0 to 60... And stuck in a hospital!

I've always been a restless person...I can't actually remember a time when I wasn't.  When I decide to take on a new project, I don't start small, I go all out.  When I plan a party, I can't leave it at some streamers and a cake; I have to have favors, themed decor, and an entire spread of food large enough to feed an army.  When I take up a new hobby, I don't buy a piece or two of the necessary equipment and then see if I like it; I buy everything they make, set up a project station, and read everything I can get my hands on about it.  When I start cleaning a room in my house, I don't just pick up, dust, and vacuum; I have to open all the drawers and rearrange them, move furniture around, and organize everything.  This seems to be a theme in my life.  I've had around 40 jobs in my lifetime, and I'm only 36!  Once I master my duties, which happens quickly because I don't stop until I know exactly how to do what I need to do, I find myself completely bored to tears and end up quitting.  My husband likes to say I go from 0 to 60 without taking a breath in between, and he's right.

Well my 0 to 60 attitude has gotten me into trouble again, and this time it landed me in the hospital for an overnight stay.  I know the importance of a proper diet and exercise, and I know how my anxiety reacts when I don't take care of myself.  In the past, I've been able to blow this off by coming up with a million excuses, but I don't take AAMH lightly.  I know there are thousands of people reading my posts every day, and I take that as a serious commitment.  I decided it was time to get serious about my health, and I didn't want to be a hypocrite and tell people the importance of doing something that I wasn't doing myself.  I'm pretty overweight right now (thanks to Lexapro and comfort food!) and I'm also rather sedentary.  I decided to get off my duff and start working out, and...well...I went 0 to 60 as usual.  I broke out my workout DVDs and chose two that I like.  By day three, I did Leslie Sansone's 4 mile walking video.  

Let me assure you now if you aren't aware...that is not purely a walking video.  It's got interval training, and the intervals are fast jogging.  There are lunges and squats, arm exercises and leg work.  It's intense...especially for someone who hasn't been exercising!  Well, I pulled a muscle in my chest.  I guess it would be considered the muscle right under the breast bone...I don't know.  All I know is that it hurts!  I went into the ER to ask for a muscle relaxer, and they immediately worried that it was my heart.  Now having had health anxiety in the past, and still a little bit today, this might have really freaked me out.   But this time, I knew it was a pulled muscle, and I knew I was just fine.  Nonetheless, they wanted to check me out thoroughly...better safe than sorry.

After a chest X-ray, an EKG, a stress test, two blood tests, and a miserable night in the hospital, the diagnosis is...a pulled muscle.  A few days of rest and I should be a-okay.  Nonetheless, that little visit has impressed upon me the importance of several things.  A) I need to be in better shape.  B) I need to slow down and allow my body to get used to the new movements I'm subjecting it to.  C) Hospital gowns are not attractive.  :)

And last, but most important, is the fact that I have an amazing body that I am taking for granted.  It does amazing things every day, and it does what I need it to do.  I've been taking that for granted, and all of this has reminded me what a gift and a blessing my health is.  I want to make sure I do everything I can to honor my body and treat it well.  

The Misadventures of a Full-Time Perfectionist

If there was ever a book written about my life, the title of this entry should be the title of said book. I'm many things, of course, but being a perfectionist seems to be a central theme for me. Interestingly enough, I've learned that perfectionism is trait shared by many of us dealing with an anxiety disorder! Perfectionism, while it sounds relatively harmless, is actually a parasite; it will drain you of every bit of peace you have.

From my own observations, I've noticed two kinds of perfectionists: the ones who do it over and over again until it meets with their standards, and the ones who never start at all because they know it won't meet their standards. Both end up miserable, no matter which kind of perfectionist they are. Personally, I'm the latter. I don't start things because I know that the end result will not be in line with my ideal, and the disappointment leads to a "why even bother" attitude. It's a vicious circle, and it can leave the perfectionist feeling overwhelmed and depressed. Are you recognizing yourself as one of the perfectionists I've described?

As I'm getting older, I'm learning to recognize the value in completing something, with or without it being perfect. I'm not saying it's always easy! It's most certainly difficult for me to leave a task or project without having it exactly the way my perfectionist tendencies would prefer! But for several reasons, I'm really tackling my issues with this. A) I'll be a mom one day soon, and I don't want to pass this on to my child. I also think it's important to teach little ones about the value of finishing what you start, regardless of how you feel about it. B) I have things to do, and an obligation to do them. When I commit to something, I need to follow through. I take this from the value based living found in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The value I hold dearly is to be a woman of integrity, and I live my life in ways that will support and affirm that value. Which means...of course...that my perfectionism must take a backseat. It doesn't matter who I made the commitment to, either. I consider a commitment to myself as serious and as important as a commitment to someone else.

