Mental Health

My life has been a nightmare for a couple of months. It's not due to bad things happening, not exactly (some extremely stressful situations happened that are major contributors), it's due to the severe fatigue. I haven't been calm, collected, and thoughtful while getting through the rough issues. I've been so exhausted that anxiety has controlled me. Anxiety clouded my mind while visiting my doctor, who is very expensive to go see. I'm anxious that I might have acted unlike myself while visiting his clinic. I'm anxious that my memory of our visit is blurred with anxious thoughts instead of reality. I'm anxious about being unable to trust myself due to anxiety controlling me.

All I'm thinking about is why people might be mad at me, might be trying to avoid me, might be hurt by things I didn't understand I was doing... But the truth is, I don't remember doing anything to make anyone feel this way towards me. There's nothing specific I'm stuck on. No one is treating me differently. It's just a feeling that is overwhelming me. A feeling giving me nightmares during day and night. A feeling so stressful that I can't recover. I can't rest well enough to regain strength.

Two major stressors affected me: traveling by plane to my doctor (lack of energy to travel and withstand MCS reactions in hotel rooms), and my work place getting in potential legal trouble over something we honestly sincerely believed was legal. I panicked that I wouldn't have a job to return to because my boss was going to be in jail. No charges are being pressed because we could prove our ignorance, but the panic attack still haunted me. The anxiety was strong before this panic attack, so it put me over the edge.

I learned about myself that I internalize too much these days. I believe I've learned to do this because I don't have someone to talk to when I need to. Even if my husband offers to listen (he is WAY too busy making money) I don't want to burden him more. So I hold it in and let nightmares take over my mind.

My doctor gave me a homeopathic remedy for anxiety that works. It is very helpful. It's not string enough to pull me all the way out of a panic attack, but for less disabling anxiety it helps reduce it enough that I can regain control.

I've had anxiety, depression, and mental health issues for a few years now. But this has been the most severe since almost 4 years ago when I was bedridden and felt suicidal. I'm not suicidal now, but I don't want to live this life anymore. The burden of being strong is too much. The burden of caring about people is too much. The burden of problem solving is too much. The burden of being a friend to people I truly love and cherish is too much. I'm exhausted. The fatigue is crushing me.

If this scares you away, so be it. I can only afford energy to people who care to support me right now. This is the most co-dependant thing to say, but it's only due to exhaustion, not manipulation.

This all comes in waves. If I'm occupied with something like shopping, cleaning, cooking, or taking care of something important I'm ok, but only as long as I have enough energy in those momements. If I have to be occupied with a task when I don't have the energy, the anxiety grows far worse.

I've always been a person who focuses too strongly and can't break away easily. Fatigue usually increases my focus. But now, I feel like I have ADHD. I can't enjoy anything I do. I have to switch between a mobile game, a project, reading an article, planningning dinner (for instance) every few minutes. If I try to focus I get anxious that the other thing needs to be done instead. I get jittery. I fidget. I can't enjoy things I love to do. It's driving me insane.  I've never experienced this before.

It's like constant adrenaline that won't let me rest. Just let me rest. Please. All the work I've done to repair my adrenals over the last 3 years better not be undone. Please don't break down on me again.

I want to break down and cry, but it's not working. I just break down with nightmares.

I'm living for the waves where I'm feeling stable. My heart goes out to everyone who feels like this regularly, for years. I understand better now. Only I have hope that I'll recover to a certain point, again, because I've done it before and I have the most helpful doctor ever. All the herbs and tinctures he has me taking work. I just need to recover. It might be a few more weeks, it might be a few more months... But I will eventually pick up again.

But please, don't give me any more panic attacks. I'm too strong, so it's hard to see when I've had too much to bear. I can internalize heavy stress and save dealing with it for later. I don't break down when I'm with other people. So just assume I can't bear it.

And thank you, doctor, for being so helpful that I can rely on you.

Thank you, husband, for being my pillar of strength and my hope and motivation for the future. 

Thank you, mom and dad, for taking care of me. All of my progress in healing would have been impossible without you!

