riddle me this.
What is worse: being sick or THINKING you are sick?
Anyone who has been a long time reader of the chronicle knows about the anxiety attacks I had before I left California, on my way to Atlanta and now the current batch.
Let me start with the latest batch:
My dad died on april 25, 2000. I was a wreck. An emotional and physical wreck. I took two weeks off from work to deal with myself and with the funeral and everything else combined. I laid, literally, on the couch watching the golden girls and crying. After the funeral, we came back to VA where the very next day we left to go to Virginia Beach for my court case against shelly. After coming back from that trip on a Friday (May 5th), I started feeling congested in my chest. I went to the doctor who said i was had a tad bronchitis and gave me drugs for it. Within a few days i felt better. Then starting in late june, i started feeling “weird” again (my only word to describe it). I went to see three separate doctors who said it was stress (and while you are at it, drop a few pounds quit smoking — you’ll feel better). And while that is all well and good — when i’m laid up all weekend due to such a severe anxiety attack I NEED RELIEF NOW!
so we tried Paxil. didn’t work.
and now i’m on klonopin (for schizos actually -teehee) which, after the first dose i slept for 14 hours and felt WONDERFUL when i woke up. But then the paranoia kicks in:
each ache and pain in my body is instant “i’m having a heart attack, i’m feeling sick, i’ve got cancer, i’ve got —-” and so goes in my head EVERY FUCKING DAY!
And going to bed was worse — because i started obsessing with death. oh, this isn’t the old morbid gawf crap — this was the “if i fall asleep, i’m dying. i’m not waking up.” and each fucking nuance of my body made me feel WORSE. and then i couldn’t sleep. and my heart would pick up pace and that freaked me out even more and on and on it would go. and it has been going on for a good month now.
so the other day i wrote about taking charge of my life. and i want to say a BIG THANK you to everyone that wrote me and said that they have gone through similar things because it’s so fucking lonely feeling like i’m the only one whose life is falling apart.
when I first started working at UUNet, a person i shall say became a very good friend said he thought it was remarkable that i was handling a new job, new move new everything with such aplomb. my job is fucking stressful. (sidebar: some nitwit started emailing me a few weeks ago accusing me of being someone else. and claimed something along the lines that we were lovers 17 years ago. 17 years ago i was 11. I kept telling him it wasn’t who he thought it was — i mean any idiot could find out anything about me if they tried hard enough. i’ve never been ashamed in giving out information. then he counters back “i have a few friends at uunet. you don’t work there. my bosses thought that was funny.) my life with paul is stressful. my life in GENERAL is stressful. and my body was saying LISA! WOOHOO time to wake up. And i started and am still taking babysteps in making those changes. i’ve tried giving up smoking (again, tonight, i’m smoking my last cigarette. the coughing and nasty taste in my mouth is making me sick). but what sucks is the day to day crap. because i freak out if my heartbeat accelerates and THEN i start panicking more so.
My doctor told me that when you have social anxiety disorder (or you are just darn anxious about something) every nuance of your body is explamified. Every pull, strain, bruise, tingle suddenly causes me to worry. so i sit there with my stupid “instant stress relief” music cds doing deep breathing for 10 minutes to calm down. and when i don’t? I freak again!
My heartbeat at rest is between 70-80. American Heart Association says normal is between 50-100 (thought chances are more so if you have a heartbeat over 70 of having a heart attack). Sometimes I hit 100 and other times 120. When I hit 120 — i keep thinking like fred sanford “I’M COMING ESTER! THIS IS THE BIG ONE!” and then i sit and have to do the stupid stress relief music and deep breathing exercises to bring it back down. My cholesterol, blood pressure and everything else is PERFECT. (however i am a woman who smokes/smoked and takes birth control pills). i’m overweight. but i’m healthy. i’m too young to be freaking out.
As you can see, my life is full of stressful events. But i started noticing things. When i started writing (shock) even just bullshit in my paper journal — i felt better. when i work out, i feel better. when i stretch my body out just after sitting in a cramped movie theater i feel better. i have to keep telling myself it’s anxiety and stress and that taking care of the issue NOW without living in isolation for three years (which happened to another co-worker of mine at UU. she had anxiety/stress so bad, she didn’t drive for three years and barely left her house — now she’s so easy going it’s depressing). Me. Myself. And I.
