anxiety

Day 11 Of My So-Called Retreat

Yeah…..It’s more like I’ve been retreat-ish; still have my toes in the water…

The damn news. News of what’s going on “out there”. It’s an itch I can’t quit scratching.

I’ve been good about not getting on FaceBook or Instagram. But I’m still in the habit of scrolling through my news feed on my phone and of pulling up YouTube on my computer. It’s a terrible habit. It’s a time stealing, sleep-delaying habit. At least I’m just reading the headlines (for the most part, though some articles will draw me in…argh); I’ll hit “save” to read later…I can tell just from the headlines whether or not it’s gonna stress me out and that’s really the thing that I’ve been trying to retreat from: the stress. I’m specifically retreating from the anger and frustration and dismay and anxiety that inevitably results from that stress. The stress that humanity gives me.

I’m happy to report that my stress actually is down though – just from the little bit of retreat I’ve managed so far.

I think one big factor in reducing it has been getting outdoors. What they say is true, people! Touch that grass!! Get out into Nature!!! Even if that nature is your tiny, oddly shaped backyard in a city neighborhood which needs a lot of work. But only if it isn’t swelteringly hot and humid…because that situation will just wilt your psyche and make you cranky as hell. I’m not so sure, now that I think on it, that the zombies in “The Walking Dead” became zombified because of a virus or more because of the god-awful climate of the South. Anyway, I’ve been taking advantage of the cooler temperatures of Spring and trying to “make hay while the sun shines” as the old saying goes. Trying to work towards creating a little backyard oasis in which to…yes…retreat when needed … not just for me, but for my family. It’s something positive to do.

My psychologist observed something about me in my last visit, that I don’t think I’d ever realized fully about myself. She said, while encouraging me on this path to cocoon myself in order to repair my mental health, “I know, you want to save the world…” She called me an “activist”, because I care about social issues.

A couple of friends of mine and I have joked in the past about us getting together at our little klatsches in order to fix the world’s problems, but it’s funny that I’ve never actually thought of myself as someone who wants to do that. And I know that I’ve never thought of myself as an “activist”. But my psychologist is onto something about me. In my mind, and in the words of other people throughout my life, it’s more like I’ve always just been overly sensitive, a “goody-goody”, taken things too seriously, just cared too much. But, the way she put it…”wanting to save the world”. She distilled it out of my well of distress. That has been my “problem” for a long, long, long time, I think. And maybe I’m starting to feel a bit lighter because it’s finally sinking in that I can’t do that. There’s no way I can do that. There’s no way any one human being can do that.

“But I can do something about the one in front of me…” My dad’s favorite line from a story about someone who was told they couldn’t save all the lost and distressed creatures they ran across…

Yup. It is true. You can do something about the life that crosses your path. And the life that is most immediately in front of me is mine.

Retreating more…

At the beginning of this month (so, 3 days ago), I set myself the challenge of ghosting social media, as well as mainstream media, and seeing if it would help my state of mind at all.

How it’s going so far:

1)Been waking up pretty crabbily. (Not that I’ve been a person who ever, ever, cheerfully wakes up). Can’t say that my mood has improved much. It might actually be getting a bit worse.

2) In terms of dedication to this challenge, it has been slightly difficult. Not so much with the FaceBook or Instagram: I manage to catch myself whenever, out of sheer habit, I click the apps on my phone, and I quickly back out. But with my news feed, or on my computer, it’s been far harder. Getting out of the habit of seeing what’s happening in the greater world is so ingrained in me that the anxiety of not knowing what is happening lately is just as great as the anxiety of knowing . I’ve been peeking.

3) I’m wondering if my irritability is a side-effect, like withdrawal from any addiction.

Now, there were many mitigating factors to my state of mind that have been in play for several months (hell, who am I kidding? Years!)…that I don’t have the energy right now to get into….which made me embark on this effort. It’s all been feeding into this current mood swing of wanting to isolate and retreat. And I know that I’ve had a tendency to do that anyway whenever I’m depressed. But this time feels very different. I’m not really depressed, per se. I don’t want to end my life. I don’t hate life. I still see many things to appreciate and enjoy, and do. But I’m just not so sure anymore that I care to be as involved with anything outside of my immediate environs, i.e., my family and my home and wherever I happen to physically find myself. If it isn’t within 20 feet of me, or if it doesn’t involve someone I am personally acquainted with, (and, even then, if that thing does not involve me at all…) do I really care to know anymore?? That’s how I’m feeling. Unlike my lifelong feelings of depression, I know precisely from where this sentiment has developed….Namely, Disappointment and Disillusionment…and possibly Disgust. (More about that another time).

