Anxiety

Shut Up, Brain!


“Shut up, brain!”

Does anyone else find themselves saying this a lot?  I sure do.  If there’s anything I love about myself it’s the fact that I’m very introspective & analytical.  I can never stop thinking, thinking, thinking all the time.  This is either a sign of intelligence or insanity or perhaps both; I’ve never been quite sure.  In any case, this aspect of me is both my most loved & most hated attribute.  I love being introspective & analytical because it makes me a good writer (how else do I makes sense of all the ideas dancing around non-stop in my brain?) & a good nurse (or at least I like to think so).  It also makes me a good friend, a good wife, a good person.

brain

On the other hand I hate it because it makes me anxious, prematurely “old,” & generally odd.  It makes me the kind of person who doesn’t get invited to a lot of parties or bars.  It makes me that weirdo who actually STRUGGLES with relaxing.  Yes, I know, ridiculous, right?  You know how many times in my life people have casually told me “Drink some wine.  Have a beer.  Just relax”?  If I had a dollar for each of these occurrences, I’d be quite wealthy by now.  But I don’t.  If only these people understood what it was like to have that voice in your head that never shuts up, that even alcohol isn’t capable of silencing.  That unrelenting thirst for knowledge, emotional depth, & intimacy & the never-ending curiosity that sends the mind reeling with endless questions, many of which will never have solid answers, at all hours of day & night.  On rare occasions a glass of wine really is relaxing for me.  But most of the time it just makes me pee a lot.  Tonight is the latter unfortunately.

I’ve often said if I could change anything about myself, I would change the fact that I am such a “serious” person who truly does struggle with the ability to relax.  I don’t even know how to really describe this phenomenon because it’s not that I don’t have fun or enjoy life.  I certainly do.  It’s just that there’s always that voice in my head that never STOPS.  I’m not talking about hallucinations here.  I’m just saying that I can never stop THINKING, THINKING, THINKING all the damn time about EVERYTHING.  It’s really quite exhausting.  There are times in my life like tonight where I think I’d trade everything I have to know what it’s like to just say “I’m not going to think about such & such right now” & actually do it.  To look at a situation & not probe so far beneath the surface.  To look at a baby & see only the wonderful side of motherhood instead of thinking too about all of the work it involves & how I’ll never be up to the task.  Arghh.

In the end though it’s this analytical introspectiveness that defines me more than anything else.  For better or worse, it’s what makes me who I am.  And I know there is a place in the world for people like me.  We’re needed just as much as anyone else, even if we’re never going to be the “life of the party” so to speak.  I like to think it’s this highly analytical thinking that makes me appreciate the simple things in life so much: the beauty of a sunset, the sound of the breeze rustling through the trees, the way the frost makes everything look so magical in the mornings, the intensity of emotions that music (even, or perhaps especially, music without words) can incite.  In any case, this is the hand I’ve been dealt & I’m going to play it the best I can.

So, brain, carry on; do what you do best: THINK about everything all the time.  But just leave me with enough sanity to remember that I’m not alone & that life really is amazing.  Thanks.

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Social Anxiety Strikes Again


My palms are sweating.  My heart is racing.  My stomach is in knots.  Sounds like I’m getting ready to give a speech in front of a bunch of people, right?    

Actually, no, I’m just going to a Christmas party held by one of my coworkers.  Parties are supposed to be fun, right?  Wrong.  When you’re a natural introvert who suffers from a touch of social anxiety like I do, the idea of going to any social gathering with more than say eight people is terrifying.  Most people who know me would probably never guess that I feel this way because I like to think I’m good at hiding it.  Yes, I’m an introvert, but I’m not shy; like most things in life, introversion and extroversion lie very much on a spectrum & I believe I fall on the more liberal side of introversion (in other words, close to the middle).  I love talking to people, anyone really.  But I thrive on one-on-one or small group conversations.  That’s where I shine.  And I require a certain amount of alone time in order to stay sane.  Put me in a group of more than roughly eight people and suddenly I feel like the same old awkward teenager I used to be, the one who never knew about all the “cool” TV shows and music that everyone else knew about and who was generally out of the loop about just about everything.  I’m not that person anymore and I know it, but there is still something about being in a larger group of people that just sends off firecrackers in my brain.  And not the good kind of firecrackers.  The kind that say “Run away!  This isn’t safe!”  I might not really act like the turtle with its head in its shell, but deep down I’m often feeling that way.

