Creating anxiety

Even with being anxious over every last little thing, I know there are some things that it is perfectly okay to feel anxious about.

Buying your first home is one of them.

Long story short, we are paying $845 a month in rent for a 2 bed, 1 bath, 890sq ft apartment. Due to the housing bubble crash or whatever you want to call it, houses that would have been $300k and more a few years ago can be had for $80-100k. With taxes and insurance factored in, we'd be looking at saving at least $150 a month on rent alone and another $50 a month on not needing to store our other car. And that's at the $100k end of things. We also currently have enough to put down 10% on a house in that price range.

But of course there is the issue of dealing with it all. Income is an issue. A big one. The majority of our income comes in two lump sums in February and September. It is student income, about $15k between the loving hubby and I each year. Last year and the year before we made about $15k working, so have been living off of about $30k a year. But our tax return shows only the $15k.

I know we should be able to qualify for an FHA loan which isn't as stringent as a conventional loan, but the income part still worries me. I can prove we've gotten the income in the past and I can prove that at least for the next year we will continue to receive that income. What is difficult is that I only work during the semesters and well, this last semester and coming semester don't look the hottest as far as income is concerned. We'll be lucky if we get $7500 this year in earned income. If we get a house though, we'll get about $8000 back from the government for being first time home buyers come the beginning of next year, which also helps with the cash flow.

And we can't afford to keep paying rent at this amount and there aren't places any cheaper to rent either. We have to be putting out less per month to make it. We've already cut out satellite television and all the features on our home phone (call waiting, caller id, etc). We went on a cell plan with my mom and brothers to save money too and we only pay $30 a month for that. We got rid of one of our cars that we weren't driving which just saved us a bunch on insurance. We've been living off of just under $1400 a month so far this year, and with (at least up until this coming month) paying $800 a month in rent and $260 in a car payment, I think I can run a pretty tight ship for a three-person household.

Lets just hope the loan guy sees it that way. Though we know the rate will be slightly higher, we are first going to talk to the loan guy at our bank. We know everyone in the branch by first name and they know us. They can also easily see our cash flow and that we have the huge deposits twice a year. I am hoping/praying that it will help. Along with being able to show that despite our rent being nearly 60% of our income we have been able to make it and that lowering that housing payment is just going to make it even easier.

I told loving hubby I would go with him to the bank in the morning to talk about it. But I am now just freaking out and trying not to fall into a full-blown panic attack. As I started this post out, I know it is normal to feel anxious about something like this. It is a huge step. I just hope I don't have a melt-down midway through.

(BTW, loving hubby has been looking for a job since January with no luck. Sweetheart has been looking even longer. Our county currently has nearly a 20% unemployment rate.)

More appointments and stuff

I have another doctors appointment this afternoon that I have to leave to in about 20 minutes so I'll have to squeeze this post in.

Staring at the ceiling in bed about a week ago I started to think about the holidays... specifically the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I started with Thanksgiving, thinking about we had gone to my Grandmother's house and the food. But then I realized what I was remembering was Thanksgiving the year before. As much as I tried, I couldn't remember an actual memory from this Thanksgiving. I mean, I knew what went on that day because I know what was supposed to go on that day. But actual memories, no.

I thought about it some more and realized, other than a few blips here and there, I know what went on because of what was supposed to go on, but I really don't remember anything between Thanksgiving and just before Christmas for this past season. I know it was the height of my stress (and ended in culmination with 40 hours of no sleep, a near psychotic break, a trip to the psychologist last minute before the office closed for the holidays and a subsequent visit to the doctor who prescribed sleeping pills for the time being). It was one, long, continuous anxiety attack. I can't imagine what would have happened if what triggered the 'finale' of insomnia, if one would call it that, hadn't happened. Would I have continued loosing time?

Anyway, I am up to 50mg of the Zoloft stuff a day. I dunno. Its not really having any affect on my anxiety and I don't notice any differences in sleep between the 25 and 50mg dosages. I'm sure he'll put me up to 75mg or even 100mg today. My muscles feel tight and tingly which I don't know to attribute to the Zoloft or just to my history of muscle spasms. My appetite has taken a nose dive and I've lost 6 lbs since being on it. I'm more aware of my heart racing when before I knew it was but I was more preoccupied with what was happening in my head... now I realize both.

