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sabineWhen I say I'm having a "high anxiety day", I'm not accurately representing what happens.
I'll be trying to concentrate on something - writing code, solving a problem, listening to complaints, helping a new person - and something will change in my head. Sometimes it's just that I look at Facebook. Sometimes it's being nervous about an upcoming meeting or conversation. Sometimes it's my uterus trying to make me crazy. Sometimes it's nothing at all.
A wave of worry starts to take over. My stomach clenches, my throat gets tight, and my breathing gets shallower. I'll sometimes start looking for a way to physically leave whatever situation I'm in. I'll stop being able to focus on whatever it was I was doing. Instead, my brain spins out of control down paths of worry and panic, usually with some self-loathing and sadness thrown in for good measure.
My coping mechanisms change slightly depending on where I am, whether I'm around people, and what I'm meant to be doing. I almost always follow these steps, though.
So all that happens in a fairly short time frame - just a couple minutes, usually. But it doesn't happen just once on a high anxiety day. It could be once an hour or once every five minutes. I label a day as high anxiety when, at some point, I feel like I'm spending more mental time dealing with anxiety than not.
It's not necessarily accurate, either. Brains like to make patterns out of bad things, but not out of good things. I have a hard time seeing that I'm building new, healthier patterns with some of these coping tricks. It's easy for me to know when I'm having a high anxiety day, but not so easy to know when I'm having a low or no anxiety day.
So I take my medicine, go to therapy, and work on meditation. I doodle and draw tiny lines over and over. I walk and try to spend time thinking about good stuff. I choose not to go into some situations - conventions, gatherings, etc - where I expect to be overwhelmed more often than not. It probably wouldn't be the case, but I'm usually not confident enough to want to risk it.
This is just my experience with anxiety fueling my depression and vice versa. I don't expect this to be the same as anyone else. This is just how it is with me. And so when I say that I'm having a high anxiety day, you may understand why I tend to go with the "list of things makes a post" method of blogging.
I'll be trying to concentrate on something - writing code, solving a problem, listening to complaints, helping a new person - and something will change in my head. Sometimes it's just that I look at Facebook. Sometimes it's being nervous about an upcoming meeting or conversation. Sometimes it's my uterus trying to make me crazy. Sometimes it's nothing at all.
A wave of worry starts to take over. My stomach clenches, my throat gets tight, and my breathing gets shallower. I'll sometimes start looking for a way to physically leave whatever situation I'm in. I'll stop being able to focus on whatever it was I was doing. Instead, my brain spins out of control down paths of worry and panic, usually with some self-loathing and sadness thrown in for good measure.
My coping mechanisms change slightly depending on where I am, whether I'm around people, and what I'm meant to be doing. I almost always follow these steps, though.
- Realize that it's happening. This can be slower than you'd think.
- Try to take a deep breath or seven.
- Mentally say, "Yes, this is 'feeling' and I've been distracted by it. It's unpleasant and is worry/anxiety/stress/whatever".
- Focus on a single physical sensation and observe it for a few seconds
So all that happens in a fairly short time frame - just a couple minutes, usually. But it doesn't happen just once on a high anxiety day. It could be once an hour or once every five minutes. I label a day as high anxiety when, at some point, I feel like I'm spending more mental time dealing with anxiety than not.
It's not necessarily accurate, either. Brains like to make patterns out of bad things, but not out of good things. I have a hard time seeing that I'm building new, healthier patterns with some of these coping tricks. It's easy for me to know when I'm having a high anxiety day, but not so easy to know when I'm having a low or no anxiety day.
So I take my medicine, go to therapy, and work on meditation. I doodle and draw tiny lines over and over. I walk and try to spend time thinking about good stuff. I choose not to go into some situations - conventions, gatherings, etc - where I expect to be overwhelmed more often than not. It probably wouldn't be the case, but I'm usually not confident enough to want to risk it.
This is just my experience with anxiety fueling my depression and vice versa. I don't expect this to be the same as anyone else. This is just how it is with me. And so when I say that I'm having a high anxiety day, you may understand why I tend to go with the "list of things makes a post" method of blogging.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-31 08:15 pm (UTC)