Tag Archives: anxiety

one step forward, two steps back

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

I’m looking at my phone, waiting for a reply. I was vulnerable, tried to meet up with the a guy I know we have a connection with.

Can we meet after 4? I called at 4. Benefit of doubt, there might be a good reason for not picking up.

I numb my brain, distract, some anime that I’m really not interested in. It’s convoluted, I don’t know what’s going on. Alone in my apartment, I always am. I don’t remember the last time someone else was here with me.

What the fuck? 6 o’clock. I hear japanese but I’m looking at my phone. A weight on my chest and neck, breath shallow. I don’t understand. What the hell are they talking about?

text message – really? A text message? I fucking called you over 2 hours ago, and you send a text message? I’m tired … blah blah … tomorrow?

coward! child! you’re not worth my time!

But I want this, his beard against my cheek, to sleep next to him, his snores disturbing my sleep.

You’re not good enough, what’s why he didn’t call you back. You’re only worth a text message. He doesn’t want to talk to you. Look at you, you’re scared.

The Racing Mind that Aches

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

see-flick-ing flickers headlights

too fuck loud dakka rain voices drunk cars too many cars

eyes down voices can’t see

pain good fury scratching nails neck wrist scalp

twitch cigarette hitch throat

run frozen RUN stuck hide shame

I’m over-reacting and dramatising, I’m sure of it, but I think that I may have (am) experienced a mild episode of paranoid psychosis. I’m safe at home now, but the first part of this post describes how I felt less than an hour ago. I had just walked out of the cinemas after watching Mad Max: Fury Road. There are scenes in the movie where Max has short intense psychosis. Those images really impacted me – intense flashes of disturbing images. Then I was extremely over stimulated with all the action and flames and cars and guns and and and and. I probably shouldn’t have driven home in the dark rain with headlights constantly coming at me, but I couldn’t stay on the street. I had to come home to safety. I’m still anxious as I write this, I just had to try to focus my brain to make words and sentences. I need a cigarette …

I’m pacing a lot when I stand. I tried sitting down as I had my cigarette. My toes twitched till I got a cramp in my foot. The rain heightened my anxiety instead of calming me. I keep feeling itchy on my scalp, neck and arms. My toes are twitching again.

I don’t know what is going on in my brain lately. I’m functioning okay in the day, but the nights are messed up. Anxiety just sets in, or I just get this slow headache that lasts all night. A fleeting thought: is this withdrawal? I’ve not had an episode like this before. Today was the last minimum dose of my now old antidepressants. Tomorrow I won’t take any meds and the next day I start a low dose of the new ones. I wasn’t expecting this. I was expecting a really low mood with withdrawal and lethargy, but not anxiety that has no impetus.

Bed. I can’t sleep now, but if I’m in bed maybe my body will think that it is time to sleep.  I can ride this out. It will be better in the morning.

Oh, and this is how I describe those slow headaches. I wrote this earlier before I had my little episode.

Cotton ball storm meanders around the brain.

Dull and obscuring, it pushes on the backs of eyeballs, furrowing brows.

Scalp tender, bruised from the inside.

Afraid to Open Up to Those Close to Me

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

This post will be a free-flow way for me to disseminate my thoughts, as I have little idea what the end conclusion will be.

Since writing my last post There Is More To My Story, I have been thinking about my relationships with the people close to me, specifically, what I choose to reveal to them. I was also chatting with another blogger, Fictionatrix, in response to her post Late Night Thoughts – Who Am I? Some of her words struck a chord with what was going through my mind.

As mentioned in my last post, I just got a new set of tattoos. They are on my wrists, so they are quite visible, and I not one with a lot of tattoos. I’ve got a large one on my back, that’s it, but people don’t tend to see it. Hardly anyone in my support network have tattoos, and I know that they will ask me what my tattoo means. The tattoos aren’t “pretty” or superficial, and those close to me will know that there is some significance to me. I tend not to do things lightly. I don’t want to lie or give a half-truth in reply. I care and respect them and it would make me feel incongruent. I am feeling fear and shame right now.

There is a certain freedom with writing a personal blog. I can write what ever I want, be raw, be imperfect, and without the risk of worried and concerned looks from the ones that I love. Only very close friends know of my blog, sometimes even read it. My family knows that I blog (if they even know what that is) but they don’t know the site address. But even with my friends that read my blog, I only sometimes tell them the full depth of my thoughts. Continue reading →

Is It Really Any Better?

