A Day With Anxiety

I had a lot of plans for today. I thought about them as I drifted off to sleep last night.

I was going to get up early and deep clean our house some. I was going to go to church. I was going to have a nice lunch with my family. I was going to get groceries, prep dinner, hop on my elliptical machine for a bit, make a new ASMR video, do another load of laundry and clean our sheets, finish reorganizing my home office, help my husband work on his home office, get hours of work done on my freelance editing job, go over our budget, make dinner, watch a movie with my husband, the list goes on for a bit longer, but you get the idea.

I was going to be amazingly productive today.

I woke up at 6:30 am when my husband’s work alarm went off and felt that something was wrong. I thought I was just tired, that luckily I could go back to sleep for another hour or so, I would be fine.

At 8:15, I woke back up and knew something was wrong. I was sweating even though it was cool in our house, I was still exhausted even though I had gone to bed early and slept well. So I set my alarm for an hour later and went back to sleep.

An hour later when my alarm went off, I woke up and immediately felt off. My body was tingly, my mind immediately started hounding me for a million different reasons, my stomach was growling but I felt like I would be sick if I ate, and all I wanted to do was throw the blankets back over my head and stay in bed all day.

I tried to at least think of getting up and still going to church, but I immediately started breathing heavily at the thought. Being in a room with hundreds of other people? Lights and music? Trying to focus and tune out my screaming thoughts and listen to a sermon? Having to talk to people? Thinking about doing all of these things made my palms start sweating and my vision get blurry.

I clung to my blankets and shut my eyes tight, floating somewhere between a panic attack and sleep.

At 10:45, I forced my eyes open and grabbed my phone to text my husband what was going on. I knew he was at work and couldn’t do anything to help, but the act of telling someone what was happening seemed important. Maybe just voicing it would help.

I spent the next hour doing mindless things on my phone, just to keep me awake. I’ve found that on my roughest, darkest days, I can literally sleep all day long if I let myself. So even doing something silly like watching Buzzfeed videos for 30 minutes feels like a win because at least I’m not sleeping.

At 11:45, I pushed and fought my way out of bed. I put on clothes, washed my face, fed my cat, drank a cup of coffee, and took a half of a Diazepam.

I hate taking medication. If you know me, you know it is one of my least favorite things in the world. I’m 29 and take four prescriptions every day, which makes me feel like a failure sometimes. Diazepam is actually my fifth medication, but I only take it when I feel especially anxious or when I have panic attacks. I try to only take half of a pill because a whole pill can make me feel fake (groggy, lightheaded, zoned out, or too zen to be real).

At 12:15, I poured a second cup of coffee and drove to meet my family for lunch. I love my family and don‘t get to see them as much as I would like, so I really didn’t want to miss this lunch. They know about my anxiety, so I didn’t feel the need to pretend at lunch, but I also wanted to be present and attentive.

It wasn‘t until about an hour after the lunch that I realized how exhausted I was. I had used the little energy I had on that lunch, and while I didnt regret that for a moment, I felt drained. I unloaded my Kroger clicklist groceries at home (thank God for Kroger clicklists) and had to just take it easy for a little bit.

I thought about what really needed to happen today, what could be put off a few days, what would make me actually feel better. I chose to finish organizing my office and work on my freelance project. I knew both of those things, especially the latter, were most important. My freelance work involves other people, and while self care is vitally important, so is meeting deadlines.

The rest of the day I felt a little more slow than normal, but gaining a bit more energy with each hour somehow. We made a tasty dinner, watched an episode of a show together (I couldn’t take a whole movie because sometimes paying that much attention or having that much visually come at me can zap my energy and create more anxiety), and I felt good enough to freelance for a few more hours.

By 9:30, I was exhausted again, but proud of what I had been able to do. I had only cried twice during the day (anxiety makes me cry for no reason sometimes, like literally I will realize there are tears streaming down my face and be so confused by it) and had actually gotten some things done.

At 10, I got into bed ready to call it a day. Only as often happens with anxiety, I was still wound up a little, and knew I couldn’t sleep for a bit.

So I wrote this.

Anxiety and depression hits everyone so different. It even hits me in different ways, depending on the day. Maybe it’s just a chemical imbalance, maybe it‘s food induced, maybe it’s a spiritual attack, maybe it’s just life.

I don’t always deal with it in the best ways. Anxiety was never part of my life until my mid to late twenties, so I’m still learning how to cope and live with it. And I’m also learning how to give myself grace on days when it appears strong and refuses to go away.

So I’m going to watch an ASMR video and try to sleep, knowing that today I did the best that I could.