This must sound totally ridiculous to those of you reading this who thrive on large groups, parties, clubs, and all of those supposedly fun things.  I on the other hand hate crowds and any sort of social situations that do not lend themselves well to intimate or deep conversation.  (Hint, intimate does not have to mean sexual, despite our society’s tendency to equate one with the other.)  Hell, the idea of going to NYC and walking around those crowded streets makes me feel like my throat is closing up and I can’t breathe.  I’ve even realized that I have this same type of anxiety around my own family, if a gathering consists of more than say eight people.  I know that must sound so silly.  But it’s true.  Perhaps the reason for this is that when you put 20-30 people in a house together you rarely have meaningful conversations with anyone.  You just say “Hi, how are ya?” and other such trivialities to everyone.  I for one long for so much more.  Yet I love having a big family.  Argh.

I am coming to realize that my mind is a mass of contradictions.  For example, I actually love hosting cook-outs and other casual “parties,” and yet the idea of attending one that isn’t composed of my closest friends inevitably causes me to have a mild anxiety attack.  I don’t have this problem when I’m around a lot of people at work or in class.  I think I handle those kinds of situations quite well.   I also am not afraid of giving speeches, teaching a class, or taking on leadership roles at work such as charge nurse.  I actually ENJOY all of those things!  But there is something about pure SOCIAL situations that still scares me if there are too many people involved.

With help from my therapist I’m starting to understand these things about myself and slowly learning that there’s nothing “wrong” with me because of them.  I know a lot of people are the exact opposite of me and fear intimate one-on-one conversations because they are too “exposing.”  But I love those kinds of conversations.  I’ve found that people almost universally like me when I am able to talk to them one-on-one or in a small group.  But in a larger group I have a tendency to just fade into the background and ask dumb questions like “Why do people put olives in martinis?”  

I don’t really know why I’m writing this other than to make myself feel better for being so “uncool” as to have a mild anxiety attack about something as silly as going to a party, something that most other people would be excited about.  The truth of the matter is I had a decent time at the party.  I almost always do.  But I still get anxious about these kinds of scenarios.  And deep down I’d always rather spend time with people alone or in very small groups.  If you’re reading this and you can relate to what I’m saying, feel free to comment so we can all feel less alone.

As an aside, I had my first winery experience yesterday with a group of close friends and it was AMAZING.  I haven’t laughed that much in a long time, and it was fabulous.  The winery was perfect for me: casual, friendly, & not the least bit pretentious.  Underneath it all, I promise I really am a fun person.  😉

As a further aside, I should add that I have at worst a mild case of social anxiety. I know there are people out there who suffer far more, or perhaps I should just say differently, than I from social anxiety. I don’t mean to say my experience is representative of everyone with social anxiety issues. I just wanted to share my own story.

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The Negative Emotion-Guilt Complex


anxiety

Last week I had my monthly session with my therapist & I told her how that week I’d had my first real anxiety attack in at least a month or more.  It happened on Monday afternoon of last week when I was just feeling overwhelmed with my busy schedule, working overtime, lack of sleep, etc.  Thankfully with some encouragement from a dear friend of mine, diffusing & applying several essential oils, & some deep-breathing exercises I was able to quickly move past the anxiety attack & get on with my busy day.  It felt like such a big step for me to be able to tell my therapist that not only was that my first real anxiety attack in a long time but, perhaps more importantly, I didn’t allow the attack to ruin my entire day or week.  Instead of feeling defeated & discouraged & beating myself up over having a “bad day” I just rejoiced in the fact that I was able to recover so quickly & move on with my life.  You have to understand that ordinarily when I have high anxiety days or anxiety attacks for whatever reason (often there really is no reason) I not only have to cope with the anxiety itself but also with guilt over suffering from anxiety problems.  This guilt of course only serves to compound the problem.

