Working (Literally) Through My Anxiety

I thought I'd update you all on how I've been doing.

I managed to make it through my usual half day of work today!

I was nervous this morning, but I went through my usual morning routine and just focused on doing one thing at a time. Work was work, and my boss asked if I could come in tomorrow because there's still a lot to be done. For the most part I was able to concentrate on work, but there was a few times when I was still anxious. It helped to count down the hours until I could leave, and that I had a therapy session right after work.

All in all it was a good day.

I hope everyone has been having a good week!

Life Changes: If At First You Don't Succed

Work didn't happen today. I've made a major change in my life and it caused a lot of anxiety for me yesterday. I almost didn't make it to work yesterday. I ended up having to stop by my parent's house to have my mom calm me down and then later drive me (we work at the same place.)

I hate having to do this. I hate feeling weak and needing to ask for help.  Before I go on a whole: I hate having anxiety and panic attacks, let me at least congratulate myself for making it to work yesterday, even though I only stayed for four hours. Yesterday, I barely made it to my parents' house because I could barely breathe. I was trying to keep myself from having panic attacks while I was driving. Trust me, panic attacks and driving don't mix very well. When I did finally make it to work, of course it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. However, I was exhausted from all the anxiety I'd been feeling, and my boss was understanding enough to let me go home early.

Today? Yeah today didn't go half as well as yesterday. But you know what? I needed today. I needed to take care of myself. I kept putting off taking my emergency anti-anxiety medicine because it makes me really sleepy. So, today I woke up, decided I wasn't going to work, and texted my boss the truth: that my anxiety was really bad today and I needed to stay home. Again, thank goodness I have an understanding boss. I took my medicine, and took a nice long nap.

Now, I'm continuing to work on not beating myself up about not going to work. That's the other thing about anxiety, the minute I decide to not do what is making me feel anxious, the guilt kicks in. Not this time though, I won't let it. I know I needed to give myself a day off. Tomorrow will be much better.

How do you deal with anxiety and guilt?

Am I Manic? Trusting Yourself: This is Not the Time to Freak Out

We all forget to take our meds sometimes. It happens

Anxiously starting to think you're going to throw yourself into a manic/hypomanic state because you forgot to take your meds one too many times? It also happens.

Welcome to my day today. I was feeling restless, more than usual and unfocused. I haven't been the best at taking my meds every day this week and I started to think: Shoot, what if this is the beginnings of a manic episode?

Before I let myself go into full blown panic mode (this is when my anxiety kicks in and tries to freak me out) I stopped and really thought about it. Had I been showing any signs of real mania?

I'd slept at least 8 hours last night, and the night before. To be honest, I've been sleeping at least 8 hours a night all week. I hadn't been talking excessively, and I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I wasn't having any unusual racing thoughts other than trying to freak out about whether I was manic or not. However I had drank a large cup of caffeinated tea and diet Coke.

Ah, too much caffeine. I was also feeling a little dehydrated, which could explain why I was feeling extra jittery and a little "off."

So, no, I told myself, I wasn't becoming manic.

After I drank a couple of glasses of water, I went to the store to distract myself and to get out of the house.

It's 60 degrees out. I think it was just a case of too much caffeine and becoming a little stir crazy.

I'm still learning to trust myself when it comes to the fear of becoming Manic. I think sometimes I don't give myself enough credit. Granted, I need to take my meds every night (and I'm definitely going to work on this now), but otherwise I'm doing a good job of taking care of myself.

Lesson learned: Don't drink too much caffeine, drink plenty of water, and take your medicines every day!

What do you do to keep yourself from freaking out?

The Lithium Thirst: or, Why is My Glass Already Empty?

I’ve just finished my iced green tea from Panera. That’s 20 ounces of liquid, and I still want more. Not because it tastes so good (and believe me it does) but because I’m still thirsty. Welcome to the life of a Lithium taker. If there’s one side effect (besides the weight gain) that I can’t stand the most since I’ve been taking medications for Bipolar type I, it’s the Lithium thirst. The tremor I can handle even though it is embarrassing to eat soup sometimes when it’s especially bad. But the thirst. I am almost always thirsty.

The thing about being thirsty (and you don’t realize this until after you’ve gained five pounds) is that if you drink sugary drinks to quench this thirst, not only will you have a major sugar high, but you will gain weight. Plus, sugary drinks tend to make you more thirsty if anything else. So it’s true what all of the doctors and nutritionists say: Drink Water.

