Just When I Thought I was Cured....

I never talk about The A Word (anxiety) in my blog. I want to keep this positive. However I cannot deny that it still exists in my life, and today life has reminded me that I am still not yet done with this journey.

I suppose I have always been just a little anxious, as is typical of a Melancholy, but it only became a real issue when I was in my final year at uni when I just crashed and burned out from mentally pushing myself for so many years. The result of that was a serious bout of depression and really bad anxiety. I even had to do my final exams in a separate room alone because I was panicking being in a large hall full of people. After uni it was on and off, but after The Incident it was the worst it has even been, and for the last 18 months I have been battling it ever since. It is what has held me back from really living life all these years. This year I decided it wasn't going to win anymore. I was going to live life my way and push through all my comfort zones.

I have been doing really well, especially for about the last 6 months now my recovery has just taken off expediently, that we (Dr, Shrink and I) are thinking I can get off these meds at the end of the year (still proudly maintaining a half dose at the moment). That would be a dream come true. However today has just been a really awful day (and I'm barely half way yet) and I just feel like I am going to have to put up with this forever.

The experience the bulk of my anxiety in two ways. The first is a short, intense burst of fear known as the panic attack, and the other is just a lingering sense of confusion and stress and very unhelpful thoughts that go around and around making me more anxious, more confused and more stressed.

Today is one of those lingering anxiety days and I am really hoping it is hormonal. I finally have a belated TTOM which means PMS, so this morning after a really bad night's sleep full of tossing and turning and somewhat painful dreams, I get out of bed and have a shower. The Boy took his sweet time and the hot water runs out when I am covered in suds and with conditioner in my hair. I quickly rinse off and just put my head under the cold water and he "playfully" decided to put cold water all over me. I decided to get "annoyed" about this. Due to my stubbornness and general PMS emotional overdrive I turn it into a massive fight at 6:30am in the morning, which continues for half an hour until I finally just burst into tears for no apparent reason. The Boy lovingly calms me down, and leaves for work.

I get to work right right on time and have a huge pile of work to do today as I am having a long weekend. I am sitting at the computer feeling stressed and then it starts to happen. The unhelpful thoughts, the feeling of not breathing, the feeling of gloom....

So I turn to my blog as my journal is at home, because writing makes it all better, and yes I now feel good again. I am feeling a lot more emotionally stable. Yes therapeutic writing works! Now I can go and enjoy the long weekend I am having to celebrate my birthday (more on that later). Life is beautiful.