Thursday, February 18, 2016

Now Anxiety

In December I spent the whole month sick with bacterial, viral and parasite infections. Once I finally got all that cleared out of my system, I started to really feel better. I felt like my depression was completely at bay.
Then in January I started to get extreme anxiety. I'm not sure I ever had anxiety like this before. I've felt sympathetic to people struggling with anxiety because mental illness is a nightmare, but I didn't get it. Now I get it.

I had panic attack symptoms, felt like my heart was going to make me pass out it was palpitating so much. Honestly I'm not sure I would have know what was happening if I didn't spend so long researching depression. My husband is very sympathetic about depression, but my anxiety made me so nutty my husband didn't know what to think. This was definitely a new thing for us, I think he thought I was crazy. 

I was, I would come home from church thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to us. Why we should never leave our house. Worrying about my children drove me off the deep end. So many things that could happen every where. Plus were they happy? Am I fulfilling their needs? Or, I often wondered why my children hated me, based on the lack of cleanliness in the house they must hate me.  It was really quite nutty. I wasn't like that every day, but boy some days, I could barely fall sleep, then once I did I couldn't get out of bed.

Very quickly, I realized something was off. It might have only been the look in my husband's eyes, when I would open up all my fears, or when he found me yelling that everyone must hate me for how messy the house is. I don't write this to be mean to Brent, more just to tell my story, but he would look at me like who is this person in front of me, and what did she do with my wife? I could tell something was wrong, by the expression in his eyes. 

But my depression essential oils did nothing, I was a walking potpourri, and so nutty. Finally one night, Brent looked at me and said what is going on? I didn't know...
He went to bed, because clearly this was not a problem he could solve, and we don't agree with old adage never go to bed angry. We find most problems are solved with a good night sleep. I started researching essential oils for anxiety though. I order a few, and within a few days I felt normal again. Its actually been nice, its like oh, Hello there, my old self, I've missed you over the past few years. Every so often I find myself again, and its so such a relief, then something new pops up. 

I still have days of extreme anxiety, but they are usually days where I forget to put on my anxiety oils. Like last Saturday, I ended up with three kids in the city on a Saturday morning running errands. After 2 hours of busyness, we stopped at a fast food restaurant at lunch time to use Valentine coupons. There were several restaurants all along a busy road, and every parking lot was full, along with each drive thru. I really lost it when my 7 year old started climbing out of the car before I told she could. Really? she hasn't had to hold my hand in a parking lot since she was 4. At first I was positive they would ALL get run over if they weren't holding my hand. In hindsight not a single car was moving except on the road across the curb. I only have a basic knowledge but I've researched brain and mental illness enough in the past few years, that I think my hippocampus was stressed by a long morning and mixed with exhaustion my brain's frontal lobe didn't have control over my reason. My flight or flight reacted faster than my cerebral cortex could reign it in.

Overall its definitely the anxiety, its make me a perfectionist, when I make the slightest error, I'm convinced the world hates me and I shouldn't be allowed out. Literally. One day I almost started crying because I accidentally cut someone off in a roundabout. Another day the only spots open in a parking lot were for compact cars, except one covered in a snowbank, and one that the Suburban next to had parked over the line. In an effort to be a good person I didn't park in the compact car spots, but then I spent the whole time in the store so stressed at how the driver of the Suburban would react to not being able to me being so close. It also paralyzed me in fear, I could barely find the items I went into the store for. This is extremely uncharacteristic of me. In the words of my parents the other day, since when have you ever cared what people think about your choices? Its true, most of my life, I make a choice and I don't worry about anyone's opinion. I do what I do, and don't look back, but now lately...

Listening to the radio is definitely helping though. I have my car set up to play pandora off my phone, so I hear music I that I actually enjoying most of the time I'm out. The radio helps me not panic on the road. (Don't worry we don't go out much lately.) Usually I only panic when the radio is not on yet. Plus the oils. 

The essential oils are helping me, but maybe not my house, my house was spotless last month, I cleaned cleaned cleaned. Its all I did, unless I was yelling at people for not keeping it clean. Thankfully my children are forgiving. Even after I yelled at my daughter for trying to get run over (yes my exact phrase) she still told me it was the best day ever.
P.S. When did she get so stinking old!

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