Anyhow, many people, especially those in my immediate vicinity, keep advising to step away from social media and the news of the world. They say that it will reduce the stress and anxiety. So, that is a piece of advice I have decided to put to the test.
And in addition to seeing how it affects me, we will see if those who advised me to let go will be relieved or appreciative of the fact that I did….

It’s In My Head

At 3 a.m. Sunday morning, I sprang awake with one fully formed thought in my mind:  Maybe I actually am crazy!

Other words quickly followed: delusional, flaky, insane…

A massive pressurized feeling of having been up until this very moment completely divorced from Reality, lost in a temporal world of my own making, floating along in another plane of existence, burst through my chest.  My family and friends have observed this ditziness in me, especially of late, and they have been tolerating me out of love and concern! That’s what’s really going on!

I managed to shove it all away, placate myself that I was just having a moment of self-doubt; that Depression was struggling to gain a foothold again by pulling me down into its’ endless burrow of negativity and self-hatred.  I closed my eyes and burrowed into my pillow instead.

When I awoke again, I went about my day attending to the usual mundane things that somehow exalt themselves with meaning. Things that I had imbued with grand importance:  Cleaning and organizing and planning and “nesting” and creating a schedule and cleaning some more; a training program,  if you will,  for getting my shit together once and for all; to get things prepared for my Master Plan of becoming a Creative Entrepreneur (to use a fancy-pants term for “artist who can help support her family”).

I couldn’t help thinking to myself in the following days that I was, truth be told, feeling a bit manic lately.  I wrote some of it away to being off one of my meds. But my mind has been all over the place with hopes and dreams and plans and schemes and determination and “keeping positive” and a stubborn willfulness that things are going to work out the way I want them to.  I’ve been feeling restless, impatient, hopeful.  I’ve been doing things with a hyper-focus and a strange stream of energy; all while putting other things on the back burner (where they smolder with a threat to break out into a fire).  I’ve been thinking and planning and doing for “all the things!”

But today, that feeling I had Sunday night at 3 a.m. is prying open my mental space again, siphoning out my optimism, gassing panic into it’s place….

I’ve become suspicious of myself.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/suspicious/”>Suspicious</a&gt;

August 17th, 2014.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic.

I don’t care. I think that I’m allowed.

As I told a friend this evening, “I’m thinking the worst, but hoping for the best”.

(I can’t believe that I’m actually hoping for kidney stones!)

I just took Hydrocodone, left over from my previous surgeries, to see if that might help, because the regular pain reliever we have in our cabinet did absolutely nothing for me this afternoon when my daughter needed me to take her shopping for school supplies.

As I shuffled into Target with her, squinting against lights that seemed to be making the myriad colors of signs and boxes and fabrics and plastic scream, I was trying to think of how I could possibly describe the pain I was having across my lower back.

It wasn’t a shooting pain. Not sharp.

I felt extremely….funky. It was an all over discomfort. Like a low, radiating, buzz.

In fact, I felt buzzed. Buzzed without booze. Not a happy buzz; more like a low, sonic, pressurized, radiating, wave of…

Hold on a minute!! That was it! I found myself thinking – I feel like I did when I went into labor!

I didn’t want to keep my eyes open.

My eyesight has gotten so much worse recently and combined with this bizarre lightheadedness and achy pressure that was at the moment weakening my limbs, it really did make me feel drunk. And I probably looked like I was drunk.

The lights felt too bright.
Keeping up any sort of banter with my girl, answering any of her anxious questions about what sort of paper do they want her to get, should she go with these post-it notes, or those? was nearly impossible. Thinking about anything was drowned out by the incredible need to just stand still and ride out the wave of discomfort.

I turned the cart to go down one aisle, damn it felt heavier than usual, and pow! there was a shot of pure pain through my spine. My ears almost hummed with the tingle of it. I just told my kid to get whatever she thought was best – I was just going to stand in one place and wait. And then came…the hot flash. Beautiful.

I really was not entirely convinced I was going to make it out of that store without passing out.

But, we made it.

Each day that goes by in which I feel physically worse, makes me anxious about waiting to find out what’s going on. Even if it turns out to be “nothing”; as everyone keeps reassuring me.

So. No. I am not a happy camper. I am not feeling positive. I’m feeling pretty bitchy to be honest.

Weird how your body can affect your mindset that way. Sometimes it just manages to yell so loudly it drowns out every positive thought you can muster.

And that’s how today has gone.

Just The Facts, M’am.

