Good days, bad days
Like I said, last year I gave up my meds.
When I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I was really happy. Well, as happy as my anxiety allowed - it was a great load off, knowing that it was an explicable thing, and one that could be treated. I am told that I seemed better almost immediately.
The meds were good, too. They really did keep the demon at arms' length, and over that time I was able to really get to know my anxiety. What caused it, how it started to feel, what it could grow into... all with the ability to really just fucking handle it.
But, also as I've said, it was keeping other things at arms' length too. So, in the nearly six months without meds it's been good feeling myself again, quite aside from finally being able to process my breakup.
Of course, this is not to say that the anxiety is gone. It's an imbalance in my brain, in the meat of who I am, that will not go away quickly, if at all. The trick is that I can by and large see it coming, know that while it is 'me', it's not really my fault. I'm a touch asthmatic as well, and while that is me, it's just meat-stuff too - out of my control.
Tonight, though... Shit it's hit me hard. There's an invisible bag of cement on my chest, locusts in my brain, and I know - I KNOW - that everything I'm doing is wrong. It's only a small, heavily fortified part of me that's typing this; it would normally be in control of things, but it's peering out of the fortifications and hoping it's just a passing thing, a quick if nasty storm, something to be weathered. And not something that's going to settle in.
What's worse is that it's triggered by feeling... by knowing that I've fucked up for other people. I have a project that I'm behind on that I really wanted to work; I've messed up the gaming experience of a whole mess of people (if anyone is reading this, and you know me, you know that's pretty serious in my books); at my day job, things are going downhill - slowly, but downhill.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
The thing is I know I need to back off from some of these commitments, but that of course just ups it all even more. I've already disappointed people, now I'm letting them down. I'm bad at things, and I'm flaky - fantastic.
So I guess I know there's a level where it does all get overwhelming.
When I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I was really happy. Well, as happy as my anxiety allowed - it was a great load off, knowing that it was an explicable thing, and one that could be treated. I am told that I seemed better almost immediately.
The meds were good, too. They really did keep the demon at arms' length, and over that time I was able to really get to know my anxiety. What caused it, how it started to feel, what it could grow into... all with the ability to really just fucking handle it.
But, also as I've said, it was keeping other things at arms' length too. So, in the nearly six months without meds it's been good feeling myself again, quite aside from finally being able to process my breakup.
Of course, this is not to say that the anxiety is gone. It's an imbalance in my brain, in the meat of who I am, that will not go away quickly, if at all. The trick is that I can by and large see it coming, know that while it is 'me', it's not really my fault. I'm a touch asthmatic as well, and while that is me, it's just meat-stuff too - out of my control.
Tonight, though... Shit it's hit me hard. There's an invisible bag of cement on my chest, locusts in my brain, and I know - I KNOW - that everything I'm doing is wrong. It's only a small, heavily fortified part of me that's typing this; it would normally be in control of things, but it's peering out of the fortifications and hoping it's just a passing thing, a quick if nasty storm, something to be weathered. And not something that's going to settle in.
What's worse is that it's triggered by feeling... by knowing that I've fucked up for other people. I have a project that I'm behind on that I really wanted to work; I've messed up the gaming experience of a whole mess of people (if anyone is reading this, and you know me, you know that's pretty serious in my books); at my day job, things are going downhill - slowly, but downhill.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
The thing is I know I need to back off from some of these commitments, but that of course just ups it all even more. I've already disappointed people, now I'm letting them down. I'm bad at things, and I'm flaky - fantastic.
So I guess I know there's a level where it does all get overwhelming.