I rarely post on this tumblr anymore but I am going to try and write about my anxiety in hopes that it may be therapeutic for me.
Lets start at the “beginning.” About 2 years ago, I was diagnosed with diabetes. I had a medical episode where the doctors didn’t know if I was having a stroke or heart attack. Mind you, I was 26 at the time so I was technically too young to be experiencing a stroke or a heart attack however I was severely obese which affected my diabetes. To give an idea of my size at that time: At 26yrs old I weighed about 354. I know that my heaviest weight was at 25 when I weighed 375 lbs. Although the doctors ran test on me, they didn’t know what was wrong and there was no indication that an actual stroke had happened.
Regardless of the uncertainty of my condition, the medical scare helped me realize that even though I thought I was beautiful at any size, I was severally unhealthy and I needed to change my life. I began on the tough journey towards health and somehow I basically achieved the unachievable. I did what I had always dreamt of which was loosing 100 lbs. Through following a low carb diet and exercising every once in a while, I reached this goal! I now weigh 246-250lbs and my diabetes is now under control.
With this dramatic weight loss came both confidence and insecurities about myself and my body. The thing about dramatic weight loss is that you lose the weight but the skin sags and you don’t really look how you idealized. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe I am beautiful at my current weight but I am still insecure. I am human after all.
During my weight-loss journey, or maybe right before, I was promoted at my job to a position that came with a lot more stress and responsibilities. At the same time some things were brought up from my childhood that tore me up emotionally and some uncertainties about my future became more intense.
Now before I continue with my long story, I should let whoever is reading this know that my usual way of dealing with stress is through food. I would usually eat a ultra carby meal to give me a euphoric high that took my problems away. Now that I was diabetic, I couldn’t do that anymore. Technically I could but hospital bills are not fun.
Anyway, I am not sure if any one of those single events or a combination of all of them lead me to have panic attacks/ Anxiety attacks.
My symptoms are as follows:
-getting really hot and sweating even in really cold rooms
-inability to speak clearly
-fidgeting
-racing thoughts about everything and nothing at all
-feeling of dread over relevant and irrelevant things
- my stomach dropping
- need to constantly go to the restroom but not really going
and the one that bothers me the most.. and makes me panic even more
-my left foot begins to uncontrollably “cramp” and strain without my control
At first I was having these attacks daily with all the symptoms shown above, multiple times a day, to the point at that I was crying uncontrollably and it was affecting my job and life in general. It got to the point that I was not myself anymore and I finally went to my doctor. My general physician prescribed Zoloft to take daily and a less addictive/organic version of Xanax to take as an “as needed” medication. The daily pill helped me and I was down to one panic attack a day however the “as needed “ medication made me incredibly tired to the point that I needed to take a nap each time I took that medicine. It became problematic because I couldn’t work due to not being fully functional. So I went back to my doctor and my Zoloft was increased and I was prescribed actual Xanax.
Now my panic attacks are down to once or twice a week, which still sucks but is way better than multiple times a day. Thinking back to my “stroke,” the doctor at the hospital said that none of my vitals showed that I had suffered a stroke and they were unsure of what had happened to me. Now that I think about it, I believe that I may have just had a severe panic attack back then that manifested itself like a stoke.
I guess in short, after my long post, Anxiety sucks and I am just tying to take everyday with patience and strength. Some days are way harder than others but my goal with this post is just to write out my experience and my symptoms as an experiment to see if writing could help me cope. I don’t expect anyone to read this or comment.
Since anxiety is a hard concept to understand sometimes, I would like to add that I have tried meditation, breathing exercises, distraction, napping, singing, crying, venting, and even eating to try and stop the attacks however it doesn’t seem to work. I have also tried to convince myself that I am ok and that “it doesn’t matter” but that hasn’t worked either.
I would also like to add that my job is very demanding and I should go to therapy however I just don’t have the time to miss so much work. My schedule demands that I sometimes work 6 days out of the week, with some afternoons and sometimes nights.
Again, my goal with this post is just to see if I can use Tumblr as a therapeutic tool to help me through my attacks. I plan to “blog” when I can but preferably when I am experiencing a panic attack.
To whoever has read this entire post, thank you!