I grew up with the idea that certain emotions in & of themselves are sinful.  I’m not sure exactly where I got this idea but it was just there.  Add that to the perfectionistic, high-anxiety personality I was somehow born with & you’ve got a pretty difficult situation.  For the first 18 or so years of my life, whether I wanted to or not, I believed that “negative” emotions such as anger, fear, hate, frustration, sadness, etc were sins.  Naturally this created a horrible cycle in which I felt guilty for experiencing these types of emotions & then the guilt just triggered more sadness, anger, whatever & the cycle continued.  What a mess!

The older I’ve gotten the more clear it’s become to me that no emotions are ever sins in & of themselves.  Feelings are feelings, nothing more, nothing less.  They are what make us ALIVE.  They are what make us human beings.  For example, it is only human nature to be angry at times, even to the point of wanting to hurt someone or something.  It is what we DO with our emotions that matters.  For example, when we strike out in anger at someone, whether verbally or physically, that is when we cross into sinful territory.  Allowing so-called negative emotions to overcome us to the point of being permanently bitter is also perhaps sinful.  But again it is not the feelings themselves that are the problem; it is the actions that spring out of them.  And I for one believe that, though fallible, we as humans have the power to control our emotions.  We might not be able to stop ourselves from feeling angry or frustrated over certain things.  Nor should that even be the goal.  But we DO have the power to stop those emotions from ruling us & causing us to act out in ways that hurt ourselves or other people.  To me that is the definition of sin (I hate that word but can’t think of anything better at the moment): something that hurts yourself or someone else.  I know that is kind of vague but the world is vague.  We only try to paint life in black & white because of how confusing it can be, to try to make sense of a world that is often unfair & cold.  But we do ourselves a disservice by trying to understand a very grey world in only two very extreme colors.  There is so much more to life than that.

I still struggle with anxiety.  But it’s not something that defines me anymore.  And I still struggle with not feeling guilty over having anxiety or experiencing other “negative” emotions.  But the greatest freedom I’ve found in life is when I let go of the guilt & just allow myself to feel whatever it is I’m feeling at that moment.  I have found that these so-called negative emotions leave a lot faster when I just admit what I’m feeling instead of trying to force myself to feel some other way out of guilt.  I don’t know if anyone else struggles with this or if it’s just me.  But I don’t think I’m that unique so I’m sure there are others out there fighting this battle too.  And I hope that if you’re one of those people & you’re reading this that you will be encouraged to move past the guilt & to learn to just enjoy being alive.  We all have our inner battles & we all have bad days because of them.  But as long as we don’t allow those days to define us we are winning. 

P.S. Whether you struggle with any particular mental illness or not, I strongly encourage everyone to consider seeing a counselor or therapist at least once in your life.  As a friend of mine once told me, we can all benefit from having someone to vent to who isn’t emotionally attached to us because no matter how “perfect” our lives may be, we all have issues we could benefit from discussing with an impartial mind.

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Inexplicable Anxiety


Chaucer on his first ever beach trip back in July at Jockey's Ridge St Park in Nagshead

Chaucer on his first ever beach trip back in July at Jockey’s Ridge St Park in Nagshead

I don’t really know why I’m posting this.  I’m not sure that it will be interesting to anyone else.  But writing is one of the best ways to temper my anxiety & I figure there are probably other people out there who can relate to my struggles.  So here goes . . .

Today started out with me getting up early with Jared & feeling really content with life. We went to the farmers’ market & got breakfast at the restaurant there which we had never been to before. It was a fun way to start the day & I was in a great mood for no particular reason. And then, for no particular reason, that mood crashed & burned like a rocket falling out of the sky. Some days my anxiety just comes around a corner & chokes me before I even realize it’s happening. It’s maddening to say the least. My therapist has been helping me to slowly identify some of the triggers for my anxiety which has been very therapeutic for me. After all, if you don’t know the cause of a problem, how can you hope to cure or treat it? But I still have days like today when I am just inexplicably anxious for no apparent reason at all.

I have often said that I am the best version of myself when I’m at work because as a nurse I get to focus all of my obsessive tendencies onto caring for other people, including my patients & their families as well as my coworkers. I love helping out my fellow nurses as much as I love caring for patients. I’ve always known that I feel a very urgent need to have a job that is important & meaningful, which is one reason why nursing is such a great career choice for me. So even if I have a bad shift, which is inevitable from time to time, I can always leave the hospital knowing I in some way made someone’s day a little better.

