How I Keep My Chronic Anxiety Under Control

It really is a whole lot of replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. I have tried many medications and have come home with buspirone. Buspar has few side effects, although insomnia is one when you overdo that medication, like I tend to sometimes. I used the "Attacking Anxiety and Depression" program by the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety to get myself as far as I have gotten now, which is really not to feel my repressed anxiety. I have schizoaffecive bipolar 1 and anxiety is a huge part of that. I fancy myself as having every form of anxiety in the DSM but, well, my diagnosis is generalized anxiety/or anxiety state, as it says so on my medical record.

My anxiety was epic throughout elementary school. If anxiety is linked to mania, then I was constantly manic growing up, as well because nobody in my family thought that kids need meds, too. I mean, I had trouble sleeping from one year old. I was staying up past bedtime until ten PM often, watching TV with my mother, who also had trouble sleeping. Nobody in my immediate family understands that medication helps you sleep, as well as prevents mania. I’m the only treated person in my immediate nuclear family. My anxiety is under control. I would say I feel it is repressed or vanished completely. Anxiety is a feeling of unease, restlessness, and fear. Fear permeates your existence. Anxiety is slow torture, making you afraid of yourself, and what is real or what is illusion. If you have schizophrenia and anxiety, you are also delusional and anxious, with the hallucinations triggering your anxiety feelings. Apparently I have different kinds of anxiety going for me. The most prevalent, however, is anxiety state or generalized anxiety, where you feel anxious a lot.

To keep my negative thoughts at bay, I think positive thoughts. If I freak out, I know I will have anxiety about that freaking out. So I think positive, soothing, happy thoughts. I’m not preaching this as a New Ager fantasy—positive thinking really does work wonders. If you scare yourself to death with fear, you are not doing yourself a favor, particularly when paranoia gets thrown around in your head along with anxiety. Anxiety can be kept under control with medication. I take 140 MG Geodon, 20 MG Buspar, and 10 MG Lexapro, also known as Eschitalopram, generic, at the time of this writing.

All my anxiety, paranoia, mania, stress, and depression can be kept under control. I never imagined I would feel this good, period. It is a dream come true to have my schizophrenia and bipolar 1 symptoms under control. I can drive, I can sit in class quietly, and I feel good—bottom line. I never imagined I would feel this good. Not in my wildest dreams. At least my medication can change the way I feel if, and when, I do not feel well. Medication works to make you feel good and to help you stay stable. If you feel bad, it is well worth considering how to make yourself feel better. I don’t get why people have a shame complex around taking medication. You don’t need to feel ashamed about that. It is a totally unnecessary feeling of shame bordering on the ridiculous. Shame is not a part of my life, since I really have none. I take my medication and I freely tell people about it. Feeling good is nothing to be ashamed of, either; I took my fate into my own hands in asking for medication. I have learned how to take care of myself very well, like clockwork. I’m unashamed to say I have schizoaffective bipolar 1 and OCD, which is all under my control because of my medication.