Body

I focus on my body too much. Well, not as in I’m a fitness freak, I’m not. I wish I were, but anyway, little aches and pains to me become big explosions within my body to me. Then I get to thinking, “Why do I have them?” And the funny thing about the mind is that a little knowledge about medicine (mostly learned through reading books on the subject) can create all sorts of wild thoughts. Some highlights:

“Oh, my arm feels numb and tingly, must be a heart attack. I’m going to die any moment.”

“I have a really bad headache so I must have a tumor. Or worse, maybe I’m having a stroke.”

“My foot’s tingle, my stomach aches, I feel some pressure in my chest, and my arm’s numb. I’m dying. It’s going to happen. Oh fuck oh fuck.”

Generally these sorts of thoughts are not productive and I see that now, but my boredom kept me thinking that way and a little bit of, “Why is this happening to me?” If I were thinking rationally about these thoughts I could see which each of them were and I wouldn’t have any panic attacks. See, I’m dominantly left handed because I was born with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck which seems to have caused a ’stroke-like’ affect on my right arm. I can hardly use it for normal things. So, everything I do involves my left hand. Use a mouse it’s my left hand, catch a baseball and it’s my left hand, pick something up and that involves my left hand. This causes a lot of pain and damage over time, apparently.

The other things like the pressure in my chest is mainly from the acid reflux and I get tension headaches frequently most likely from looking at the computer too much. All of these things are very logically explained and if I took a second to think about it I could calm myself. But panic and anxiety rarely work that way. At least with me. In the moment these thoughts are disorganized and then they crystalize into something life-threatening which causes more panic. It’s a certainty that has no real basis for it. I’m seeing all of this now and you might call it stupid that I haven’t seen it sooner, but I think unless you’ve actually been through it then you’ll never really no how you’d react. I’ve tried rationally working things out before and no real luck sometimes.

Anyway, I think I’ve got some positive momentum right now with regards to this particular anxiety and am slowly building up steam now. I haven’t been focusing on my body as much and it’s helping a great deal to keep me from panicking. Time will tell on this, but I think I’m making more progress now than I made even a year ago.

Fading

I’m writing this to hopefully vent my fears and frustrations from the last few weeks. Hopefully to understand what’s going on.

I haven’t really been enjoying myself since…well…mid-June. My father started having these attacks that raised his blood pressure and the first time really scared me because I thought he was having a heart attack. Even he was convinced that he was having one. Next thing my car’s transmission went up and I was without a car until August. I ended up paying $2000 back to my aunt. And thoroughly hating my summer.

Then the day before my birthday my grandfather died. And a couple of days before that I had pneumonia that lasted into my birthday. As the month went on my father continued having attacks and even spent about a week in the hospital being checked out. In the beginning of August we moved to a townhouse and I started vegging out really badly for whatever reason, even after getting my car back.

This isn’t to say that my summer was all bad, there were some bright spots which included passing a math class I needed to take. But overall it was pretty bad. Toward the last week of August I started having these weird panic attacks for whatever reason. It felt like I couldn’t breathe one morning (this was after my father had another attack). Then I was diagnosed with a sinus infection which lasted for about 3 1/2 weeks.

And recently the congestion from the sinus infection doesn’t seem to want to go away. Which left me frustrated to the point of crying. I’m feeling somewhat better, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve been watching the news and they’ve been reporting on MRSA (antibiotic resistant staph infection). They make it seem like you could get this anywhere and now I’ve been having real bad hypochondria attacks. I think I’m even starting to become a quasi-germophobe.

Now I’ve been crying off and on for the past few weeks. Partly out of frustration and partly for irrational fears. I don’t know when this is going to end, but I feel like I’m disappearing and being replaced by the blubbering shell of a person I used to be. I can’t focus, I can’t stay concentrated on my school work, and I’m starting to fall behind as a result.

I’ve been having few moments where I resemble the person I feel I used to be, but those are becoming rarer as I keep getting worse. I’m constantly fearing germs and fearing for my own health (despite my own physical appearance). Tonight I get a sleep study and I’m considering not going because of anxiety over my health and being in an unfamiliar place. I really don’t know what to do at this point. I’m trying therapy and hopefully that helps. But yeah, I’m not in a good place right now and things just seem to be deteriorating.