Generalized Anxiety Disorder is so strange. Right now, I'm feeling very agitated and like I want to do a million things...yet, I have zero motivation to do anything. My mind is racing and I have so many ideas about what to do, I also have a list of things that need completed in the next few days...but the fear is stopping me. Fear of the future, new obstacles to overcome, changes, changes. I don't want to face it. This isn't my choice right now. I'm not chasing a dream. I'm just trying to survive. I want a quiet life. I want to concentrate on my hair: new styles, keeping it healthy. I want to travel and go to concerts and stay home and rest. But right now I can't. I need to find a new job before the end of the month and I need to keep pushing myself. Maybe after things get settled, I can take a break. But I don't know. Not knowing is what stresses me. I do know this is necessary, I know that it's time, I know I need more money, but it's very difficult to cope with it all. Maybe for others it's easy. But for me it's not. Change is always a big deal for me. And all I can feel is what I'm losing. I can't see what I'm gaining. Because it's not visible to me yet. And my anxiety has been very persistent the past couple days. And ever present for months. I rarely get a break from it for more than a day.
There are 3 types of anxiety that I encounter. In the past I grouped it as "physical anxiety" or "mental anxiety". But the mental anxiety can be divided into 2 categories itself: intrusive thoughts and obsessive worries. Sometimes they all occur at once, other times, it's one or the other.
The physical anxiety manifests into increased energy, agitation, or the "anxiety bees" - which is when I feel like something is moving around very fast inside of me. My heart beats too fast and I can't sit still. My body feels uncomfortable. It's not mania or a pleasant sensation, it's more like depression in fast forward. So, you have the lies and doubts and insecurities and fears of depression, but in a fast-paced cycle, that feels like motivation but really isn't. It leads to burnout. This is the time when I have compulsions that my anxiety won't let me avoid. I have repetitive behaviors, dermatillomania (skin picking), wash my hands after everything I touch (because I'm afraid there's a residue on it and I can't eat or touch something else until it's off), wash clean plates and utensils before I use them (but that's rooted in past experience where I ate off of a plate with food residue on it by accident - so I try take steps to keep it from happening again), pick my nails, tap my fingers, clench my fists. Another eccentricity is that I have to change my clothes if I bump against the toilet or if something falls on the bathroom floor while I'm getting dressed. Even if it didn't actually touch anything, if there's even a CHANCE that it could have, I can't wear it. I try, but my mind won't let me. I'll keep thinking about it and thinking about it (germs) until I do something to change it. I get paranoid and overprotective, move very fast from one thing to another. The funny thing is, even with all of those behaviors, most people don't even notice anything is wrong.
I feel crazy and know that I'm not behaving like myself. It's not something I can control. But at least I've learned to recognize the onset and progression of the anxiety. So I manage it best I can. But it's like having a cold: it's in your system until it passes. You can take medications or use other techniques to ease the symptoms, but the anxiety running through your bloodstream is there until it's not.
The mental/emotional anxiety takes another form. One aspect is the worries, where I stress myself out thinking and analyzing an upcoming event or a mistake I made or the way someone reacted to something I did or said. I mentally beat myself up about it and dwell on it for hours. I can push the thought out of my mind temporarily, but it always comes back. An obsessive cycle. A lot of what I worry about is due to the unknown. I feel more settled when I know what I need to know or make a plan. I have irrational panic because I'm catastrophizing and getting overwhelmed by negative beliefs. CBT tools help me restructure my thoughts, but it's an effort. Of course, I have valid worries too, like a family member in the hospital, or car trouble, or my own medical issues. It's just when it becomes my whole focus and I only see what can go wrong and the stress builds up that it becomes unhealthy and damaging. I begin to miss meals and don't have an appetite. I have to force myself to eat so that I don't lose weight. My whole body feels tense and I get stomach problems and my immune system doesn't work as well.
The other aspect of the mental anxiety, which I've concluded is the worse type, is the intrusive thoughts. The waking nightmare images that pop into my head out-of-the-blue with no trigger. Like a thought that my niece or nephew fell down the stairs and got hurt badly...I feel the fear and panic and at that moment, it's really happening. My mind starts to go through the steps of what to do next: check and see if they're ok, call an ambulance, call my sister, make sure have my purse, kids insurance info, etc. All of that goes through my mind in a split second, while my body is in fight or flight mode. I hate these types of thoughts, they're painful and scary. I have to tell myself it's not real and stop the thought right as it happens. Block it, calm myself down. On a good day, it's easy to stop it and it fades away and is forgotten. On a bad day, it doesn't go away so easily and it may cycle back again. Or I might not completely believe myself when I say it's not real. And so I keep worrying.
It's similar to when you have a bad dream and then wake up and the after-effects stay with you for awhile. It felt so real in the dream and your mind has to adjust to being back in reality. You tell yourself that it wasn't real, just a dream, but it takes some time for that feeling to wear off. Maybe you're afraid to go back to sleep because you think you'll dream about it again. But eventually you do. That's what anxiety is like for me. Only I'm awake the whole time. And sometimes these thoughts pop in multiple times in one day. It shakes me. It's hard to take on. It makes me tremble and want to cry. But I get through it. Get past it, as well as I'm able.
It's hard to even convey how bad chronic anxiety is or how hard it is to overcome. I am high-functioning, so I'm able to work and handle responsibilities and most times, my anxiety doesn't show on the surface. People don't see it and don't know. There have been a few people in my life who have picked up on it right away and even worked to help me calm down. But most times, I'm on my own. It's what I live with, it's a part of me, probably for the rest of my life. But I'm trying to make it have a lesser effect and presence in my daily life. Maybe one day I'll be free of it. Or at least be able to manage it easier.
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