Anxiety is

Sitting at a restaurant with a group of people worrying about my car being unlocked

Illness

I am sick. Like a cold, not imagined. Initially I was really bad off and I didnt have the energy to gave anxiety. Then ai got a little better.

Will I get that apartment I applied to? Does my chest hurt from reflux due to OJ and KFC or am I having a heart attack. My arm hurts too, oh wait i have been holding a phone playing for 3 hours.

Everything is 1000 times worse and its like the anxiety is making up for lost time.

I’m Back

This isnt actually good news. I havent been on because my new job has been going well and I have been keeping a lid on my anxiety. Until I wasn’t.

My parents are on vacation put of country, and I am apartment hunting. I didnt even realize how bad my anxiety was getting until I found myself reading articles about cancer and blood clots.

 

My leg has been hurting, therefore I am dying. Now I finally got a look in a well lit mirror, its a varicose vein. My first, though spider veins ae a thing. Once I get thr apartment, weight loss is going to have to be my number one priority.

 

I think a large part od this has been my new family doctor sending me for eat only weeks after my pre employment medical. Its like i get too much medical attention and i see a bunch of sick people and…

Anyways at my next doctors visit I am going to ask about the varicose veins. I am now worried they will kill me. Anxiety : 1 Me:0

Under Pressure

I have been absolutely swamped for the last two weeks with work.  I have had two minor panic attacks at work, and averted about a half dozen major disasters.  Strangely, not of them were my fault.  So all in all I did quite well.

But come the end of the week I finally can decompress and I have a two day migraine. Because I can’t go on 100% social people manager for 5 days straight.  And on top of this I am trying to search for a job.  And it’s overwhelming.

Anxiety Strikes

I often start to panic, am i having a heart attack or stroke. Right now my typos are amplifying that. Each “symptom” I focus on gets worse and I develop another. All I need is a 30 second distraction and it will all be gone. Now I have generalized lip tingling , and nose. Following 2 chest pains, a minute of nausea, dizziness. Note those weren’t at the same time. And some separated by several minutes. So I am fine. And I am at my new job. So I cant panic here.  I think I am now panicking that i might panic…

Car Panic

I started a new 2 day a week job where I changed jobs and am now full time foe shit pay. Its a lot of commuting, but I am carpooling.

I am nauseated by the reading while driving and being hungry.  And my finger is almost tingling, and I had a few bruef psngs of chest pain. And as in any situation where I have nothing else to do I began to panic. Which made everything worse.  Now that I got  distracted by trying to write this legibly while in stop and go traffic its all stopped.

This is anxiety…..

Broken Toe – Real Problems are Awesome

I broke a toe this afternoon when cleaning.  You would think being a hypochondriac that would send me spiraling.  What most people don’t realize is that this is what we live for.  Actual illnesses or injuries are gold, because you can deal with a real problem.  RICE, tape the toes together, stay off it, wear shoes if you gotta walk.  Every time that toe hurts it draws focus from the other 3000 things you think you have wrong with you.  Unlike an anxiety, a real problem can be dealt with and mitigated head on.I am NOT advocating self harm.  I am mostly looking at the bright side of being clumsy AF.

This doesn’t just apply to physical problems with hypochondria, but other problems with anxiety in general.  Trying to sleep before catching the bus in the morning is dreadful, after I have missed the bus, I am in the zone.  Crisis management is my specialty.  I worried the hell out of this for days, and now, well my morning will never run as effectively as when I have started off by screwing up.

This just doesn’t work with my problems, it works, even better I might add, with other problems.  You have centipedes in your sink, downstairs neighbors have bedbugs, not sure if your tires are low, can’t pack all your stuff in the car, I am there.  Years of over-packing made me a packing ninja, I have a tire gauge cause I am paranoid about a flat, I had a neighbor think they have bedbugs so I know all the next steps, I can google that bug and how to get rid of it.  Your problems are like a good book, 100% distraction from my own life. Also since your problems are really problems, again, there IS a solution. A set response, and an answer.  I love it.

The weirdest part, is once your problems have been talked over, I don’t worry about them.  My anxiety is 100% focused in on me, so you tell me your problems, I ALWAYS want to hear them. Is it just me,  or does anyone else take solace in trying to deal with other peoples anxieties?

Afraid to Sleep

So as I said earlier today I had an aura and it freaked me out.  That kinda petered out over the day.  But now I am at bedtime terrified of my fingers tingling, which they are cause if you think of nothing but your fingers tingling you can totally make that happen.  So I am afraid to sleep.

