livingmyanxiety-blog

[livingmyanxiety-blog]

Welcome back.

9.3.19 10:12pm

Well it’s been a while. Almost 5 months. Short update on my life:

I graduated college with a BA in Theatre in June. 

I moved out of my apartment and back in with my mom until I have a stable full-time job so I can get my own place. 

Currently working at my boyfriend’s parent’s mechanic shop (more like engines for boats, less like car things).

Trying to find a job. Like, “15 resumes sent out so far” kind of trying. 

As for my mental health, I’m staying afloat; well, I’m trying to. I got the suggestion to go see a Naturopath and so far I really like her. 

From what I’ve learned about Naturopathic medicine is that it’s health care that emphasizes prevention, treatment and optimal health. A lot of the general public thinks that Naturopathic medicine frowns on modern health care (think: antibiotics and vaccines) which isn't what my doctor expresses. I’m all for using vaccines to prevent treatable diseases and antibiotics to help with infections, but there are other things that naturopathic medicine does that modern health care doesn’t. My naturopath focuses on getting your body to be at its best do you don’t need to rely on medication on a daily basis to feel normal (for example: my antidepressants). 

My initial reason for wanting to see her (we’ll call her ND for Naturopathic Doctor) was so I could safely stop taking my current antidepressants and maybe try something new or just stop taking them altogether. Her first response was that she wanted me to get my blood work done so she could see how all the chemical levels in my body were doing. She said the long term plan was to get all my blood work to its best before we started doing anything with my medication. She wants me to have the support of a high functioning system before we start taking something away. 

She also gave me her thoughts on the current antidepressant I take. She said that for a short-term medicine it’s fine but when people take it for long periods of time (like my 5 years) it starts to lose its effectiveness. (I’ll make a different post about the meds I’m on because that’s a whole other story). So she wants me to stop taking them but not before I can get my body working at its best. 

I’ve had to change my diet, start taking extra supplements, and exercise. The supplements were really easy to add in to my routine, the exercise is somewhat of a challenge cause I’m a very sedentary person, but she said even parking in the back of a parking lot and then walking to a store is good. The thing I’m having a really hard time with is the food changes. I’m not an unhealthy person but a lot of my normal diet is wheat products (bread, pasta, crackers) and fruit. 

My new diet doesn’t allow anything that has been processed into a flour (so coconut flour or gluten free alternatives are off the table). I have to eliminate added sugars completely which isn’t a bad thing at all considering how terrible sugar is for you. I’ve given up coffee, potatoes, beets, carrots, and green smoothies, but the thing that’s the hardest is that I’m not allowed to eat fruit. I eat TONS of fruit: a banana in my morning shake, an apple with cheese or peanut butter as a snack, grapes when I’m wanting to snack. The only fruit it says to eat in cucumber and tomato and let’s be real: those aren’t fucking fruits. Those are goddamn vegetables wearing fruit masks in the form of seeds. Now I love tomatoes and cucumber, but giving up fruit has honestly been really difficult. I’ve had to get creative with snacks, like the amount of seaweed I eat is insane, and trying to pretend that’s a cracker is just sad. 

In no way am I saying my life is harder than anyone else’s, but the lifestyle changes were very abrupt and shocking all at once. I’m glad to be able to have the opportunity to do things like seeing my ND and changing my diet all of a sudden. But sometimes a girl just wants a fucking piece of fruit. 

[livingmyanxiety-blog]

4.4.19 9:27pm

Update. 

I’m in therapy. It’s going well so far but I haven’t been back in two weeks cause I had Spring Break and then dropped the ball on scheduling an appointment this week. My therapist understood, she also offered to do a phone or FaceTime session but I’m not a fan of doing stuff like therapy over the phone. I told her that and she didn’t respond but that didn’t bother me. 

I had an appointment with my regular doctor and she said I need to go to a psychiatrist because she wanted someone focused in medication to help me. I found a psychiatrist that’s covered by my insurance and made an appointment. I felt good about that. 

Last week I was supposed to get Lasik eye surgery but the doctor had to cancel last minute because a test wasn’t done prior to the day of surgery. He assumed that it would be fine and then did the test on the day of surgery. Well the test didn't come back the way he expected so he didn’t feel comfortable doing the surgery. Apparently the cornea in my left eye is too thin in one place and he didn’t see that before so he cancelled last minute. This was after I had redone all the tests to double check everything and taken a Xanax. So to say I was upset is kind of an understatement. 

When he came in he said there was good news and bad news. Now, I thought he was gonna make a joke about never having to wear fashionable glasses or something but then he said that I had really healthy eye but we couldn’t do the procedure. First I was in denial but then as it sunk in that he was serious I started crying. Then he explained stuff to my mom and after like 20 minutes we went home. 

Now I have an appointment with a cornea specialist later this month and I’m just hoping that I will still be able to get the surgery. I don’t dislike my glasses but not being able to see past one foot in front of my nose is definitely debilitating. Being able to wake up and not have to look for my glasses sounds like the biggest dream in the entire world. Getting Lasik is something I’ve wanted since I found out that I am allergic to contacts. 

I don’t know if I’m still a candidate for Lasik and I don’t think any of the other solutions are what I would want because they take longer to heal, are more expensive, or require a more intense surgery. 

