A New Year; A New Opportunity

Since the beginning of the new year, I’ve been seeing all of these posts and articles on choosing a word for the year, and trying to let it dictate what you focus on for the year. After some deliberating, I decided that a good word for 2018 was “Peace.” In this new year, I want to focus on allowing and accepting: allowing things to happen for me, and accepting that I don’t have control over everything.

These last few days I have realized that this is very difficult.

I struggle with accepting that some things are out of my control. As someone who has battled anxiety for a long time, I try to control everything in my life to reduce my stress (which ends up just stressing me out more in the long run!).

I also tangle with the concept of things happening for me. This is another control-freak thing. I am under the belief that I need to be constantly doing things and making changes in my life if I ever want to get anywhere or if I ever want to “achieve my dreams.” My goal for 2018 is that I let go of the hold I have on this idea, accept that I don’t have to have everything figured out RIGHT NOW, and just let the world unfold before me.

Sitting back and doing nothing in hopes that I’ll get results is very hard for me, but that’s why I’m making a conscious choice to change the way I’ve been thinking. Every day is another opportunity for me to try again, and begin with a fresh slate.

The Beginning

I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile. I think I continually shied away from it in response to my low self-esteem; who in the world would want to read what I write? But I think I've decided that I don't want to write for others (though it would be nice to know that I help someone else), but that I can just write for myself, and that's okay too.

I was 9 years old when I had my first true panic attack. It was in the high school gym during a Veteran's Day assembly. I was packed into the bleachers with my classmates, when my face began to get hot, my chest became heavy and it was hard to breathe, my stomach was doing flip-flops, and I thought I might throw up. I pushed my way to the aisle, and ran out of the gym hyperventilating. The elementary school counselor saw the escape, and followed me out of the gym, taking me outside and leading me through breathing exercises. She didn't provide any explanation for what had just happened to me, but listened as I explained, and acted like what I had just experienced was the most normal thing in the world. I was able to rejoin the assembly (sitting closer to the edge of the room) and finish out my school day. 

For as long as I can remember I have struggled with anxiety. I used to spend my elementary recesses in the nurse's office with severe stomach aches, thinking I might get sick. I had memorized the layout of her office, and the bulletin board that she never updated. I can still see it if I close my eyes. She was always kind to me, and never sent me away, even when I had been there multiple times during the school day. I was always labeled as the "shy" student; the quiet girl. One teacher even described me as the "mouse" of the classroom: extremely aware of what was going on around me, but happy to be unnoticed.

At age 13, I was put on my first SSRI medication. I had spent weeks with an "elephant on my chest," thinking that I had asthma, only to be told my symptoms were likely caused by anxiety and stress. I was on Zoloft until the summer before I went to college, when I had a mental breakdown and developed severe agoraphobia. After upping the Zoloft to the maximum dosage, and it proving to be ineffective, I was switched. I went through several trial and errors with medication (with horrible side effects) until it was settled that I would be taken off of everything to see where my baseline was without meds.

I did wonderfully off medication for a glorious 10 months, where I was practically symptom-free. Of course, there were moments where I struggled, and I had an as-needed prescription of Alprazolam to help me when things got ugly, but I was thriving, until I wasn't. October came, and the inevitable crash came with it. I was put on Prozac, and two weeks in I began to have obsessive suicidal thoughts, (which scared the bejeezus out of me and were totally uncharacteristic). I stopped taking it, fell into a deep depression with obsessive and overwhelming anxiety (I couldn't go more than a couple blocks from my house without breaking down and crying) and ended up in the emergency room at our local hospital on November 15, 2016.

My emergency room visit was surprisingly short (and effective, thank God). I waited a few hours to meet with the hospital psychiatrist, who put me on Remeron, warned me of the weight gain side effects (what psych med doesn't cause weight gain?) and sent me home. The Remeron seemed to be working! I began to feel better quickly and went back to classes and my internships for my senior year of college. With the Remeron, I was feeling better, but I still didn't feel quite like myself, and anxiety still plagued my every move.

I finally graduated, which felt like a miracle in itself (I also had a major panic attack right before the ceremony, and was afraid I wouldn't be able to cross the stage, but I did!). and a few months later in September, I married my high school sweetheart. In the fall of 2017, I began to see a new psychiatrist who suspected I may have bipolar disorder. He started me on Lithium, and I went a few weeks with no improvement.

On November 14, 2017 I made another trip to the emergency room, finally breaking down and acknowledging that I couldn't live with the anxiety and depression the way they were. Against my and my family's will, the psych department kept me overnight with "suicidal tendencies" (though I had never expressed desire to kill or hurt myself or others), and I had to spend the night in the locked psych ward (which is a completely different story for another time).

My night in the psych ward amounted to virtually nothing. I was held overnight, saw the psychiatrist in the morning, who told me to stay on the medication I was on, and sent me home. I spoke briefly with a social worker, who gave me the numbers to hotlines to call so that I could avoid ending up in the emergency department again. I went home feeling more hopeless than I had before.

Shortly after getting home, I stopped taking Lithium, and was started on Lexapro. I am now on 3 daily psych meds (plus Xanax as needed), and a doctor ordered vitamin to help with anxiety. There are days where I still feel hopeless, and wonder if anyone really knows what's wrong with me. I work part time, with my husband doing the majority of financial support, and keep taking my meds, but wonder when things are going to change. Right now, I'm taking it one day at a time.