Putting this into action, I simply identify when I'm being a perfectionist. If I'm doing something (or not bothering to do something), then I think about what the perfectionist in me would be prefer to see. When I have that image, I bring it down a few notches to a reasonable, doable level. Once I've achieved that level, I don't allow myself to continue nit-picking and fault-finding my work. What's done is done, and it's good enough. (And believe me, I have to actually tell myself that as I walk away! It's not easy, but it can be done.)

So talk to me. Are you a perfectionist? Which kind? Are you willing to walk away from something when it's "good enough" today?

Don't leave me alone!

Ahhh, how I dread this post. That's exactly how I know it needs to be written! If I would rather walk over hot coals than write about something, then that's what I need to write about. And today, it's about being alone. I run an anxiety page on FB, and I have a website, yes...but I am in no way fully healed. I don't actually believe in "healing" per say...I believe in learning to live with anxiety and without fear of the fear. Nonetheless, it's all a journey and I'm still on mine.

Over the past year, thanks to hard work, my counselor, and a low dose of Lexapro, my world has opened up once again. I'm able to do things I couldn't have imagined a year ago, and it's so liberating and exhilarating! But I still have a problem with being alone, and sometimes it seems as if the fight will overtake me. I had my very first panic attack when I was home alone, so that is a huge trigger for me. I'm afraid that if I'm alone, no one will be there to save me if something happens. Remember my previous post on shapeshifting? Well it has reared its ugly head in this regard, too. Once I began to feel a little more comfortable with the thought of being alone and possibly having a panic attack, the fear shifted. I was beginning to think "hey, I can handle a panic attack! I don't need anyone to be with me!" As soon as that thought began to take root, a new fear took its place. "What if I pass out?!"

Passing out seems to be the new fear that permeates my thoughts all the time. Oh, isn't anxiety such a wicked little beast? I tried so hard to work through this new fear, and I was coming close! I was close to being able to say "well if I pass out, no big deal! I'll come to eventually!" Then my anxiety whispered in my ear once again..."yeah, but what if you pass out and hit your head? What if no one is there to help you, Tracy? What if no one is there to save you?" Like I said, it's a wicked little beast. What's even worse is that I actually know the truth! I know that I'm not going to pass out! I've had anxiety for a long time now, and I've done buckets of research. I've met thousands of people with anxiety. I've seen several counselors, all with experience in anxiety disorders. Never once, in all that time and through all my research and experience, have I ever heard of anyone passing out from anxiety. It just doesn't happen!

So why, of why, do I let the what-ifs convince me otherwise? It's almost like I'm at the point of healing, and my anxiety is fighting tooth and nail to keep its claws in me...almost like it knows how close I am. Some days I refuse to let it win, and other days I just don't seem to have it in me. But that's not really true, is it? If it's in me sometimes, it's in me all the time. I just may need to work harder some days to access it. What's more, I'm the one who dictates which days I need to fight harder, because it's my own choices that make it that way. Perhaps I've indulged in too much caffeine or junk food (which definitely irritates my system and provides a veritable playground in my brain for the anxiety to just go wild.) Maybe I didn't get to bed early enough (lack of sleep, for me at least, makes me vulnerable.) Or it could be that I'm allowing the negative and what-if thinking to take hold. Whatever it is, it's my own doing.

So on those days when I need to work harder, what's stopping me? I know what I need to do, and I even know how to do it. I'm a fairly intelligent woman. I'm certainly determined to live free from the boundaries that anxiety wants to place on my life. I'm definitely strong enough. Do you know why? Do you have a guess? My guess is: change. I hate it. I loathe it with a passion. I would rather eat rusty nails than to be exposed to change...sometimes even good change. But working on my anxiety on the hard days, well that's not exactly good change, is it? It's change that takes hard work, mental focus, and a tough it out attitude. I've been working on accepting change as natural and inevitable, because it is both. I'm working on allowing change to be something viewed as neutral instead of negative. Still, it's not so easy on the hard days.

What about you? What's difficult for you to accomplish on the hard days?

Shapeshifting

Have you ever heard of shapeshifting? According to Merriam-Webster, it means "a change of physical form brought about by, or as if by, supernatural means." Now personally, I don't get into the "supernatural" kind of stuff. I'm not a sci-fi kind of girl by any means...but shapeshifting certainly does have its place in my life. If you're dealing with anxiety, then it probably has a place in yours, too.

Next year will make a decade since my first panic attack, and I have watched my anxiety shift and take many different forms over the years. If I've learned anything, it's that anxiety rarely stays the same. It moves...it's fluid, and it has an eery ability to morph into different things at different times. Have you ever noticed that you "beat" one symptom, only to have another take its place? That's why I liken it to shapeshifting. For years, I was perplexed by the seemingly random onset of new symptoms after having conquered a previous one, and frustrated doesn't even begin to describe my state of mind at those times. What was I doing wrong? Why were new symptoms appearing? Was I destined to always live like that...constantly at the mercy of a never-ending stream of terrifying feelings? The thought was depressing; why bother working on something if it would just be replaced by something new?

