Tag: anxiety

Around forty million people today struggle with an anxiety disorder. It often goes along with other mental illnesses like depression. Anxiety manifests in different ways for different people. Some have panic attacks, whiles others get physically ill. Fighting and learning to handle anxiety are challenges that on some days can seem impossible.

A couple of weeks ago I was stretching beyond my cash register to scan a cake a customer was holding up when I felt an immediate pain in my left hip. I tried to ignore the pain, but it started shooting down my leg. I told a manager and filled out an accident report. A co-worker took me home and when my husband got home, he took me to an urgent care that was approved for workers compensation. The doctor examined me and told me I had popped a joint in my hip out of place. He gave me steroids and pain medicine and recommended I go to a chiropractor to have it put in place.

An approved chiropractor didn’t have an available appointment until a week later. While I waited to be seen the only thing I could do comfortably was lie on the couch and watch TV. Sitting and standing for more than a couple of minutes hurt. Nights were also rough. It was hard to get comfortable. A few nights I cried out as pain shot down my hip and leg.

 This made me worry that maybe more was wrong than what the urgent care doctor said. Maybe he missed something. He didn’t take x-rays. I have osteoporosis; maybe I broke my hip? What if I needed another surgery?

While I waited for my appointment, my dad and his friend put a kitchen floor in my house. While they tore up the old floor, my dad frequently asked how I was doing. I told him I was hurting. I lay on my couch watching them work while worrying about my hip. The medicine made the pain bearable for a little while. I could sit up for short periods of time to do edits one of my beta readers made on my memoir.

I tried to remind myself of the positive things of being off work. I got to watch my old worn-out kitchen floor transform into a beautiful floor, I had a good excuse to lie around, I got to be waited on by my husband, and I got to spend extra time with my dog, Esther.

The worries about more being wrong with my hip started to grow bigger and bigger. The night before my chiropractor appointment, my thoughts took control of me and ran wild. I pictured myself having hip surgery and being laid up for six months or more. I wanted 2022 to be a year without surgeries and now I would probably have one. It seemed like every time I had a problem it led to having a surgery. It seemed inevitable. I was sure the chiropractor would say he couldn’t help me because more was wrong.

I rolled from side to side in bed while my thoughts raced, and my stomach twisted. I did deep breathing to try to calm my anxiety, but it didn’t help. I tried to picture myself floating on a small boat, but the nagging thoughts intruded. I took my sleeping medicine, and usually a little bit after I lay down, I’d drift off to sleep, but not this time. Even my sleeping medication couldn’t calm my overbearing anxiety and obsessive worrying. I was wide awake.

“Why aren’t you sleeping? Are you worrying about tomorrow?” Lou whispered.

I buried my head in my pillow to hide my tears. “I can’t sleep. No matter what I try, nothing works.”

Lou stretched his arm out to me. “Come over here.”

I lay on his chest and he gently stroked my back. “Let go of your worries. Close your eyes and relax. Sleep, my love, sleep.”

I lay on his chest for a while, and when I thought I was drifting off to sleep, I rolled over to my side of the bed. Then the thoughts started screaming in my head again. I thought if I lay still Lou wouldn’t know I didn’t fall asleep, but there was no fooling him. He knew I was awake, and he refused to sleep until I slept. He suggested I counted sheep. So, I gave it a try. I got to 100 and I was still awake.

The chiropractor can’t help you. You have more wrong with your hip. You probably broke something. You’ll end up having another surgery. This time you’ll be out longer. You may never be able to work again. If I broke a bone, it would be because of my osteoporosis and workers comp won’t pay my medical bills. I’ll be out of work with no money to pay bills. Lou deserves a healthy wife. Not one he has to take care of all the time.

Internally I yelled at myself. Stop it. Stop thinking. Think about something good. You’re going to have a book published. Think about that.

Lou wrapped his arm around me. “Baby, you need to sleep.”

I hit my fist against my head and cried, “I can’t stop the dumb thoughts. What’s wrong with me? Usually, I drift off to sleep. I’m trying so hard, and nothing is working.”

Lou massaged my shoulders and back, but I was still awake. At 8:00 a.m. we decided to get up and go get breakfast. As we got closer to the time to leave for my appointment my stomach began to cramp, and I felt sick. I recently developed an obsession with squishy toys I found at Dollar Tree. I like the feeling of the toys in my hand and squishing them is relaxing. Before my appointment I squeezed the squishy toy like a stress ball, and it helped settle my nerves some.

Once I got to my appointment my anxiety faded away as the chiropractor popped my joint in place and massaged my muscles around my hip. Later that night I discussed with my friend Cheryl different things I could have done to calm my anxiety so I could sleep. My plan for the next time anxiety and worrying get the best of me is to do grounding techniques, keep a squishy near my bed, and talk or journal about my fears before bedtime.