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

“I am not my thoughts.”

When I first came across this statement, I was confused; I even thought that it was ridiculous. I’m not religious, nor do I believe that I have a soul, so for a long time I had the cartesian dualist perspective that “I think, therefore I am.” The only thing that I was certain of was my thoughts.

Since realising how much of an impact the body can have on one’s mind (the brain is a physical organ after all, a detail I used to forget), this dualist perspective broke and melded into one. Why else have I been popping these pills everyday for the past 2 years? I do feel better (mood) when I do exercise, eat and sleep properly. But lately, I have been wondering, am I really any better than I was 2 1/2 years ago?

Sure, I’ve stopped smoking dope, which was had a major negative impact on my mood, but subjectively, I don’t really feel that much better. It is still really hard to maintain good lifestyle habits, and today at close friends’ wedding, I felt like there was a curtain of sadness between me and the joy around me. People noted that I was irritable and not being a part of the festivities. This is not the first time that I have felt like this, as I described in this post.

Maybe the anti-depressant medication isn’t working anymore. I don’t know, I will have a discussion about this next time that I see my psych. I have been rating my mood each day, and the same ratings are maintained, not getting better yet still the same as before I started these meds. Though I think that it is hard to compare over time, cause each day is so subjective, and my memory of when I was at my lowest is hazy.

I’m just so tired of it all. The constant tension in my jaw and shoulders. The feeling that my heart is made of lead and is weighing me down. Ah fucking damn it …

Energy Crash Part 2

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

Continuing my last post Energy Crash.

YouTube has been my symbiotic the last 2 days. I figured out that my symptoms/behaviours have been physcomotor retardation. Everything is so exhausting and too much. I woke up at 4am, exhausted and really stressed. I could feel my glands pump out stress hormones into my body, like I was constantly in the fight/flight response. These were the feelings why yesterday I felt the need to sleep so much, I was escaping away from the stress into the forgetfulness of sleep.

Anhedonia: the loss of being able to experience pleasure in life. Fuck, I have been experiencing this for so long. Food & sex = meh …

This is not the first time that I have realised this. This is not the first time of experiencing these. My doctors have explained it to me as well, many times. But I have problems with memory during a depressive state. I ruminate on traumas, not remember useful information that could give me an objective perspective.

Ergh, my mind feels like a thick cloud. I can hardly string a few sentences together.

Energy Crash

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

There seems to be a small window that I can write. One one side I have am busy and motivated; keeping on top of things and really not looking after myself nor giving myself the space to just be. I don’t really write, or, if I do write, it is only half done with no real conviction (I have 5 unfinished draft posts waiting on the sidelines). On the other side, I just can’t be fucked to do anything, anything at all: not eat, tidy my apartment, not dry the washed clothes in the washing machine, not get out of bed, not WRITE. That is where I am right now.

For the past 6 days, I have been very very busy. Something has always been there to occupy my mind and I had the energy to actually do things. Today, my first day off at home after the 6 busy days, I have totally crashed. My mood was okay when I was busy, but on this day of “rest”, my energy and mood have crashed. My mind overrides my body. I know that my body wants to eat, but I just can’t be arsed and weirdly I don’t feel hungry. It is 5:30pm, and the only things that I have eaten all day are a handful of sultanas and some chocolate (which made me sick). I have something in my freezer that I can heat up in a microwave, but I just can’t be bothered getting off the couch. Even to go outside for a cigarette just seems like such an effort.

Continue reading →

Missing in the Future. A Small Dose of Generalised Anxiety.

Posted on by bitter.sweet.alive

The back of my throat, a tightening, in constant contraction, like I want to throw up. The back of the neck and head radiates heat. Arms, hands and feet tingle yet are still. I do nothing; fearing yet living in the future.

I am Missing In Action in my own head. Thoughts race around in a cyclone, ephemeral like smoke. I’m finding it harder to write this post, as thoughts are not structuring in my head, so I’m just going try to loosely stream my consciousness on to the screen.

I am not confident that I can handle this state of mind. Not that it is definitive, but my psych has not diagnosed me with generalised anxiety. Depression and anxiety mostly come hand in hand though, like the other sock in a pair. I’m not on any medication for anxiety, and most of the personal work that I have done if for depression. I am trying to use my mindfulness techniques for my racing mind, but it is like grasping at smoke, or trying to calmly watch whilst being in the centre of a whirlwind.  Continue reading →