Tired of this.
Sep. 1st, 2019 12:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callunavI'm so very tired of being panicky. I'm tired of finding that small sounds or movements around me have set me reflexively slowing and steadying my breathing and tightening my focus on whatever I'm doing to block everything else out. I'm tired of frequently being unable to read a new book, even a children's book, because even the smallest, friendliest whiff of suspense makes me too tense to enjoy it. I'm glad I have some good days, but I'm tired of having more bad ones. I'm tired of not being able to do things I would enjoy.
I'm tired of often not being able to get tired. People tend to sing the praises of exercising in helping with any and all mood problems, and indeed, I feel better about myself when I can believe I'm inching my way toward fitness (and positive self-perception leads to improved mood, which mitigates against anxiety), and I enjoy the actual activity. The problem is the whole body-mind thing that people like to selectively ignore: breathing deeply and slowly and deliberately relaxing the muscles signals the vagal stress response 'Look! The body's totally calm, so there's no reason to stress out, you can chill.' But in the same way, having an elevated heart-rate, breathing hard, and breaking into a sweat tends to tell my brain that I should be fearful. It's annoying.
I'm tired of taking the meds that keep me borderline functional. I'm not opposed to meds - I think there are times and situations where they're exactly what's needed, and I am 100% certain that I would not have been able to hold down a job for the past several years, or even successfully apply to graduate school, let alone complete it, without them. And those are things I want, so I'm grateful. But even if I weren't off meds (or on different, less problematic meds), I would like to be taking them every once in a while, not every day.
This will get somewhat better once work starts and stabilizes. Lack of structure is very, very bad for me. It won't fix everything and I still need more solutions, but it will help. A little more than a week. I can do this.
I'm tired of often not being able to get tired. People tend to sing the praises of exercising in helping with any and all mood problems, and indeed, I feel better about myself when I can believe I'm inching my way toward fitness (and positive self-perception leads to improved mood, which mitigates against anxiety), and I enjoy the actual activity. The problem is the whole body-mind thing that people like to selectively ignore: breathing deeply and slowly and deliberately relaxing the muscles signals the vagal stress response 'Look! The body's totally calm, so there's no reason to stress out, you can chill.' But in the same way, having an elevated heart-rate, breathing hard, and breaking into a sweat tends to tell my brain that I should be fearful. It's annoying.
I'm tired of taking the meds that keep me borderline functional. I'm not opposed to meds - I think there are times and situations where they're exactly what's needed, and I am 100% certain that I would not have been able to hold down a job for the past several years, or even successfully apply to graduate school, let alone complete it, without them. And those are things I want, so I'm grateful. But even if I weren't off meds (or on different, less problematic meds), I would like to be taking them every once in a while, not every day.
This will get somewhat better once work starts and stabilizes. Lack of structure is very, very bad for me. It won't fix everything and I still need more solutions, but it will help. A little more than a week. I can do this.
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Date: 2019-09-02 12:24 am (UTC)Holding my thumbs for you.
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Date: 2019-09-02 12:30 am (UTC)