On the night of July 23rd, I had a small trickle of painful, dark colored, smelly urination.
On Thursday, July 24th, 2014, I went to the YMCA to exercise.
After 1 hour on the Precor machine, I stopped by the restroom on the way out.
It hurt again.
I peed some blood.
I have no ovaries anymore.
I am in full blown menopause.
I went to the nearest Urgent Care Facility.
They did a Urinalysis.
I was told there wasn’t any bacteria, so it may not be a Urinary Tract Infection.
The doctor left the exam room, returned, and then told me that there actually “was something” in the urine, so they were going to run a culture and they would let me know on Monday what sort of bacteria we were dealing with.
I was happy it was a UTI.
They called on Monday to cheerfully report that “nothing grew”. It was a false UTI diagnosis.
They did not, however, know why my leukocytes would be elevated.
Which they were.
I freaked out.
I called my Oncologist.
He told me not to freak out.
I asked him if we should do some blood work.
He replied, “Why?” and “Not necessary”.
I kept my appointment with my General Practitioner’s office to draw blood to check my cholesterol levels.
I did not mention the urinalysis to them. Therefore, no other blood work was ordered.
I did not visibly pee blood except for that one day in July.
My Oncologist referred me to my Gynecologist.
I had to wait a week to see my Gyno.
He did an exam.
He did not see or feel anything unusual.
He ordered another Urinalysis.
We went on vacation four days later to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio.
My lower back has been aching off and on for over a year or two.
I got a voicemail on August 11th, while sitting in the water park at Six Flags, that my urinalysis came back and there was still blood in my urine.
My pap smear was normal. (Yay for my pap smear!)
My Gynecologist referred me to a Urologist.
On August 12th, I woke up feeling a little dizzy. I continued to feel rather “off” for the rest of the day. Easily fatigued. Headaches.
On August 13th, I woke up with a headache and backache again.
My urine over the vacation turned completely clear in color.
Returned home on the 13th and just wanted to sleep for a little while.
Picked up our labrador from the boarding facility that evening but had to leave our foster dog in their care.
The next day, my backache continued off and on.
Took my daughter to her tutoring session across town.
Returned home around 5:30 p.m. and promptly fell asleep.
Totally forgot to take my daughter to her junior high’s orientation night.
She freaked out and yelled at me in tears.
She was unaware that evening was the “Express” event.
I had forgotten to mention it to her previously.
I was diagnosed with Triple-Negative Breast Cancer late August, 2011.
It is August 16th, 2014 today.
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer is aggressive and has a tendency to return in the first three years.
It does not tend to return in the breast area (especially when they have been removed).
I slept in bed until 2 p.m. this afternoon, except for breaks to go to the bathroom.
My lower back still hurts.
My urine is still clear.
I’m starting to notice weird aches elsewhere.
I made an appointment, while on vacation, with the Urologist who was recommended.
I was told by the receptionist that they liked to “act as quickly as possible when there is blood in the urine” and she scheduled me for this coming Tuesday, August 19th at 3:00 p.m.
I have to have a referral.
The Urologist’s office insists on that. The Insurance Company insists on that.
They must have a referral from my General Practitioner, and my General Practitioner ONLY.
Who is on vacation until Monday.
Who has no one covering for her in her practice while she is out.
Whose office keeps mentioning that referrals must have at least 48 hours to be “approved”.
The Urologist’s office has informed me that without a referral on paper, they will not be able to see me.
My throat has been feeling a little raw off and on since last Sunday.
I keep having little headaches. Off and on.
My house is extremely messy.
My now clear urine has been smelling strange since late July.
I have piles of laundry.
I freaked out on the phone with everyone involved with health insurance matters and this appointment.
I have been swinging between burst of energy, like when I work out and walk the dogs, and feeling worn out completely, after doing those things, or after going out to social events.
I have been feeling unmotivated to do the things that need doing.
Our yard needs mowing, and trimming, and weeding.
I’m not in a good mood; I go between a sort of emotional flat-line, unfocused thoughts, eerie calm, and tears.
The kids’ school year starts back up in one week.
We have not prepared.
I’m not feeling physically well; my energy is low, my lower half feels weak; I feel a little light-headed, almost buzzed in a very strange way.
I’m having to urinate more often than I usually do.
We are going to show up to my appointment, with a referral or without.
My cat, Rex, has lost a lot of weight lately.
He had mysteriously started losing a lot of weight around the time of my cancer diagnosis in 2011.
(After I “recovered”, so, coincidentally, did he).
He would follow me around the house a lot back then, before I knew I had cancer, staring me in the eyes and meowing.
He is doing it again.