Tag Archives: stress

No Good Thought Starts With…

“I need…” or  “I just…”

If I let my mind become too relaxed, and wandering, I can easily end up in bad places.  Bad thoughts…  And those thoughts usually start with the words, “I need” or “I just”.  After that, not many good things happen.

I am trying to catch myself when I think those words… I tell myself it will not lead anywhere productive.  So far this helps.  I know I need to change my thinking, and move on to something positive.  It helps.  Though it does take effort… and constant awareness.

Over the last few years, I have learned many little tricks, and things to look out for.  These 2 phrases are only the most recent.  I have found lots of little things to watch out for.  Do I have my wallet?  When I start getting too many OC behaviors, I know my anxiety is up.  That was one of the first things I learned to watch for.

A few months ago I caught the “I just” phrase, and then the “I need”.  Now… all these little “rules” add up, and can create their own stresses.  But overall, it helps to be aware of them.

I just stop myself, and start off on a new thought.  It does help.

Life’s Distractions Cause Internal Struggles

I am far too easily distracted.  I can not walk thru the house without having a dozen or more things grab at my attention.  And I have a difficult time ignoring them.

My brain is running at full speed most of the time.  Several things can raise my anxiety at the same time, and I struggle to keep my mind on track.  When I think about something that has to be done, I must create a plan.  When there are too many things at once, my mind overloads, and I have to fight to regain my previous thoughts.  It might take a few seconds, or hours.

I am much better in the morning.  But as the day goes on, I get tired.  It starts to wear on me.  By mid-afternoon, I usually can’t block out the noise so easily, and I start to feel low.  It happens almost everyday.  Sometimes I make it thru, and some times I do not.

My brain becomes so busy with too many thoughts, that all I can do is try to sooth the anxiety, and relax all my thinking.  So I do nothing.  I loose the ability to partition my mind, and concentrate on just one thing.

All the little distractions of the day add up… they slowing eat away my energies, and my confidence, until I am useless. 

Some days I get better again in the evening.  It becomes too late to do most things I have thought about, so the list hanging over me gets pared back.  And things can clear up in my mind.  But most days, I have to just cruse thru the evening, and wait to go to bed.

I can not control the flow of thoughts into my mind.

And the Meds Keep Coming…

I saw my psychiatrist Monday– she just takes care of my meds.  I have to go every now and then to update my prescriptions.  Right now I feel like they are about right.  I still have too much anxiety at times… but I can usually handle it.

My “anti”-depression meds are still working pretty well – I have a couple of depressive episodes every week, but they usually last less than a day.  Before this, they last days, or even weeks.  So I am back to mostly having to manage anxiety.  And I have go much better at that.

There were other issues to cover.  I will be talking with her about finding a new psychologist in April… so that will help.  She likes my plan of trying to stabilize my home life for a while – as long as there is progress.  So that helps too.

There were other places to go, and things to deal with Monday.  Then yesterday I had someone in the house to install some “things”.  So I have been pretty well drained.  But today I can try to relax, and get my thoughts together again.

When trying to manage anxiety, the question always arises – “why bother?”  I can hide from most causes of anxiety.  I can shut myself away, and usually feel better.  And it’s not like a have to put any effort into being around people… who would they be anyway?

See… too many thoughts for right now…

Routine is All I Have

There are things I am trying to change – slowly.  There are not always a lot of choices in our lives, and routine can be comforting.  We can have a simpler life with fewer decisions.  But it is easy to fall into a non-productive routine that brings no joy.

I live by routine.

Now I am trying to change my routine some.  This has proved to be one of the most difficult things I have ever tried to do.  Some things need to stay the same – feeding the cats etc.  But now there are things that need to change.

So far… I have no idea how it is going.  I have tried to do things differently.  I need my “free” time to be more rewarding… more fun.  It is not more fun yet.  Actually it is anything but fun.  I have to push myself so hard to get thru it.  I sit in a different place… watch different things, and work on my hobbies.  It should be easy.  And I worry that I may suck all the fun out of everything…

And I have to do this on my own.  This is the only place I can share my experiences.  There are no hobby friends to talk with… no friends at all really.  I have to push myself forward, by myself… with mixed results.

I know it will get better.  It has to.  But it is increasing my anxiety level.  And I am not convinced it will make any difference.  Why venture into a new world, when the current one works – though it may not be working very well?

I will keep try as long as I can… or as long as it seems to matter.

Too Tired to Go On.

I have struggled with anxiety, and depression all my life.  I had my first full-blown panic attack in the 2nd grade.  I can still see it all happening very clearly in my mind.  I started having bad depressive periods in middle-school.  Of course I did not know what they were at the time.

I am almost 60 years old… I do not have the energy I once did.  But life demands that I do as well (or as badly?) as I always did when I was younger.  There are things I can not do anymore.

I can not play volleyball, or racquetball… I can not hike high mountain trails.  And I can not push myself mentally as far as I once could.  So what do I do?

One of the first things I learned in session was to pick my battles.  I can not solve everything… some things I will never be able to resolve.  But the most important point of this is that I have to pick which things I can improve, and which things I can’t improve.  But I also have to look to which things are more important – which will give back the most rewards.

A few months back in session, we worked out a plan for cutting back on things that were disproportionally stressful – things that cause way more anxiety than they were worth.  And that has been my approach the last several months.

It works great!!!  Now I am getting far more done on my own at home.  And with far less total anxiety.  This does not deal with my phobias, or depression, but it is mostly the anxiety the stops me.  So things have taken a decidedly positive turn in my mental life.

But there are other battles, and I am losing them.  Even my first success is falling into question.  I can not keep following that path.  I have to get “better” and get back to doing more – doing things I used to do.  So rather than moving forward, I now have to move back to putting more energy into going out for errands and such.

That means less energy for all other things… including the having fun part.  Once more into the breach… with no hope of success.

I have responsibilities that I can not ignore.  Not that I have actually ignored them.  I have been trying to obtain balance.  But I have to balance that with the lives of others as well.

So I need a totally new plan.  What I really need to do is be like I was 20 years ago… well… only the good parts of it.  I need to be able to DO more.  I will have to deal with the turmoil in my brain some other way.

Alone With My Thoughts…

I am lonely.  I spend virtually all my time alone.  It has been that way for many years.  It’s okay… I have to live like this.  As an agoraphobe, it is difficult to go out at all, and going out to socialize is pretty much out of the question.  I stick to running a few errands to local places I am familiar with.  The people who work in those stores, are the people I socialize with most.  We chat…

But then… I have just about as much fear of people being here in my home.  I feel invaded, and uneasy.  Even talking on the phone takes a toll.  Any conversation can unexpectedly become way to stressful, and I have to get out of it.

I am usually on Facebook, and that is pretty much the limit of what I can do socially – I can’t even do that some of the time.  So I deactivate when my brain is swimming in too many thoughts.

Basically all this means that I am best when I am home alone, with little or no contact with the outside world.  It is what I have to do, not what I want to do.  Normally I make the best of it.  I have been getting better at doing things at home.  I am even enjoying some of my time.

It is not the life I thought I would be living.  Lori helps.  She tries to make home more fun, and pleasant for me.  We can even go out sometimes.  But going out takes a great deal of planning, and so many things can go wrong.  So most trips get cancelled.

I guess there is really nothing new in this Blog, but it seemed to want to be written.  When I let people down because of my phobias, I know I am slowly pushing them away.  Sometimes it is easier for me if I just go ahead and push them away, so I don’t have to spend so much time having anxiety about it.  They are better of that way too.