Ah, water. Water will become your best friend after you start taking Lithium. You will get to the point where carrying a bottle of water with you is almost as important as carrying your phone. You will become anxious if you go somewhere and the water glasses are too small. I’ve become the person who asks for a bigger water glass because I don’t want to have to ask the server to refill my glass every 5 minutes. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ll ask for the pitcher to just be left at the table. However, when there is a pitcher of water on the table? I’m in heaven.

Originally published on Medium

Happy Valentine's Day...to You

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Were you kind to yourself today?

I started my Valentine's Day by making chocolate chip cookies for myself. (Well, and my sister, but mainly because I wanted cookies).

I decided I'd do something nice for myself today.

I spent yesterday with my boyfriend, so today my sister and I continued the tradition of last year and spent Valentine's together. So Sister's Valentine's Day. She made her amazing Spinach Mushroom Risotto and Bruschetta (that we'd bought in Scotland). It was lovely.

We spent the rest of the day painting (excuse the blurry photos, you can thank the Lithium tremor for that haha):

All in all it's been a good Valentine's day.

How did you spend your day?

Five Things I'm Thankful For

I thought I'd do a list of five things I'm thankful for. Sometimes it helps to remember all the good things you have going on in your life so you won't focus on some of the negative things.

So here they are:

1. My family: I'm thankful for the support my family has given me throughout the good times and bad. They've always shown me love even when they don't quite understand the decisions I've made. They are getting better at trusting me to know what is best for me, and for that I'm truly grateful. 

2. My friends: Again, I'm thankful for the support of my friends who I know I can talk to about anything. They may not always understand my mental illness but they are willing to be there and listen.

3. My friends on twitter with mental illness: Some days it really helps to scroll through twitter and see other people going through the exact same thing or something similar. Seeing their uplifting blog posts and tweets makes my day a little bit better, and knowing that my tweets are helping them too makes me happy. 

4. Music: Spotify playlists are almost always playing whether I'm writing, cooking, or doing some sort of yarn work. Music always helps me feel better. At the moment I've been really enjoying Jazzy Cocktail piano music. 

5. Writing: Writing out my thoughts and feelings is exceedingly helpful. It helps me realize that sometimes my thoughts are simply negative thoughts and they are just critical and untrue. It's also a helpful tool to keep track of how I'm feeling. Plus writing in general, like this blog, makes me happy! 

What are some things you are thankful for?

Off Days: What To Do With Them

Today was definitely an "off day" for me.

The kind of day you don't want to admit that something is wrong and it's not just that you don't want to go to work.

I've written a lot about working in this blog, because that's something that stresses me out and I'm still getting used to it.

Lately it seems Wednesdays are the hardest days for me to get up and go to work. Tuesdays are usually fine, because I don't normally work on Mondays, but the past two weeks I have worked Monday. Last week I was lucky and only had to stay at work on Wednesday for half of a day. The week before, it just didn't happen.

Today, I woke up after pushing the snooze button on my alarm three times to where I was going to be at least fifteen minutes late. It didn't help that the day before I had a really frustrating day and I didn't want to have to put myself back in that environment. To make things worse I'd felt weepy all day, and then found out before I went to bed that one of my favorite professors had died.

To say the least, I didn't wake up feeling motivated to do anything let alone go to work.

Then the guilt sets in. I start piling it all on thinking about how I should have just gone to work because I need to make the money. And how I'm lazy and a bad person because I didn't go. I start worrying about what is my boss going to think of me and is she going to be angry?

Most of these thoughts are not even realistic. Of course I need to make the money, but that can be solved by working an extra day or even two half days if I really need to split them up. I'm lucky that my boss is understanding. Of course I don't want to take advantage of this, but then again I don't want to compromise my health either.

I'm not going to lie and say I haven't spent some of today feeling guilty and bad about myself. But sometimes you have to let yourself feel these things. So I told myself I'd let myself feel bad for some of today but then I'm going to do something that will make me feel better, even if I feel like I don't deserve it. So I'm going to hang out with my friend and that's that. I'm done feeling bad about myself for today.

Tomorrow is going to be better and work is going to be fine.

What do you do when you have off days?