Living Life With Anxiety- Part 1- The Story

I've thought about writing a post like this a million times and stopped myself.  It just seemed like too much to share... photos of me post-workout sweating like a dog just don't compare to talking about your deep, personal feelings.  Plus, honestly, I didn't have words to describe these feelings inside of me.  Until I read the book Running Home by Alisha Perkins and she literally put into words exactly what I have been struggling with.



I have ALWAYS been a perfectionist.  High school came fairly easily to me so I didn't have too much to stress out about.  College was a little bit more difficult and as many of you know, I just ate my feelings.  Until I started to apply for grad school and I got so stressed out that I literally dropped 10 pounds in 2 weeks.  Don't worry, once I got into grad school, I gained it all back ;)  I would get stressed but I managed it all fairly well until I got pregnant.  I worried nonstop about my little baby. It didn't help that we got a false positive on his first genetic screener and spent a week thinking that either my baby would not survive or he would have a physical disability.  Lucas was a great baby...during the day.  Night times were difficult.  Two years of broken sleep and being a "married single mom" half the time, plus a TON of stress at work, and I went to my physical and broke down to my doctor.  Poor woman probably didn't know what to do with me... except she did put me on anti-anxiety meds.

And WHOA did life change after I went through some crazy side effects (I am in the 1% of people who got tinnitus the first month as a side effect).  But after that, positive things started happening.  I could deal with things in a way that I hadn't been able to in months.  Things that used to instantly piss me off, I could breathe through.  As I told those who knew what I was going through, it took the "edge" off.

So why break my silence about it now?  Because I want to use Alisha's words to explain to people what anxiety CAN look like.  It doesn't always look this way because it's different for everyone and I think that it's important that we start talking about these things.  I advocate for the kids I see to do this every day and yet I haven't been able to do it for myself.  So here are some quotes I would like to share:

"It is an awful cycle and one I am ashamed of.  I hate the days I spend doing nothing; the type A in me can't handle it.... There is middle ground, one that I am trying all the time to find, where I don't shut down but I do allow myself to slow down without fear of where my mind will go.  I want to realize that I can do anything but not everything."

"I was struggling with what was going on with me.  It seemed to come out of left field, and I was so frustrated that I could not control it.  See, that is the funny thing about anxiety- it is a perpetual cycle.  It starts, you want to control it, you can't control it, you get stressed that you can't control it, and so it gets worse...it spirals and spirals".

"I worried for so long that if I was an introvert, that meant I was a recluse.  I now know that being an introvert means I am not mad, sad, or antisocial; it just means I need to be alone for awhile and that's ok.  I am friendly and enjoy being around others, but I need my downtime, too.... Some times I shut down and don't talk to anyone for days.  It is nothing personal.  That is hard for people to understand, even me, but I am working through the adjustment and learning to be me."

So there it is... that's me.  Summed up in 3 succinct paragraphs.