written down everyday things like realizing I wasn’t sure if someone introduced themselves as Janice or Janet and imagining the obviously catastrophic embarrassment when I inevitably pick the wrong one. I also have bigger things like my unknown life plans, noticing that Stella had put her sneaky paws on the counter and eaten chunks of chocolate cookies out of the pan (she’s fine), and also seemingly random anxiety with no discernable cause. Some of the “random” anxiety is probably due to sensory processing disorder and my tendency to steamroll over discomfort rather than make adjustments for my nervous system. It’s a work in progress.

I think I’ve spent a long time telling myself that anxiety isn’t an issue for me, which makes it a challenge to be mindful of it. After the OCD mostly disappeared, I guess I went “Well, that’s done. I don’t have anxiety anymore.” If only it worked like that. I keep having to reassess my understanding of what’s a normal amount of anxiety and in what contexts it’s normal. Seriously, I have no idea at this point. Do other people feel anxious when they have to walk by the check-out lanes on their way to somewhere else in the grocery store because they can feel people looking at them? No? What kind of lie have I been living?! I guess I knew that some of my anxiety was unreasonable, but convinced myself that it was minor enough that it didn’t need to be addressed. Now I’m just not sure what should be on my list of concerns. Time to go put “worrying about the amount I worry” on my list.

In case my therapist reads this: don’t worry, I will not be showing up with a PowerPoint detailing my anxiety, although that would be hilarious and probably a new one for you.

 

Anxiety and Doing New Things

Genevieve2 Comments

In an attempt to fill my time with things that will keep me from slipping back into severe depression, I’ve started doing New Things. One is volunteering and the other is taking a neighbor/friend up on her offer to teach me how to ride horses.

I really want to quit and crawl back into my hermit cave. I am way outside of my comfort zone, which, for me, always leads to near-constant worrying and ruminating. I can’t help but laugh because when my new therapist asked if anxiety was also a problem for me in addition to depression, I said “hmm, no, not really.” She later disagreed, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that yes, yes it definitely is. Now that my depression is easing, I think that anxiety is coming to the surface. (Additionally, when I tell people about this anxiety realization, they look at me like “you…didn’t know that?” So, that’s cool. Everyone knows about this but me.)

When I’m really depressed, I’m so numb and slowed down that I don’t even worry about saying “yes” to new things; the answer is automatically “no”. But when the depression lifts, my natural tendency to overthink everything and fall face-first into crippling indecision has room to become obvious. Because I feel capable of doing more than I did while depressed, I feel like I should say “yes” to new opportunities, even if I’m on the fence.

Rather than deciding to just get out there and demolish the boundaries of my comfort zone, I get…stuck. Really stuck. I want to do new things in general, but when an opportunity comes along, my worry and fear keep me from making a confident decision. It’s tough for me to decipher whether I don’t want to do something because I’m feeling overwhelming New Thing-anxiety or because I won’t like it. And, since I know that this is a problem for me, if I think there’s a chance I might like it eventually, I tend to make myself push through and do it no matter what. Of course, I do that while also continuing to worry about whether or not that’s the right thing to do.

An additional layer of this terrible cake is that I do not like quitting, even if I really want to bail. And even if this hypothetical New Thing has very natural exits where I can decide it’s not for me and stop, it still feeeeels like quitting. This makes me even more indecisive because not only do I need to know if my anxiety is coming from a dislike of the Thing or not, but I also need to know if I can be committed to the entire Thing. No quitting. Approaching opportunities like this is not fun, and I do not recommend it. 0/10.

I imagine the goal is to take each new opportunity and be able to decide, quickly and simply, whether I want to do it or not. I just don’t know how to do that without taking all of the stuff above into account and getting hopelessly tangled up. I guess step one is to remind myself that I can say “no”, changing my mind is ok, and that in many cases, it’s not that big of a deal.

Much easier said than done.

 

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An Encounter with Contamination OCD

Genevieve7 Comments

I haven’t been consumed by OCD in several years, something I’m immensely grateful for. That particular kind of mental torture is truly awful and not something I would wish on anyone. One of the subsets of OCD that I had was contamination OCD. My body and belongings had to be whatever my disorder deemed to be “clean,” or else some unnamed disaster would occur. There were often no actual illnesses I was afraid I might contract – I was just terrified of potential contamination by unknown germs/viruses/entities.

The Endless Compulsions

Beyond the fear, maybe the worst part of contamination OCD was how time-consuming it was. If something was “dirty” and it touched something “clean,” or if I touched the dirty item and then the clean item, they were both dirty. I spent a lot of time planning out sequences of actions that would combine touching dirty items because otherwise, I would spend half the time washing my hands raw so as to not contaminate anything else. My hands were always painful. I scrubbed them under hot water until I’d stripped them of any moisture barrier. Any movement cracked and split the skin open, which, ironically, made my bleeding hands perfect entry points for bacteria and viruses. But, OCD is not swayed by reason and rationality. It creates doubt that can’t be rooted out with reassuring facts.

Contamination OCD After Recovery

For the most part, I don’t deal with OCD anymore, contamination OCD or otherwise. My day-to-day life is not consumed by it like it was before, but every once in a while, I encounter something that stirs those obsessions up. My perfectionism around self-harm is one, and tapeworms appear to be another.