It’s when I’m at home on my days off that my anxiety is often the worst. As I’m typing this I realize how ridiculous that must sound to anyone who doesn’t know what it’s like to suffer from some form of anxiety. But it’s true nonetheless. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding like some miserable frump who doesn’t know how to have fun & enjoy her life. I promise I’m not like that at all. I love music, books, & spending time with my friends & family. I love the feeling of a crisp fall breeze, the smell of sweet potatoes baking in the oven with cinnamon, the thrill of hiking in the Blue Ridge & marveling at the majestic mountains, the heart-melting experience of cuddling with an adorable puppy, & so many other little things in life that truly are the very essence of our existence. Yet may I just say that there are days like today when I feel like the world benefits from my overly driven but caring personality while I sit here wondering what the heck I’m getting out of this deal? And may I just say that I already feel incredibly guilty for even thinking such a thing much less actually writing it? But it is what it is nonetheless. As I’ve said many times before, emotions aren’t sins in my book. Emotions are what make us alive. As long as we’re feeling, we know we’re living. It’s what we do with our emotions that matters.

So for now I’m going to play with my puppy (Chaucer) who follows me around the house constantly & insists on sitting in my lap just about every waking moment & thus clearly thinks I’m the world’s best puppy mommy. And I’m going to listen to music that inspires me & reminds me that though I may be struggling with my anxiety more today than yesterday or the day before, I’ve walked this road a thousand times before. And, as it has a thousand times before, it will end. I will always have my “bad” days like this, but I will always have my good days too. And even on the bad days I can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And I know that my anxiety doesn’t own me. It doesn’t define me. It’s just a part of me. Just one small part. After all, if Chaucer thinks I’m awesome I must be.   🙂

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A Window Into My Brain


Because all blogs posts are better with pictures, I've included this photo taken on the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh on July 4th this year.

Because all blogs posts are better with pictures, I’ve included this photo taken on the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh on July 4th this year.

For as long as I can remember I have always been “Miss Responsible.”  I have always been the girl who did her homework early, finished her papers well before the deadline, created study guides for tests & shared them with classmates, & packed too much for every out-of-town trip because I always imagine everything I could possibly need.  As a nurse I always have my patients’ lab values & test results written down at the beginning of every shift & I always make sure to update my data & give the latest lab results in report to the next nurse.  I obsess over I&O’s so much that I often have to remind myself that I’m not a patient so I don’t need to measure my own I&O (yes, you can laugh WITH me for that).  I like to think that this makes me detail-oriented but also capable of seeing “the big picture.”  Unfortunately underneath all of this responsible behavior lies a great deal of anxiety.

The first time I saw a psychologist was about a year and a half ago when we were still living in SW Virginia.  I was concerned that I might be OCD because of how detail-oriented I am & the anxiety that this sometimes causes me.  The psychologist quickly assured me that my life is far too organized & controlled for me to actually have OCD (anyone else think that’s an ironic truth?), but that I do have “OCD personality characteristics” which he insisted actually make me a great nurse (I’d like to believe that!).  I continued seeing him maybe once a month until we moved to NC just so I could have a place to vent to someone who wouldn’t go home & worry about me or be offended by anything I said since he had no emotional connection to me.

The first few months in the Raleigh-Durham area were difficult.  Growing up in a place that had four stop-lights in the whole COUNTY makes moving to an urban environment like this an exciting but sometimes daunting challenge.  I hoped it would be easy to meet people & make new friends, but it was nothing like college where I could just walk down the hall or go to class & meet all kinds of interesting people.  (My first year out of college I still had friends in the area who were either still in college or who had graduated but, like me, still lived in the area.)  Sometime around my birthday last year I was feeling quite depressed & lonely especially as the holidays approached & I knew that, being a nurse, I would not get to spend much time with my family due to work obligations.  I decided to once again try a psychologist who turned out to be a very nice older man.  I told him how much I love music & missed playing my flute with a group, so he, a musician himself, told me about a music store downtown where he was certain I could get information about a local flute group.  I took his advice, got lost in downtown trying to find the store, eventually found it, got the information about the flute ensemble, & joined the group in January when their new “semester” began.  I didn’t end up making any great friends in the group but just the experience of making music in a group again brought me great joy.

