Hello.. to nobody...?...?
I am not going to announce that I am writing again, because I don't know if I have anything worthwhile to say. But I am going to start writing again as a sort of self-therapy. If anybody happens upon this, then welcome. You will get to see into my daily life and see how I deal with my anxiety. It will probably be boring :)
It has been a rough 9 months in my anxiety department. Matthew is two. So I think it has morphed from a postpartum anxiety to just plain old, ugly, anxiety. It is kind of painful to think of the fact that I have anxiety issues now and not just postpartum anxiety. It was easier to think of them as a side effect of recently having a cute baby. Now they are just there and there is no cute new little baby.
We had a rough summer. A fun summer, but it was stressful. We had months of visitors. Yes, months. Which meant way too many late nights, crazy days, and non-routine days. I live for routine days. If I don't get my 2 hour afternoon down time, I really start to lose it. A couple of other things happened. My mom got knee surgery and a close friend had a emotional breakdown and I was trying to support both of them. That led straight into September where Mike had an extremely stressful situation at work happen. He was so stressed he couldn't eat. At the same time, Thomas was refusing to attend school. I held everthing together until about the beginning of October. Ironically, it was after everything had calmed down. Thomas was attending school. Mike's work situation had blown over. My friends emotional crisis was dying down. My mom's knees where healing. The first week of October, I started not sleeping. I don't know why. I just was laying awake for hours and hours each night. I pulled out all my stops. I stayed calm. I didn't panic. I relaxed. I prayed. I read. I exercised. Still didn't sleep. After about 5 days (5 days, it seems like 5 days is my breaking point) I knew I was in trouble. So...swallow my pride I called my OB and he so generously (THANK GOODNESS) called me in Lexepro (How many times is Lexapro going to save me...cause so far its saved me 4 times) over the phone.
It worked. It always does. But this time it brought frustrations....
I don't love the way it makes me feel slightly disconnected. It wasn't as much of a big deal when I had a newborn baby and was just concerned about the baby and the whole world was a little foggy because of that newborn/weird sleep patterns fog. But when taken alone, it just gives a slight disconnect from other humans feeling.
Don't get me wrong. It has saved my life so many times and I will jump back on it at any moment that I need, but I wanted to try to get off of it. My husband also likes it better when I am not on it :)
Anyways, I always think it is a good idea to stay on it for 6 months before trying to go off. So I did. I have just come off of it. It is hard to come off of it. They say it is not addicting, but it does take some time to adjust to being off of it. I have now been off for 2.5 weeks. I am feeling slightly back to normal. Coming off is so rough. I was angry, mean, emotional, and anxious.
BUT! I am determined that instead of treating my anxiety. I am going to prevent it. I know I won't be perfect, but I am going to try.
One thing that my sister told me about that she learned from her sister-in-law who went to an in-house OCD treatment center, is that when you are dealing with Mental health things, it is important to do 3 things every day. Ironically, it is these three things that are very hard for me to do.
1. Get some exercise...preferably outside
2. Have some sort of social interaction with a real live human being (a.k.a. not facebook)
3. Do a mindfulness activity of some sort.
I am going to try to do those three things every day. Sometimes I will fail, but I've got to try. I am going to try to report on those things and how it is making a difference and new techniques I have learned and life in general. Wish me luck
- Judi
To be Continued.
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