Unexpected OCD Triggers

I’m not squeamish, despite what you might think after learning of my past with contamination OCD. Again, OCD is not rational. Parasites are fascinating and don’t bother me from afar, but when I found a tapeworm segment in my dog’s stool, I felt the familiar stomach twisting of contamination OCD.

Once the initial shock passed, I found myself thinking about all of the things I would have to clean. First and foremost, the hand that held the poo bag. I must not touch anything between there and home, not even to put my hand in my pocket. The bed in her crate would need to be washed, and all of my sheets and blankets because she often snoozes on my bed. Should I wash her leash and harness? Perhaps I should stop petting her– would that be going too far? On second thought, that would be impossible. I’ll just wash my hands every time I touch her. So, like, 80 billion times per day.

OCD is Irrational

Keep in mind that the most common species of tapeworm is passed to humans only when you ingest a flea that carries the tapeworm eggs. Not likely. There is also a species of tapeworm that can be passed from dog to human through ingested feces on unwashed hands, but it’s not common in the U.S., and I’m a frequent hand-washer as it is. In other words, it’s very unlikely that I would get tapeworms from Stella.

I Fell into Old Patterns

That night, I lay in bed, Stella at my feet, and tried to control my rising panic. The vet was closed for the holidays, so I had left a message. Having no idea when they would return my call, I did what any smartphone-wielding person would do; I looked it up. Unfortunately, Google played the role of the reassuring-but-clueless friend who says something terrifying right at the very end of the conversation.

“Oh, it’s very uncommon for people to get them? OH, you might not show signs until years after ingestion?!”

Not gonna lie, my concern for Stella was overshadowed by my selfish, irrational fear for myself. The thought of something living inside me usually doesn’t bother me. After all, we are made up of more bacterial cells than human cells. Maybe it’s an evolutionary adaptation to be totally wigged out at the thought of parasites taking up room in your gut.

Facing Contamination OCD with Exposures

The good news is, I realized that I was obsessing about this right before I returned to the scariest thought of them all: “What if I already have tapeworms?” This is good news because it really kicked me into the best way to face OCD thoughts, which is to say, “Yeah, and?”

In the dark in more ways than one, with my tapeworm-host dog not three feet from me, I had to say, “Maybe I do have tapeworms. What am I gonna do about it right now?” Just sitting with the uncertainty brings you to the stunning realization that there is absolutely nothing productive about rumination. So, with a little more deliberate relaxation, my hypothetical tapeworms and I went to sleep. Well, maybe not the tapeworms. Do tapeworms sleep?

Living with Uncertainty

I still don’t know if I have tapeworms, and it’s honestly probably something that I’ll worry about off and on for a while. I do know that I’m much better at squashing obsessions than I used to be, maybe because I know it’s something I’m prone to and can catch it early on. Stella is on a deworming medicine and continues to behave like a dog. That is to say, eats anything and everything with gusto and drinks water out of the Christmas tree stand when nobody’s looking.

Guest Post: We Are Capable of Love

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This guest post was written by the wonderful blogger, Just M.

⚠️Tw – suicide⚠️

“You can’t love someone else until you love yourself.”

I’m calling it.

I’m calling bullshit. 

I’ve always hated this quote but as years go by I dislike it more and more. I’m aware that people use it as an insensitive to be kinder to ourselves and that, in itself, is a good thing but I don’t like the quote and here’s why.

For many people with mental health issues, like myself, loving yourself can feel like a colossal task. Many mood and anxiety disorders can be rooted in low self esteem, and if not, it can still cause you to feel pretty bad about yourself.

I struggle with depression and anxiety and I know that loving myself is something that I’ve not quite mastered. When you’re ill, self hate is often easier than self care but that doesn’t mean I’m not capable of love.

One thing I can always hold onto, even in times of terribly low self esteem, is that I’m a very loving person. I have a huge capacity to love stuff. People, animals, films, music. You name it, I probably love it.

Because I over think, I over feel. And because I over feel, I over love. I love with a fire, with a strong and powerful spark and I think this is why I get so angry when I hear this quote.

I also know many other people in my life who are extremely affectionate and also extremely ill. They can co-exist. It’s not impossible to be unwell and loving at the same time.

You can take my word for it, but I imagine you would like some evidence so I’ve got a story for you.

Not too long ago, I had my second suicide attempt. I took an overdose of paracetamol. I went to the shops before school to buy a couple of boxes of pills and when I got out of the shop I was determined to die. My mind was on one thing, escaping. I was speed-walking to school when I was distracted. A small black and white cat was sitting on a wall. I love cats. So I stopped to pet it. Even in this moment, knowing what I was going to do, I had capacity to love.

I was at crisis point. I was on the edge of the cliff. I was on what I thought were my final hours. I stopped to love. I stopped because that’s who I am. I stopped because I could. And I’m glad I did.

It’s something that I didn’t even have to think about, I naturally did it and moved on. It didn’t stop me overdosing. It didn’t even really slow me down. But after I had taken it and survived it, it proved to me something that I already knew.

It doesn’t matter how ill you are, how down or useless you feel, how badly people treat you. You can always love. 

M xx

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