Welcome of Sorts

My first post on this blog. I will be posting older entries from other random blogs of mine up here to keep them all in one spot, along with new blogs as time goes on.

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Welcome to my anxiety hell. I guess that isn't much of a welcome but every time I think I've hit rock bottom in dealing with my anxiety something else comes along and proves me wrong.

For those who haven't experienced an anxiety disorder, it can be really hard to understand the overwhelming feelings that come with it. Everyone with an anxiety disorder experiences their anxiety differently, but there are a few general things that everyone with one of the anxiety disorders shares in common.

1. We know what we get anxious over isn't rational. Yes, we can always find reasons and ways to rationalize it as a coping mechanism, but at least for anyone who has come to terms with their anxiety, they know there is no logical reason to feel this way.
2. Telling someone with an anxiety disorder to just 'relax' is like telling a locomotive to just 'stop'. It isn't going to happen and trust me, if all we needed to do was just relax, life would be bliss.
3. Forcing someone with an anxiety disorder to just 'face their fears' and 'just do it' can not only be uncomfortable on good days, but on bad days can be wholly traumatic.
4. There aren't a lot of good options for medications to help with anxiety, as many of them are under the 'depressant' category, ie, the turn you into a zombie category. The same category with warnings to not drive or operate heavy machinery. It leaves us with the choice of living in an anxiety hell, having attacks that can be fleeting or last days and even weeks at a time and spending our life trying to avoid anything that might possibly trigger an attack, or living in a drugged hell were we might as well not know what is going on.

For me personally, this blog is a way to try and cope. And to admit that it isn't just stress or school or work that causes my anxiety. I've known for years I get anxious easily, ever since puberty I'd have mild attacks but always felt I had some way to rationalize it. As the years went on I'd get more and more anxious over things and found ways to rationalize it and cope.

For example, Email and the Internet for the longest time was my savior, as one of my triggers is talking on the phone, even with people I know well. As the years went on, I found ways to avoid this trigger. I'd not answer the phone while in the office unless the caller ID said it was either one of the other editors or my husband, everything would go to voicemail. I'd check the voicemail later and call people back at my leisure. But it evolved into I'd check the messages and push off the responsibility to return calls to other people. Then I wouldn't even check the messages myself anymore. My anxiety was getting progressively worse over the years, but I was still at the point I could function. I'd email people and they'd email me back. Then I'd start to get anxious over seeing emails in the inbox and opening them became a nightmare. I'd put my hand over the screen and look away as I clicked on the email, and often would keep my hand up there to read it line by line so as not to be overwhelmed by the entire email. Then I'd go days without checking my email. Now there are days when just thinking about email even if I know there isn't going to be anything other than junk mail in it, gives me a full blown anxiety attack.

I have many other 'triggers', which I will post a running list of things I know are triggers for me, and just as many other times that I've ended up in an anxiety attack and not known anything to have caused it; it just happened. When I peel back all the layers, all the normal stressors that everyone experiences, take away any out of the ordinary circumstances that would cause anyone to flip out (and there have been some), and just really look at myself...

I finally asked myself "Even if there wasn't this, that and the other... how would you feel?"
My answer.... "ANXIOUS"