I woke up about 6am the day after going up to the 50mg in a major attack. I felt terrified for no reason and I felt like I wanted to scream. I didn't. I laid in bed for an hour feeling awful. I knew if I screamed it wouldn't help and would just end up freaking my Loving Hubby and Sweetheart out. About 7am I knew my heart racing so long coupled with I hadn't eaten since 6pm the evening before that my blood sugar was low. It took me another 30 minutes to muster enough mental strength to move through the panic and get up to get something to eat.

At least once a day since mid-November I've had anxiety severe enough to call it a panic attack, though of varying degrees. I want to file for disability... but I can't muster enough non-anxiety to even broach it with my doctor.

Medication

As I was starting to go quite insane from the lack of sleep, went to the doctor a week ago Tuesday to discuss the lack of sleep/anxiety. He wanted me to try zoloft but worried that I might have a reaction to it since I've had issues with other medications of similar types, wanted to start me on an uber-small dosage.

So he started me on 1/2 a 25mg tablet a few hours before bed for a week. I didn't notice any difference but we really didn't expect much as a normal adult dosage is 50-100mg. Just looking for any side effects.

Didn't have any really (or at least that I connected to it). Kinda lost my appetite but after weeks of so little sleep, I really wasn't surprised by that.

Went up to 25mg this Tuesday after seeing the doc again. I actually got about 4 hours of sleep both Tuesday and Wednesday night AND actually hit rem sleep. I feel better in that sense but now its no longer just lack of appetite (in which I'd still eat just wasn't hungry), but food just sounds bad now. Just came back from dinner with my mom and brothers (it is my youngest brother's birthday), Loving hubby and Sweetheart. I ate maybe a 1/3 of what was on my plate and got the rest to go. And its a meal I normally would have been able to finish just fine. Now we are expected to go over to my aunt's house for cake/ice cream which I am sure I'm going to be expected to have some. Sounds disgusting right now.

I also have this weird headache which I had lightly on Sun/Mon but now is irritating to say the least. Its in the back of my head and radiates down into my neck and back of my jaw. Like the muscles are super tight and irritated. I'm supposed to call the doctor tomorrow and discuss the dosage and possibly going up to 37.5mg for the weekend to try for more sleep, but I think I'm going to stay at 25mg for a while. Lots of stuff I've read said most of the more annoying side effects go away after 2 weeks but being I was on such a low dose I want to give it a little more time.

As far as helping with the anxiety? Mentally... eh. At this point I think just getting the little bit more sleep I've gotten the last two nights has made somewhat of a difference. I feel kinda locked into a '2' on my scale; no real ups or downs which I suppose is good. But it doesn't necessarily feel right either. More like a fog slowing my anxiety down versus actually stopping it. Hard to explain. I don't like how my anxiety ups/downs make me feel, but I am not entirely sure I like how this feels.
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PS. Because after telling some people about being on Zoloft and the 'oh! it isn't making you feel suicidal is it?' I felt I needed to post this disclaimer. No, I am not feeling suicidal nor have I ever. Damn stereotypes.

Insomnia

Right now I get the feeling that if I could actually sleep for more than 10-15 minute blips in a four hour period I could actually function today.

The insomnia is just not relenting this time. I laid in bed awake most of the night... totalled about an hour of sleep. I even reset the alarm for later to try and get some more sleep.

Looking at me after I finally decided to forget laying in bed and trying to get something done, Loving Hubby said "I can feel your brain short circuit from here." Somehow his attempts at humor this morning did not amuse me... I give him credit for trying, but I've gotten all of 35 hours of sleep in the last two weeks... or averaging 2.5 hours of sleep a night.

I have another doctors appointment tomorrow. If I don't go insane before then...

Sick (original to 1/2/2009)

Why is it that when I am sick my anxiety is totally manageable? Despite being sick with a nasty head cold, I was NOT going to miss our New Years. The whole point of it was to relax and destress and I had been looking forward to it since I booked it in November.

We went to Monterey and got a neat hotel suite with two rooms and an in room hot tub for me, Loving Hubby and Sweetheart. We also went to this event called "First Night Monterey"... basically a dry new years festival thing. Got a henna tattoo on my hand, saw Taiko drummers, and a slew of other things. It was fairly crowded but a good portion of it was outdoors where there is always an 'escape'. The henna tattoo was fun even if it was one of the two things that made me kinda anxious. The only other people really around us in line were kids so I felt completely silly and a bit anxious, but Sweetheart kept me in line and made me do it which I am glad. Later in the evening when it got colder and most of the events where inside and more crowded my heart started racing and I was close to having an attack, but at that point we decided to go back to the hotel room with our snacks and apple cider and relax in the hot tub.

