Coming to the realization that I am the fuel to my anxiety fires! How long will I keep the fires burning?
It’s funny! I’ve been contemplating starting a blog on anxiety and grief and here I am. Every time I sit down to start writing, the words just don’t want to come out onto paper. I know how I feel and what I want to say every other second of the day, but when I’m in front of a blank screen my mind goes completely blank. I have experienced so many mixed emotions and feelings over the years, am a medical professional and have tried so many different modalities for my anxiety and grief that I am practically an expert on the subjects.
When I say I’m a medical professional, I am a Registered Nurse. My entire career has been spent taking care of patients suffering from mental illness and trauma. However, most of my expertise comes from personal experience. I have suffered from anxiety and depression for the past twelve years. I have officially been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Panic Attacks and most recently Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have taken medication on and off since this started and have tried everything from therapy to yoga to massage to EMDR. I continue to suffer up to this day and will probably experience these afflictions up until the day I die. However, it wasn’t until recent that I realized although I didn’t ask to feel this way, I am the obstacle in preventing and sustaining my recovery. I am making myself feel this way.
In the blink of an eye, the world can be changed forever and appear differently than it has your entire life. Perceptions change. Reality changes and a new person begins to form. My first thought for this next sentence was that my anxiety has changed the person I have become. I have become so accustomed to my anxiety that anytime something seems to go wrong I blame it on anxiety. At this point, even though I continue to experience anxiety, it has also become my crutch or my excuse as to why I feel as “bad” as I feel. The person am today has been influenced by my anxiety and depression, but not built by it. The person I am today has been completely and entirely built by me and the new, scary perceptions I have developed about the world and life.
Trauma is a bitch! In the past when I thought trauma, I thought car accident, plane crash or some other horrific accident or incident that involved someone getting mangled, abused and/or killed. However, trauma is perceptual. Trauma can be anything that you have perceived to be life altering and affects your emotions and ways of thinking. My trauma did involve a death and a loss but was not in actuality traumatic in the way that we think when we hear the word ‘trauma’. My trauma comes from the loss of two women who were the most influential women in my life. Two women that I didn’t go one day in my life without talking to. Two women that inspired me and made me feel like I could do anything in the world. My great grandmother and my grandma, or Gram and Grandma Margaret. Their deaths marked a landmark in my life, and greatly changed the way I perceived the whole world.
“You are my girl. My one and only.” My Gram would say that to me all the time. I can hear it in my head and see her face as I type this. She always told me not to stand over her grave. Not to cry or feel bad because no matter if I could see her or not, she is always here with me. She always told me to move forward and never back, but that’s easier said than done. For the past twelve years, it has been as though things have happened but I’m still that little girl living in the home that Gram built and living as though they never left. But they did. They left years ago. However, I have attached myself to those moments in my life where good was good and have difficulty seeing the good in the present moment. I have flashbacks and memories shooting through my head like a meteor flying through the sky. It’s just a matter of time before the pieces strike the Earth and cause damage. This damage would be the havoc that my anxiety and depression wreak on my body and my mind.
The other day I had one of my bad days. I got out of bed and immediately felt the dread and terror writhing through my body. I thought to myself “Ok Amanda, here it comes. Think about something else. Think positive.” However, trying to force different thoughts amplifies the thoughts and feelings I am already feeling. That’s one thing I already know but have a hard time putting into practice. Riding the wave as they say, or letting the thoughts just be passing thoughts. Ever since their deaths, my fear is that I am going to die. I am constantly thinking catastrophically and waiting for the worst possible scenario to happen. For example, driving. Just about every time I get in the car to drive, my first thought is what if I have a heart attack and drive off the road? A simple shower. What if I have a heart attack in the shower and no one can get my son off the bus? What if I die in my house, no one will find my body until later? What will happen to everyone if I pass away? This is the thinking that keeps me in the loop. This keeps me from living my full life. It keeps me from experiencing the joys in life that everyone should feel, not to mention allow me to do the simple day to day activities.
I bitch and moan constantly that I feel like shit and can’t seem to let go of the thoughts of my lost loved ones, however, the more I think about it, I am responsible. I don’t want to let those thoughts go. I have lived with them for so long, not thinking or feeling this way makes me feel abnormal. I’ve developed thoughts and rituals within my mind that if I just do this today or think this today, the anxiety will go away. Those uncomfortable physical symptoms will just disappear if I do x, y and z. However, after all the things I’ve tried to do, it’s still here. I have not yet dealt with the underlying thoughts, feelings and emotions that keep me in the loop and therefore, until I do so, I will never be released. How do I know this? Because I’ve thought to myself “Am I going to die thinking about the death of my grandmothers? Am I going to be their ages and still be in mourning of them?” In all honesty, if my grandmothers were here today, they would be cussing me up and down and telling me to stop this and move on. They would be rolling over in their graves and probably are at this very moment. The one thing I hope they do get from seeing me like this is how influential they were to me in my life.
Today I would say is a semi-ok day. I woke up feeling ok, started to feel shitty and am back to on the fence at this moment. My back constantly hurts, and I just can’t figure out if the anxiety is causing the tension or the tension is causing anxiety, however, it’s still all stress. I have the movie ‘My Cousin Vinny’ playing in the background and keep thinking about how my grandmother had this VHS tape in her collection. I attach too much emotion to everything. But how do you stop? How do you stop doing this without repression? Before this movie came on, I cried to ‘Jumanji’ for goodness sake! I am an emotional mess, however, even in just writing this I continue to fight to release these afflictions from affecting me so deeply. It affects me to my core and at this point I’m not even aiming for a happy core, but a neutral core that isn’t so emotionally charged and can see the rationality through the irrational or in simple terms, see through the bullshit. But I will get there. It may take years and a variety of different methods, but I will persevere! It just sucks along the way!
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