anxiety Archives - Page 3 of 6 -

Deep Breaths

March 13, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

My words are still walled in.

Tomorrow I’m going to do something I dread. It’s something I need to do, and in fact have to do eventually. I’m just choosing to do it now because the anxiety is crushing me.

I lie awake at night picturing this scenario and how it might go. It invades my dreams. In the dark of night I am sure I must do this. In the light of day I wonder if I’m being overly dramatic.

The thing is, I’m not in control right now and for me that’s not a good thing. There’s no point in worrying about the possible consequences – they will be what they will be. I can’t try to choose the right time, because there really is no right time.

For too long this has been something I can’t say. Until tomorrow I can’t say it here, but I’m hoping that doing what I need to do will break down the walls and let my words free.

I will come back and share those words with you, but for now I just ask for good thoughts and more faith than I am currently able to muster.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: admissions, anxiety, depression, going public

Writing Dangerously

February 29, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

“Write something dangerous,” he challenged us.

It was the “fall back in love with writing” part of the session description that drew me in. I need that. Badly. So I went to the session at Blissdom.

I actually quite liked that one. Jeff Goins is a young guy—younger than I am, I’d wager—and when he first got up in front of a room full of women to talk about the love of writing I was a little nervous for him. Because he looked a little nervous. But then he got going and it was clear this was a topic he had a handle on.

He talked about how we get to the point where we lose our love of writing because we’re not writing for ourselves anymore. I totally get that. I just don’t think that’s my problem.

I’ve always written for myself. Sure, now and then I do something sponsored because, hey, we all need money, but also because writing things like that actually challenges me. I want to maintain my own voice and not turn into a commercial, because that is so not who I am, and that’s not an easy thing to do when writing about somebody else’s product or service. It’s just not.

But here’s the thing. Writing for myself is tough when there are things I can’t write about. Two or three of them, at the moment, which adds up to rather a lot when you consider how much brain space they take up.

One of them is related to work, and while I’d love to muse about taking on a new job in a new city amid all kinds of other things going on, it seems ill-advised. So that’s a no go.

A second is just a personal thing and it’s sort of related to the work thing. Every day I write post after post about this in my head, but they’re not going to appear on these pages. At least not yet.

Write something dangerous? What would that be? Both of those things would fall into that category, I think, but my filter is standing firm on those two.

Something about a personal experience, maybe? That’s almost entirely what this blog has been so far. Yelling at my baby? Been there, wrote that. Being told by my husband he felt I was abusive? Covered it. Seeing a way out in a bottle of pills? It’s already out there.

Dangerous is not my problem.

So what should I write about? How about this:

A couple of weeks ago, I lowered the dose of my anti-depressants. With the advice of my new doctor, I cut it by a quarter. I want to do more. I want to slash the dosage and perhaps literally throw that bottle of pills into a field of snow. But that’s not how it works.

So I cut it down a little bit. Staying safe. Being smart. And you know what? It’s kind of kicking my ass.

This medication is tied to me by a blanket of dependence and resentment. This was the only thing that worked but the piece of me that’s thankful for that is pushed down into a corner, buried by frustration over how little control I have over whether I keep taking it.

I’m going to have to come off it eventually. I mean, yes, I could stay on it forever, and part of me is prepared for that, but there’s a part of me that’s yelling louder. A part that’s adamant that I should find out if I can function without it. And whenever that is, I know I’m going to have to go through the horrible transition that seems to be a part of this particular medication. The transition that builds a brick wall around reality so that all I can see is the scrawled graffiti, boldly proclaiming in angry red letters that “LIFE SUCKS.”

Yes, I guess that’s dangerous. So I wrote about it.

Photo credit: Sabeth718 on Flickr

Filed Under: Hard things, Writing · Tagged With: admissions, anxiety, depression, meds

Gratitude, Comment Love and Something Entirely Unrelated

January 3, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Confession: The revision history on my last post is RIDICULOUS. I edited it over and over and just could not get it right.

It actually started off as my blogging anniversary post, and it was directed at those of you who come here and read and offer support. I wanted to tell you how much that has meant to me over the last year. How much it means to me now.

Writing about something as personal as depression—especially in the moment, as so many of my posts were—feels incredibly vulnerable. I wrote about those things because I needed to have them live somewhere other than inside my own head, but there was also a part of me that wanted to hear I wasn’t alone. And wow, am I ever NOT ALONE.

Image credit: Joffley on Flickr

Over the last year I have come to realize just how many people struggle with depression and anxiety, and I hate that there are just SO many. But I love that there is so much support out there too, and that it’s becoming more and more okay to admit to these things.

So in the end, after realizing that it simply wasn’t working, I wrote something more simple for that anniversary post and said what I really wanted to say, which is: Thank you for loving me. But I didn’t give up on the rabbit.

I played around with that post some more and eventually decided it was actually about something different. And then it got to a point where I thought it was good enough, so I published it.

And then you all took over.

I’ve had so many incredible comments and messages and re-tweets on that post. It seems I struck a nerve. I keep trying to respond to those comments, and I will, but right now I don’t really know what to say. It’s all making me feel a bit weepy.

So again: Thank you.

On a related note, if you want another glimpse into why it’s so important for us to write about depression and have it be acceptable, go and read the latest post by The Bloggess. Jenny, if you don’t know her already, is absolutely, stunningly hilarious. But she also deals with mental illness. She writes about that pretty openly, but this post really blows the doors off. Go, read, and give her some love.