I don’t know how I feel right now. I know I’m sad that the Lasik didn’t work but I’m also proud of myself for making an appointment with a psychiatrist. So I’m somewhere in the middle I guess.

[livingmyanxiety-blog]

2.9.2019 1:23pm

I’m laying in the floor in the hallway and I just want to melt into the floor and disappear.

I don’t think it would be better if I were gone but I want to be gone. If that makes sense.

I wish I felt normal right now.

[livingmyanxiety-blog]

2.7.19 10:45am

I’m currently sitting in one of the quiet rooms in the dining hall on campus and I feel crappy. 

I feel crappy because I called a therapist recommended by a family friend and left a message and initially felt great. But then I had to call a different office back because I had an appointment that I didn’t finish because the therapist made me feel really small. And it’s not her fault, it just wasn’t the right fit. She kept saying things like “your feelings are valid” and “I can't imagine how you must have felt”. Those are fine and all but they’re too soft and coddley for me; I’m dry and sarcastic, I don’t do coddley. 

Now because I feel crappy, I’m getting anxious, and not in the hyperventilating way, In the “great, now I have a fucking migraine” way. 

If I were to rate how I feel right now on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the best, I’d be a 6. Now 6 is better than its higher counterparts but 6 is where I just want to go to sleep and hide. But I have too much to do so here I sit, on a crappy modern looking couch, in a dining hall with shitty rap music playing. 

[livingmyanxiety-blog]

Well, Hello There

Well here we go.

Greetings. My name is Taylor and I have an Anxiety Disorder with Agoraphobic Tendencies. Now before I go any farther let me give you some definitions you might need to know about what I just said. 

Anxiety. Noun. A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.

Agoraphobia. Noun. Extreme or irrational fear of entering open or crowded places, of leaving one's own home, or of being in places from which escape is difficult.

Most people nowadays know what anxiety is because the discussion of mental health is much less of a taboo, but agoraphobia is less known from my own experience discussing it with others. My agoraphobic tendencies lean more towards the fear of crowds and not being able to escape places easily.

Brief Backstory: I've had an anxiety disorder for almost 10 years, since I was 15. It was undiagnosed at first and my original diagnosis was depression. I went to talk therapy for 3 years and that got me through High School. When I went to college right out of high school I was able to cope for about a year and then I has a breaking point in my second year. I left school to figure out what was going on with my brain and my doctor prescribed me an anti-depressant. This helped, I still had episodes of anxiety, but I felt that I had stable base to work off of to feel better. I decided not to go back to my college and I enrolled in classes at my local community college and I was able to function and feel like I was normal again. I got my Associates Degree in General Studies with an Emphasis in Theatre and I got accepted to UC San Diego. I felt like I was back on track and ready to get my Bachelors Degree and start working. 

August 2018 came and I moved into an apartment by myself in San Diego and was taking 2 classes during the summer session. I was supposed to go to class but I felt like I wanted to pull my hair out and rip my teeth out and claw at my head. I knew this wasn’t right so I went to urgent care and they gave me Xanax to get through the really hard parts. This was in no way the final solution but a temporary solution. I went home and saw my Primary Care Doctor and we adjusted my medication so I felt like I had a more stable base. This sort of helped.

Throughout my fall quarter, my apartment flooded 2 different times, worked a part time job as a Shift Supervisor at a Halloween Store, and went to school with a full workload. I got through my fall quarter and finally had a break to go home and destress. While I was home, around New Year’s I found out that my apartment had flooded a third time and I needed to move apartments. I had amazing friends and boyfriend who helped me move all of my belongings from one apartment to another. I started my Winter Quarter and was ready to work on a show. My first couple weeks were going pretty well and I was having a really great time at rehearsals for the show I was working on. 

There was a weekend that I got to go home and go to a Motocross Race with my boyfriend and his family. It was a great day and we had so much fun, but on our way home I started feeling like I had static in my brain. I wanted to hit my head so badly and put my head through a window, so when we got back home my boyfriend took me to the Emergency Room. 

I won’t go into detail but my experience was not pleasant. They barely communicated with me, had me in a paper gown, on a gurney in a bright and loud hallway, with a security guard watching me. After a restless night of barely sleeping, the social worker pressuring me to make a decision of what to do, being told I wasn’t allowed to go home or wear my own clothes, and finally being told I was going to be transported in an ambulance, I was taken to a different facility to be checked out by a psychiatrist. 

The new facility was cold but everyone was really nice and wanted me to be able to go home. After being there for less than 20 minutes (mostly just signing paperwork) the psychiatrist came to talk to me and we talked about school, graduation, my boyfriend, my parents, and what I had been doing the night before. After about a 10 minute conversation he surmised that I was fine, didn't want to hurt myself, and the best place for me was at home with family. I was at this facility for less than an hour and then got to go home. 

His final diagnosis was that I had Severe Anxiety with Agoraphobia. 

So, my point: I’m tired of having to pretend I’m ok, or not post what I’m really feeling because it’s too sad or depressing. I’m dry, self-deprecating, sarcastic, brutally honest, and swear like a sailor. Welcome to my Anxiety-stricken life. 

Also, blanket trigger warning, cause an entire blog about Anxiety will obviously have some bad shit going on.