Sometimes anxiety gets the best of us, but once you are calm it’s good to make a plan of how to better handle it. Think about that anxiety attack and plan out different things that could help you fight it. Anxiety is relentless, but not impossible to fight. Try different methods such as deep breathing, meditation, listening to nature sounds, squeezing a stress ball or a squishy toy, practice grounding techniques, and so on. Find what works for you and plan to use it when anxiety gets the best of you.

I continue to look for new ways to help with my anxiety. I keep track of things that work and what doesn’t. Fighting my anxiety helps me bathe in the light of recovery.

The mind is a very powerful part of a person. It’s the mind and the knowledge we collect within it that help us build our lives and our future. Within our mind is intellect, knowledge, thought processes, decision making, creativity, and much more. Of course, the mind is a part of the brain. It’s one of the many functions of the brain. What happens to the mind when small worries and fears grow and grow until they become huge? An anxious mind can be overpowering and debilitating. Anxiety affects the mind and the whole body.

My anxiety hit me powerfully in college when I fell to the rock bottom of my depression. I lost my cousin in a car accident my senior year of high school and I moved forty-five minutes from my home to live with my grandparents to be closer to college. My friend took notes I wrote her, telling her my deepest feelings and my need for comfort, to her mom and a teacher I had in school. My friend’s mother forbade her to see me, but she snuck out and began abusing me. On top of that, it was stuck in my mind that my grades had to be high because I had to prove to all those who thought I couldn’t do anything that I could succeed.

In the mornings before college the worrying and fears started.

I spent hours doing my homework and studying. I have to get a good grade. I can’t be a failure. I can’t let everyone be right about me. I’m so tired. What if I fall asleep in class? I didn’t study enough. I should have studied longer. I don’t remember what I studied. I forgot everything. I spent hours studying for nothing. I can’t go to classes. I don’t even remember the chapters I read last night.

I started feeling nauseous. I began to dry heave.

What am I doing in college? I’ll just fail. I hurt my friend with my notes and I’m messing up my one chance to prove myself. Everything in my life is going wrong. I can’t go to my classes. I feel sick. I can’t do anything right. I need to study more. I have to get a high grade. I’m not ready. I need more time. I’m going to fail out of college.

My anxiety kept building as my mind made a small thing like getting a good grade on a homework or test into something huge. The more I worried about my grades in college, the more my body reacted. It started with nausea, dry heaves, and then getting sick. I got sick every morning before class, in between classes, and when I went to see my friend.

At the time I didn’t understand what was happening to my body. My mom took me to a doctor and he gave me anti-nausea medication, but that didn’t even work. The anxiety didn’t stop until I moved back home and began therapy and the abusive friend moved away.

It wasn’t until many years later I learned what anxiety was. I was happily married, I had been working the same job for several years, and I was managing my illness, yet the nausea, dry heaves and throwing up started up again. Doctors did many tests and found nothing wrong with me. My doctor told me he believed I was having anxiety attacks. I thought he wasn’t taking my problem seriously and he was blaming my mental illness on an illness he couldn’t explain, but when I talked to my therapist, I realized my doctor was right. I started journaling my thoughts.

During a normal work day my worries turned to fears and grew throughout the day. It started in the morning before work.

I have to catch the bus on time. I can’t be late. I can’t be late for work. I hope I don’t make a mistake at work. We can’t afford for me to get fired. We’d lose everything if I’m not working. It takes both of our paychecks to pay our bills. If we can’t pay our bills we’d lose our home and everything.

By the middle of my day I was fighting nausea and dry heaves. The worries grew and grew. I began to fear throughout my day that I would make a big mistake and by the end of the day I’d have no job. My body reacted as the anxiety took over. I would fight my dry heaves until I had to get off register to get sick in the bathroom. The worries continued after work. I worried about not having enough money to pay our bills and to make it through the week. My anxious mind overpowered my body, my thoughts, and my feelings.

Anti-anxiety medication helped a lot, but I also had to practice relaxing techniques like deep breathing, listening to soft music, and doing something I enjoyed. I also had to learn to identify my worries and take control of them before they overtook me. Recently my best friend Cheryl sent me a post about grounding. Now I keep the grounding techniques on my phone and when my anxious mind becomes overpowering, I use them.

If your anxious mind is overpowering, talk to your doctor or psychiatrist about anti-anxiety medications and talk to a therapist about coping and relaxation techniques. Learn to identify your worries and fears, then work on ways to stop them from getting bigger and bigger. When the worry starts, tell yourself, “Stop. You have worried enough. Now focus on something else.”

Try grounding techniques like: look around you, find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Find this and more grounding techniques at https://www.redorbit.com/grounding-techniques-for-anxiety/.

With the help of medication, grounding techniques, and relaxation methods, my anxiety is pretty much under control. Sometimes it gets the best of me, but because I’m willing to fight it, my anxious mind no longer overpowers my life. Since I’m willing to work hard to calm my anxiety, I strive within the light of recovery.