By the time January-February came around I had started making more friends at work & generally feeling a lot happier with life, so I never went back to see that psychologist until one fateful day this summer when I was talking to one of my best friends online.  She was telling me about her struggles with bipolar disorder & I suddenly realized that my own struggles with anxiety were far from controlled, especially in light of the fact that I have started thinking a lot more about having children someday.  I felt such a relief in knowing that I wasn’t the only “crazy” one out there & also in knowing that if she had the strength to seek treatment I could too.  With her encouragement, I immediately called the psychologist I had seen in December & booked an appointment for that very day.  As it turned out, the psychologist told me I should see a psychiatrist in case I needed actual medical treatment for a possible anxiety disorder.  I was both devastated & relieved.  It took quite a few phone calls to find a psychiatrist who would accept my insurance & once I found one I had to schedule my appointment for a month in the future.  In the ensuing month I considered canceling the appointment so many times.  On good days I would tell myself, as I have so many times in my life, “I’m fine.  I’ve got this.  My life is so ‘perfect’ in so many ways.  I’m 24 years old, married to a wonderful man with whom I own a beautiful house in a gorgeous neighborhood, I have great health, & I’m about to train for charge nurse at my job.  How could I possibly need to see a psychiatrist?”  But on bad days, I couldn’t wait for the appointment just so I could hear what the psychiatrist had to say.

Well, finally the day of the dreaded/highly anticipated appointment arrived & much to my relief the psychiatrist was extremely friendly & put me immediately at ease.  She assured me that I do not have any true mental illness & definitely do not need any medication.  However, she suggested I start seeing one of the counselors in her office to work on some of my anxiety & self-esteem issues which, though they may not be “significant” enough to warrant the title of a true disorder, are still serious enough to bother me.  She applauded me for being so self-aware & for caring so much about my future children that I want to be the best, most stable version of myself before I seriously consider becoming a parent in the next couple of years.

As it turned out one of the counselors had had a last-minute cancellation right at the time my visit with the psychiatrist ended so I was able to start with a counselor that very day.  The counselor was very gentle, caring, & quickly made me feel comfortable in her beautifully decorated office.  I left the office that day feeling “lighter” than I had felt in God knows how long.  I had my second appointment with her last week & I already can’t wait to go back.  I honestly think everyone can benefit from counseling with a good therapist at least a few times a year.  As a friend of mine used to say, we ALL have issues from our childhood, our families, our friends, & just LIFE in general & we all can all benefit from having a caring but objective person to vent to who, as I mentioned before, isn’t going to go home & worry about you or be offended by anything you say (because they have probably heard MUCH worse) & doesn’t have any real emotional connection to you anyway.

It may sound strange to say I am excited about being in counseling, but I really am.  I’ve known for most of my life, even as a kid, that I am a very sensitive, perceptive person.  As my middle school English teacher, wise woman that she is, told me, I am both highly intelligent & highly sensitive which makes me feel things, both good & bad, more strongly than perhaps the average person does.  I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant but I don’t know how else to put it.

As much as I would sometimes like to trade in my brain for one that just doesn’t THINK so darn much about EVERYTHING, I know at the end of the day this brain is what makes me who I am.  I do think it makes me a good nurse; as I have told both psychologists, the psychiatrist, & my current counselor, I often think I am my best self at work because I have something important & meaningful on which to focus all my nervous energy & obsessive tendencies.  And I’d also like to think this brain makes me an empathetic human being who makes a consistent effort to recycle everything possible, donate to charities, & buy water bottles for homeless people who are stuck outside in the heat.

In the near future I hope to post more about my struggles with what one might call “sub-clinical anxiety.”  This isn’t a comfortable topic to discuss & I’ll admit that I feel like I have taken the easy way out by writing about this as a blog post instead of just telling my family, friends, & coworkers in person about my issues.  But as my counselor told me this past week, we all have to start somewhere.  In the meantime, I hope this post will encourage even one person to seek counseling or treatment for their own issues with anxiety or depression.  And for those of you who are lucky enough not to struggle with such issues (though I daresay we all will at some point in our lives), I hope this post will encourage you to be more considerate & compassionate of those who do.

Also, please check out my friend’s brilliant blog (who inspired my own) at http://doesthatmakemecrazyblog.com/

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