My head felt like someone was trying to cram it full of clay and then inflate the clay somehow, but I really enjoyed myself. On New Years day I was tired and still felt blah, but we stopped at Marina State Beach on the way back home and walked around for a bit. There was hardly anyone there except for a few people walking their dogs and a few surfers on the gorgeous waves farther down the beach. It was wonderfully peaceful and if it wasn't for the sand in my sneakers that no matter what I did I couldn't get out (which lead me to nearly pitching a fit when we got back to the car since I couldn't get them off quick enough and started to feel claustrophobic, thank you Loving Hubby for getting them the hell off of me), it would have been nearly anxiety free.

I can't really remember exactly when I could claim I had another day I felt that 'unanxious'... the only day that even remotely comes to mind was Sweetheart's birthday back in August, or some time right around there. I figured out then that with my new swimsuit, it actually fit well enough that I could properly dive into a pool without worrying about something popping out. I love to swim and dive but I was in high school the last time I was able to dive and not have to hold my top in place. It was almost rediculous how unbelievably happy it made me.

Me as of late

Last spring I was working full-time in a job I've worked in some form or another since spring 2005 and really do enjoy (as a teaching associate at a university), but was getting farther and farther behind on my work with recurrent episodes of severe anxiety and needed assistance to complete it.

Worked minimally over the summer as an attempt to refresh myself but this past fall I worked at 2/3s the work load I did in the spring but still kept getting behind due to even more frequent anxiety attacks.

I am currently working half of what I did this past fall, or only 1/3 of my workload from last spring, and only with the assistance of Loving Hubby and Sweetheart am I able to actually get any work done.

All I have left in my graduate program is my thesis which I know EXACTLY everything I need and want to do inside and out. I've ready thousands of pages of research, gotten feedback from no less than a dozen professors and even though I used to be able to write ANYTHING in total ease, I get an anxiety attack and half the time start crying from the anxiety if someone even mentions it.

Grocery Stores (archive of 2/13/2009)

I hate grocery stores. Right now I hate most stores but today it was a grocery store.

I was hoping that since it was the middle of the day that the store wouldn't be too crowded, and that we could take our time, pause when needed to let me catch my breath (anxeity litterally takes my breath away... heart racing, dizzy, lightheaded, etc). But I was wrong.

And we REALLY needed to go grocery shopping.

I was doing sorta-kinda ok considering how crowded it was until Loving Hubby* suggested we go out for lunch to a salad bar buffet type place... which would have been fine but we needed to get a lot of frozen food and were already half a football field into the store with a few things already in the cart. Since the affordably priced grocery stroe is 15 miles from home and the salad bar place thingy was across the street, it would have meant leaving the store to go eat, then coming back afterwards.

I felt my body freeze and a flood of anxiety and fear come over me. I tried to calm myself by putting the decision off on someone else, Sweetheart. Unfortunately for my anxiety, Sweetheart is incredibly indecisive and as much as I love her, in relation to my anxiety is her biggest flaw. But I love her and that was in no way blaming her for my anxiety. Back to Loving Hubby. Realizing I'm on the verge of a major attack he tries to play it off, "we don't have to", "whatever you like", "its ok, you are in control of this", etc.

I ended up crying in front of the shredded cheese. Loving Hubby and Sweetheart gave me hugs and at least got me to stop crying, and we continued on like no one had said a thing about eating out.

I had to walk around the corner to the next empty ailse a little later. Loving Hubby while trying to grab some frozen burritos accidently pulled one of the boxes out and burritos went everywhere. I yelled at him for grabbing too many. I feel bad about it cause I know it was an accident, but it was all I could do at the time to keep from completely bolting off in panic.

Other than feeling on the verge of tears most of the rest of the time in the store and either holding on the the edge of Loving Hubby's shirt or holding Sweetheart's arm while walking through, things went relatively uneventfully the rest of the time. If uneventful means feeling as paniced as a lost 4-yo in a store.... I love shopping. I really, really do. But just as with so many other things, even things I really enjoy and want to do give me anxiety attacks.

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*Loving Hubby really, really tries hard to keep me from anxiety attacks. He was thinking 'lets get out of the store now, come back again on a full tummy and hopefully more apt for dealing with the store'. Obviously didn't work out that way :-p
**Sweetheart is my best friend who lives with my loving hubby and I. Without both of them I don't think I could function at all.