I started this blog to talk about Aspergers, but most days, most days that doesn’t matter.  Because being socially awkward, a failure to read expression, hear the conversation, doesn’t matter when you are so freaked out by a migraine you can’t sleep.  So upset about what could happen on the drive, tickets, sprains, death, omg, that the trip you planned devoted to your special interest (obsession) is now something you fear.  That the outing to the theater you planned Saturday is an opportunity to fall down the stairs and trip in the paring lot, and you only planned it cause you were afraid your grandparents visiting is going to be awkward and boring, and you keep flashing back to that time you said something really rude really loud a year ago when you butt dialed them though you doubt they even remember.   The fact you don’t interact, melt down, have sensory issues is become in some moments so secondary under the weight of overwhelming anxiety you can’t even devote a minute of your time to trying to explore treatment or therapy or sensory aid.  Because right now all I can think is what if I wake up tomorrow paralyzed because this was the first in a series of strokes.  Because this, is living with anxiety, and a lot of the time, it takes everything I have just to keep moving.

Auras- Not a stroke

I get migraines without auras, auras without pain, and rarely both together.  This morning I woke up at my lip was tingling in that way that I now recognize as a migraine aura.  This time I didn’t panic.  I have a diagnosis, this is a migraine aura.  I had an EKG, EEG, CBC, and CAT scan, overall it was concluded that I have migraines.  i get one sided headaches, and I get one sided moving numbness from my cheek minor, increasing into my bottom lip, then to my thumb, moving from finger to finger, finally in just the heel of my hand and then gone.  Usually this lasts 4-7 minutes, today was 9.5.  It may be that I got the timer on faster today because I recognized it so quickly.  It was gradual as usual and by the time me pinky was going numb my lip and cheek were done, and my thumb and index finger were clearing up.  I had minor head pain in that side of my head.  As soon as it was done the fog cleared, there was no weakness anywhere, no facial problems…Though i do feel kinda plastic on my left face side now that I am writing this.  But this I have found is anxiety. As soon as I stop thinking about this the feeling will stop.  I was tired last night, and I did have a bit of inexplicable diarrhea right before bed, which is something I have come to notice precedes an attack.  I worked without water for a while, so it may have been a little dehydration there as well.

Knowing all this, having been diagnosed, stopped the pill, I still am terrified hours after aura symptoms have left.  I am always, in part, afraid I am having strokes, despite the symptoms coming on gradually instead of suddenly, despite no lingering defects.  For the next week every time I talk too fast, and someone needs clarification I will worry I am slurring my words.  Every time I trip that I have motor deficiency.  Every time I can’t remember a word, will suddenly be a cognitive decline.  Every time I lean on my elbow too long, or scrunch up my leg and I get pins an needles it will be the “big one”. Despite knowing that I have migraines, I can’t help but panic every time I get the aura.   Its been a year since I last saw the neurologist, I may book a follow up, just to see if everything is still ok.  On the bright side, my foot is about 1000 times better since I rested and elevated it last night.  Worrying about having strokes has completely overridden my obsession over have a a stress fracture in my foot….

Foot Pain

The top of my foot hurts when walking without shoes. I am on day 3 of this.  Days 2/3 are worse than day 1.  In defense of my foot I tried to walk through day 1 rather than sitting down, and apparently this was not a good plan.  And I thought I figured out what was aggravating it, but I just slowed down rather than stopping it entirely, so I really can’t expect much. Overall when wearing shoes I have zero pain.  I am going to try and wait till Monday to get checked out.  Try and rest it, or wear some indoor shoes around the house tomorrow when cleaning.

The reason I am posting this tonight is because I am disappointed  in myself, because I stopped mid entry about sleep, to google my symptoms, then to Webmd.  This basically means that tonight the hypochondria won.  I lost, I researched something online rather than speaking with a health professional.  If its not any better tomorrow I will call 811 and get a recommendation for how to proceed.  But really even I know they wont have any because you have to have had something 3 plus days, and increasing pain despite home treatment for a doctor to seriously evaluate an injury/illness.  3 days with, I was too stupid to stay off of it or even take anti-inflammatories the first 2 days is going to be like, so you walked on a hurt foot and think you know what caused it but continued that action for 3 days.  Basically they will tell me to stop and see if it gets better.  But I didn’t, I went on Webmd, which tells me if could be a stress fracture, or sciatica, or, I could be dying.  This is not going to help me with my sleep window.  And having had similar, less intense pain in this region before, I know that in the past, rest has done this well.  Why, why do I do this to myself?