Crippling Anxiety

I know we have touched upon the difference between anxiety and depression and the lovely grey area in-between but today is all about our friend anxiety. Today we are looking to my life living with unmanaged anxiety. Anxiety affects many people in many ways and for me it is ADHD tendencies. I become unfocused and unable to sit still. I become very fidgety and sensory dependent.

I have tried many medications to help manage my anxiety but they all do the same thing that make me a fatigued zombie goin through the motions with a complete lack of emotions at all. feelings as though nothing I do matters in the end so why bother doing them and the ability to perform even the most simple of tasks become almost mundane. I lack interest in anything and my mind is completely empty to feel anything. I lay sleepless because my mind doesn’t think about anything and thus I can not become tired enough to need sleep. I want to feel and thus I have stop taking any form of anxiety depressant because the over exhaustion of emotions is much better than feeling nothing at all.

During high feelings of stress I am unable to focus on anything jumping from one task to the other and not being able to complete the tasks that is right in front of me. Moving my thoughts from one subject to the next and not being able to move back to the task at hand until I circle all the way through the other tasks to get back to the one I need to complete. As you can imagine this can cause issues when you are woking on many tasks things can get confused and wrong information goes towards the wrong projects. I have found the best way to conquer this obstacle is walking away for a few moments and accomplishing tasks such as dishes or laundry which gets me away long enough to cycle back through to the project at hand.

Not being able to sit still is a new battle which I have had to deal with. I have no control of my legs anymore. They tend to shake from side to side or up and down the faster the leg goes the more anxious I am but then I become anxious of myles shaking bothering someone so it gets worse. I need to be moving everything including my hands and now my entire body. Straightening and bending my back and moving my fingers. It may be typing or writing. If I am driving it is tapping my fingers or moving them around as if I was typing.

I am a sensory dependent anxiety person. When I have high volumes of stress over riding my senses by feeling things such as rocks or sand or even my keyboard helps calm me down and focus on one thing. This with creating techniques get me through a work day without too much trouble. Having what is called trichotillomania (the irresistible urge to pull hair out during high stress situations) is another sensory thing that I have not been able to find something to help with. It is the urge to grab some chunks of my hair from the bottom and run my fingers through it that causes it to pull out my hairs little by little this causes a sensation of pain that distracts me from my fibromyalgia pain for a couple minutes. Read more about this in my next segment.

My anxiety and fears have gotten to the point I have become fearful of the dark and leaving the house. Constantly being afraid of the what if and what coulds. I live a sheltered life indoors and wondering what life could be. The things that run into my head are. “What if i run into an ex?” “what if i get in an accident?” “What if I forget my medicine?” “What if something happens to my daughter?”. No one should live for the what if and live for the how can I make this happen today. Anxiety can cause me to not get out of bed and not go and do things I have been planning for months for the fears of the “what ifs” don’t let anxiety and the 10% chances hold you back from living and learning.

Anxiety is something I have struggled with my whole life not even truly knowing I was dealing with it. I am 23 years old and only in the past 10 years did I realize the things I was doing were subduing my struggles with anxiety. All people deal with anxiety in their own ways some ways are healthy and others are not but it takes a-lot to overcome your vices and work towards healthier mechanisms.