Hoo, boy. I apologize for the length of my previous posts. This one may be longer, so consider yourself warned.
Much like my insomnia, I've had anxiety issues for quite some time. I think they started when I was a little girl. My mom would lay out my clothes for me, even though I wanted to pick them out myself, because it would take me hours to decide what to wear. This is embarrassing, but I didn't want my other clothes to feel neglected.
Anxious feelings would come and go all throughout grade school, but I chalked it up to the usual: fear of public speaking, feeling uncomfortable in crowded areas, etc. The real tipping point was my junior year of high school. I had gone to Home-A-Rama with my mom as part of an assignment for an interior design class I was taking. I got so overwhelmed in one model townhouse that I started hyperventilating, crying, the whole nine yards. Mom took me outside, where I sat on a bench and she bought me popcorn (my favorite). I couldn't explain why I was feeling like I was, but since my dad had similar crowd-related issues (though not as extreme), we kind of let it go.
I remember that sometimes, for no reason at all, I would be literally mad at the world. I didn't want anyone - anyone - speaking to me. I just wanted to go scream in a pillow. My mom was so confused as to why this was happening; we now know that it was mini anxiety attacks.
My brother was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorders about a year before I was. His panic attacks are far worse than mine, but they're often brought on by the same triggers. Being in a crowd with no visible escape route is the trigger for my brother, my dad, and me. We all shut down, stop speaking, and eventually just book it to the nearest exit. My mom is the only one unaffected, but is often the "herder" - she has to go around and find the three of us.
I was officially diagnosed with anxiety in the summer of 2011. I was prescribed one medication to take every day, and one to take when I felt an anxiety attack coming on. As of January of 2012, I am now on two medications to take daily and still just one to take as needed. When you include my sleeping medication, my fish oil capsules (2 a day), my multivitamin, and my fiber chewables (I take three, but I'll count 'em as one), that brings the grand total of 7 medications every day - 8 if I have an attack. I don't want to be on medicine forever. I want to look into other options. I've tried yoga, and while I love it and feel more centered and grounded, I don't feel less anxious.
It's a vicious cycle, it really is. I can't sleep because my brain is going a million miles a minute, then during the day, I'm anxious because I haven't slept. I just want it to get better. Though, if I think about it, I don't want it to just get better...I want it to get gone. As of now, my anxiety is more tolerable, and I know some techniques to help me out if I feel an attack coming on. My triggers are all still there - crowds (though not tight spaces), crowds, to-do lists that are too big to be accomplished in one day, making mistakes (or feelings of failure), crowds, not being able to move my feet or my arms, oh - and did I mention crowds? It's a running joke in my family that I kind of "bulldoze" my way through a crowd, bobbing and weaving like a motorcycle on a crowded highway. Instead of leaving dust in my path, I leave my mother, saying ever-so-politely, "Excuse me, pardon me." On more than one occasion, I've had to say, "Mom, I don't have time for apologies!" (Halfway joking, of course.) I never purposefully push or shove someone out of my way, but if an elbow happens to hit someone else, well, that's what my mom's apologies are for!
Up next: Feelings of negativity.
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