Time, experience, and research gave me the answers that I wasn't sure I would ever have. To question why I have anxiety isn't the same as questioning how my anxiety works. I no longer ask why I have it or how long it will stay. I only concentrate on what it is, and how I can confront it. Here's what is happening when I conquer a symptoms only to have a new one take its place: I'm dealing with each symptom as it comes instead of dealing with the overall problem. Simple as that.

Think of this way: Your anxiety is the Godfather of the Mob. You keep taking out his hit men, but more keep coming. They're going to, of course, because the Godfather keeps ordering hits and finds new hit men to carry out his work. As long as you concentrate on the hit men as they come, you'll never be doing anything but spinning your wheels and living day to day. Sooner or later, you're going to have to start going after the Godfather himself; taking him down is the only way to stop the hit men from seeking you out.

Your symptoms are the hit men, of course. Your anxiety is sending the symptoms, and keeps changing them every time you master one. Oh, you mastered driving? Suddenly you can't go to the grocery store. So random, right? Not really...it's just your anxiety shapeshifting again. And no, you don't have to live like this forever. You just have to master the master...you have to take on anxiety and wrestle it to ground. So how do you do that? You stop fighting the symptoms. You stop trying to master them. You stop fearing them. YOU STOP OBEYING THEM. When you do that, you're sending a signal to your anxiety that it can send any symptom it wants...but you refuse to stop living your life when they come.

This isn't an "overnight" kind of thing, either, and I'm in no way implying that it is. It's a journey and a learning process...and I'm still on my own journey of learning how to master the master. The bottom line is that you become passionate enough to fight for your life! Fight for your right to live in peace! And always, always know that YOU have the power, not your anxiety.

It's better come the morning...

I don't know why this is, but I have noticed that my anxiety decreases significantly once the sun begins to rise. When I wake up in the middle of the night or in the very early morning, I'm much more likely to feel anxious and give in to what-if thinking. I thought that perhaps it was because I'd just woken up, but that isn't true. If I wake up when it's light out, I'm fine.

So what it is about the night that triggers anxiety? I've always had a fear of the dark, but could that be playing in so significantly? The more I thought about it, the more questions I had.

I think what it comes down to is that the world is usually asleep at night. Kind of par for the course, eh? Of course people sleep at night. But for me, that means no one is awake to "save" me if I panic. What happens if I panic and pass out? Who will hear me? Who will help me?

Those darn "what-ifs" again. I've started asking myself the biggest and most important question of all: "When was the last time you passed out?" Oh. I've never, ever passed out. And what's more, I have never, ever heard of anyone passing out from panic. Not.even.once.

Yep, it's kind of hard to ignore the facts when you make yourself face them. Anxiety is such a liar! But I think what makes me maddest of all is that it's also a thief; it will steal every ounce of peace and joy you have if you let it. I can't say I adore early mornings when the world still slumbers and I am left alone with only my thoughts and my fears. I'm not sure I ever will be! But I know this much...I can do it. I can be at peace. I can live my life.

And that's really what it's all about, isn't it? Living your life regardless of how you feel about something. So the next time I'm up early, maybe I'll pop on and post. Maybe I'll turn the radio on low and dance around the living room. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll make myself a hot cup of coffee and wait for the sun to rise, enjoying the beauty that can only be found when it's dark and quiet.

Introducing the AAMH Blog!

Welcome! Many of my readers will start out coming from the Anxiety Ate My Homework Facebook page, so you’ll all be familiar with what the AAMH concept is. For the rest of you, I’m very glad you’re here. AAMH is for people suffering from anxiety disorders, of which there are several.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be expounding a little more on each of them and introducing concepts and ideas in regard to dealing with these disorders. Overall, though, this blog isn’t really about the technical bits of the disorder…that’s why I created the website. This blog is more to explore the feelings associated with anxiety.

I was first diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder in 2003. Since then, I’ve also been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Phobias, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When I first began to search for information about my condition, I was lost. There seemed to be vast amounts of information available, but none of it really touched on how it felt to have anxiety, and that’s hugely important.

The feeling of isolation is overwhelming, and the fear of being crazy is very real. I know, I’ve been there. If that’s where you’re at now, please know that you are not alone (and that you’re NOT going crazy!)

It’s going to take me some time to learn the blogging “ropes” here, so please be patient and stick with me. My goal is to make sure no one ever has to experience the isolation of anxiety again…and that’s why I’m here. AAMH started small as a Facebook page with a few hundred “likes” and has grown to a community of over 10,000. There’s now a webpage full of information, and a YouTube channel in the works.

Obviously, there’s a need for these resources! People are reaching out…and I am trying to make sure that they will always find a hand waiting when they do.

So again, I welcome you. My name is Tracy, and it’s my pleasure and honor to have you here.