I’d like to think there is a reason for all of this. Why me? Why at such a young age? Why am i popping drugs and not looking for healthy alternatives. which prompts the paranoia that i’m gonna STOP shaving my legs, drink herbal tea and chant about my ying and yang. I’m so afraid of becoming a freaking hippie to be well. It’s like the holistic path works — but i don’t want to get caught up in those stereotypes, yo.
i don’t have a reason or a point to this. it’s mindless ramblings. but there is something i wanted to point out — when I used to discuss my past with my friend Michael, i used to get anxious and headachy stressing “i don’t want to deal with this now” because I didn’t. but i never did deal with it. I just went on my normal little way. but see the headaches have grown worse until i write about it (even if it is stupid — which i think sometimes i am — because i can be much more wittier) — and it’s like a fight against me and the world. i know i’m a strong person (nurse at the help line: you don’t sound sick. you sound actually very strong. me: look lady, if a doctor doesn’t see me today, i’m gonna kill some muther fucking someone) and I CAN DEAL with this. but it’s hard.
no one ever told me how hard it was to be normal.
my shrink apt is on tuesday. that should be interesting.
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lisa
Tag: Anxiety
I don’t feel right, I’ve got a crack in my heart
“You know Lisa, when you do something, people think it’s cute. When I do the same thing, people ignore me.” – Paul
Paul and I have been having this on-going “disagreement” on who started what and when and how. Simple euphemisms and mannerisms have become intertwined no one can remember who is a lisa-ism and what was a paul-ism. Scary.
Anywho, Paul and I talked about which songs describe us to a T. Paul picked No Fair Fights by Prick as one of them. He ripped the song for me and now that I finally have a working sound system, I finally downloaded it and have been replaying it over and over again. And anyone who knows me the slightest knows that I have a thing for lyrics (hello! Why I love Afghan Whigs and like bands) and I really dig the lyrics for this song. Paul will probably sit and smirk but hey, the words rock.
knee hurts. ow.
Anyway, I haven’t been writing much cos my life was anymore of a mess it would be a soap opera. Well, it is. Let’s see, in the last three weeks, I’ve had the following things occur:
- Roommate sideswiped car trying to miss one of our nine cats (damage estimated at one thousand dollars)
- I got canned from Slip.Net. That was fun. I won’t go into reasons why I was canned (the following Monday after being said canned, my website got hit from 80% of Slip.Net’s SF office. Word on the street was that I had “walked” out. Wrong, I was canned.)
- I took myself to the ER for “feeling funky” — found out I am slowly killing myself with stress. Basically, what had been happening started out with ear ache for the last couple of months. Then I was always so damn tired. Then for the last week I’ve been feeling like “airy” like I’ve been really high and i was losing sensation in my body. I remember standing, naked and dripping water on my bedroom carpet looking for the strength to get dressed. Sharp shooting pains going down right side of my body. Nine hours in the ER and find out it’s stress. Which I kind of thought.
So, I have start eliminating stress from my health, quit smoking, quit drinking caffeine, lose weight and get in shape.
And that alone above isn’t stressful? heh.
(Damn! I wish I was your lover)
Oh and the trippy thing? Save for the ER, all of these occurrences happened on a Friday. And on THIS upcoming Friday, I’m moving:) wooha!
“Time flies by when flirting with Lisa.” – Paul
Argh I’m so excited! I’m leaving and going down to San Diego and hooking up with Bear, Ducky, Moe, Jon, and others. Than driving to Texas and then ON TO ATLANTA BABY!!!!!!
Four days and three nights.
Yum.
I had more indepth things to say, but yanno, it’s 3:54am.
I’ll save the bitching for another time.
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Angel Baby Heaven
swimming
Today when I was driving to work, I was having problems with getting across the Bay Bridge. My eye, though seemingly better, was super sensitive to the light, and I kept wanting to swerve as I drove. The more I drove across the bridge, the worse I began to feel.
Suddenly, I saw myself go over the cement embankment and into the cold bay water. In my minds eye, I saw my car go over the bridge, projecting an almost perfect dive. I saw myself rolling up my windows quickly, as to not be engulfed by the cold water, and once my car had gone beneath the waves, I saw myself roll down the windows and swim out to surface. I was still wearing my glasses, and I was still clutching my butt-ugly green purse.
Sometimes, premonitions scare me. And I always feel like either I am really alive when I’m zooming across the bridge, or else I won’t make it across for some reason.