And now sometimes entirely unrelated…

I wasn’t actually planning to post today because I signed up for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) for January, where the goal is to write a post a day for the whole month. And after I signed up I decided that was crazy, so I intended to cheat (sort of) and just direct you to my Just.Be.Enough. post today. But then you were all so nice and I kind of got sidetracked writing this.

Anyway… I did write a post for Just.Be.Enough. today and it’s about Spanx. See? Entirely unrelated.

I’m going to close comments on this one, so please either visit me at Just.Be.Enough. or go and give Jenny some comment love. (She’s already got over 1,000 comments, but what’s a movement if not something that really takes off?)

R xo

Filed Under: Better world, Happy things, Hard things, Randomness · Tagged With: anxiety, community, depression, going public, gratitude, love, spreading the love, we're not alone

10 steps to a chaotic Christmas

December 28, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Step 1: Move into a new house in a new city less than a month before Christmas. Unpack as much as you can and then stuff everything else into the basement and the spare bedroom upstairs. Pray no one needs to get in there.

Step 2: Agree to host Christmas for most of your family because you’re the house that makes the most sense this year.

Step 3: Start a new job the week before Christmas, making it tough to get all those last-minute errands done.

Step 4: Forego your usual practice of making many, many lists and figure it will all work out.

Step 5: Make one exception to Step 4 and hastily make a grocery list the morning of the 23rd before you go to work. That way your husband can do the shopping and you’ll still have time to pick up all the things you forgot.

Step 6: Hide stocking stuffers and gifts in various places around your new house. Having to look for them at 9:00 on Christmas Eve so you can finish wrapping will provide a different sort of orientation to the house you’ve only lived in for 3 weeks.

Step 7: Start cooking on Christmas Eve morning by just doing things as the thought occurs to you. Send someone down the street to the grocery store for the items you forgot in your half-awake list-making state.

Step 7 1/2: Thank your lucky stars Santa’s helpers are there to pitch in.

Step 8: Realize you forgot some of the presents you meant to get, are short on some critical elements of Christmas Dinner (pickles) and neglected to appropriately plan for the vegetables you wanted to serve.

Step 9: Decide that this is the “wing it” Christmas and none of the above issues matter. This philosophy will be reinforced when your three-year-old opens his stocking on Christmas morning with a face lit up with joy and says, “He came! Santa knows me!”

Step 10: Have a very merry chaotic Christmas with great family and the best damn turkey ever cooked in a brand-new-to-us oven. (And we didn’t set fire to the turkey like we did the first year in our old house!)

I hope your holiday was great and you’re getting a little down time before January comes and things ramp up again.

[Pictures #2 and 5 credited to my sister, the other iPhone addict.]

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: anxiety, family, firsts, gratitude, photos

Dear Had-Enough Girl

December 11, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Last Wednesday was not a good day. In fact it was a bad day. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.*

By that point we had been in our new house for a week and a half. We had no furniture except the bed we’d bought when we got here and while hanging out in an empty house with no furniture sounds kind of fun, it’s only actually fun for about a day and a half.

The people who lived here before us had a cat. A big, hairy one. I like cats, but I’m horribly allergic to them so being in the vicinity of a cat (or the evidence of a cat) for a prolonged period makes me fairly cranky. And this cat left evidence. There was cat hair everywhere, which we attempted to resolve by vacuuming and steam cleaning the carpets. And washing the windows because there was cat hair stuck to them. But then we discovered that the washing machine and dryer here do a lovely job of pasting cat hair to our clothes, and that was really the last straw.

By last Wednesday I was beyond cranky. I was downright miserable, and making life downright miserable for the two boys and one dog who live with me.

I had been trying to stave off the rage by tromping through snow and chasing sunsets but on Wednesday it wasn’t working. I was sick of the cat hair. I was sick of not having enough cutlery and enough towels. I was sick of someone else’s washer and dryer and desperately wanted to get our new ones delivered already.

I’d had enough.

And then—as it is wont to do—the Universe intervened.

First, a bit of backstory: Several months ago I subscribed to Daily Truths from the Brave Girls Club. (They’re called “A little bird told me…” How perfect is that?) More frequently than I would have expected that daily truth hit on exactly the thing I was struggling with. But then for some reason I stopped getting them. I tried to resubscribe but no dice. With everything else going on I didn’t worry about it, especially since I caught some of them on Facebook.

Anyway, on Wednesday evening, as I was starting to wonder exactly how hard it would be to invent a fast forward button for the bits of life I really didn’t want to have to live through, I saw one of those daily truths on Facebook. I normally skip over those when I’m in a bad mood, but I clicked on that one.

Those who wish to sing always find a song.

Artist: Sally Rose

“Dear Had-Enough Girl,” it said, and I knew it was talking to me.

“First, just take a second and breathe, ok?…deep deep deeply breathe in and out. Close your eyes for a second and remember that it’s ok if you feel completely overwhelmed at the tasks that are ahead for you… It’s okay if you want to throw a fit some days and let someone else be in charge.

So do it…throw a fit for a few minutes.”

I love unexpected messages that completely enable me.

And then kick me me in the pants.

“Now that you’ve got that out of your system…think for a minute about how you want the rest of the day…and tomorrow to go. How you really want to feel, what you really want to accomplish, where you really want to end up…and decide right this second that you are going to do ONE THING to take a step in that direction.”

All right, little bird. Message received. Time to take a deep breath and get my priorities straight.

Thursday was MUCH better.

*With thanks to Judith Viorst for such a perfect descriptor.

If you like, you can read that daily truth in its entirety.

Do you have a source of daily inspiration? Does it ever hit the nail on the head?