Lamantations

I've not forgotten about this blog or some of my blog projects. I've just honestly had such a rough 2017 so far that any energy I've had to blog with was better spent on something more important. Even now I have more important things to do be doing, but I don't have the energy required for them and am able to sit at the computer and type.

I'm so burned out that my adrenal fatigue isn't just manifesting as exhaustion, it's giving me physical pain now. My whole torso area feels like one big knot, I have regular heartburn, my inner ears are ringing and spasming, my gut is giving me occasional sharp sudden pains, my head is cloudy to the point of headaches, and my muscles are getting so tight that it's causing numbness in my shoulders and arms. To top it off, I'm fairly sure I have another hiatal hernia, which might be the true reason for the heart burn. Food and pills aren't going down well, I'm hiccuping and burping a lot, and I'm getting spasms behind my rib cage.

What do I do about it? Stop stressing! That hasn't been possible this week - this week has been horrible. Let me explain: One co-worker was in the hospital, another is going through a serious family emergency and had to miss work to be with the family, and another got really sick for a day. I started my period this week, and as I've made clear before, I can't work on the first day of my period because it's very severe. I'm not complaining here - without my illness, I'm happy to help and do extra in these situations. But the result is that I worked 5/6 days this week when I normally only work 3-4 days a week. I had no choice but to work on the first day of my period, only for 2 hours, but the amount of stress I went through wondering if I was capable and able was awful. If I didn't work those two hours the store might have needed to close due to a lack of employees. Stress!

In addition to work stress, my pet cockatiel is going through a hard time hormonally and decided to start plucking her feathers. That made me feel like a horrible bird mom and I stressed a ton about if I should take her to the vet or if I need to change something I'm doing with her... I took it personally, like I was doing something wrong.

To get through high stress I should take extra of my Adrenal Complex from my doctor. Only... I ran out. It takes a week to get a shipment from him, and I'll be there in person in less than a week. So I've had to make due with extra solid licorice extract, Siberian ginseng, rhodiola, b12, and caffeine. It's helping, but not enough. The caffeine was making my bloody noses from seasonal allergies worse too. I have a bottle of Adrenal Cortex coming through the mail tomorrow. I know the cortex on its own does help, but it's maybe a quarter as effective as my doctor's Adrenal Complex.

Since my adrenals are so bad right now I'm having an extremely difficult time sleeping. I'm taking extra of my sleeping pills, but it's just giving me heartburn from the hernia. I'd take extra sublingual melatonin that doesn't go through the stomach, but I seem to be reacting to it all of the sudden. It's giving me a rapid heart heart and breathing troubles.

I have to gear up for work tomorrow, packing and preparations on Tuesday, and a full day of flying on Wednesday. I'm going to see my doctor, if I can survive until then. As it is now, I just hurt and really need to be beamed to my doctor by Scotty.

Yesterday after work I was feeling so fried that my inhibitions started to crumble and I started to fantasize about drinking a frappecinno while going on a huge shopping spree and buying tons of stuff to make me feel better. I might have been hypoglycemic and craving the sugar. But the shopping part? Why do I feel the impulse to spend money when I'm feeling so terrible - would new things make me feel better? I doubt it. And shopping takes energy, so it's weird to feel that impulse.

I'm so incredibly sick of hearing, "Yeah I'm tired too." Maybe you are, it's not a comparison, but what you need to understand is that my fatigue is debilitating. You can function while feeling tired. My body actually shuts down and acts against my will. There is a different between tired and chronic fatigue. If you actually have a mild level of chronic fatigue that lets you work full time then take a good hard look at what I'm going through and do everything you can to get better before you turn into me. Working full time is like a dream to me. I hardly remember what it was like to have the energy and stamina to work even 20 hours a week regularly.

Sigh. Social media is so wonderful, but it's also letting me see too much of the world. I see photos of people I really love and care about being so happy and successful, and it makes me feel sad and jealous. I'm sincerely happy for them. I'm truly glad that they're successful in their careers, are able to afford to buy a house and start a family, have an amazing relationship with someone who's full of energy, and are genuinely enjoying life. I'm not jealous in a mean way, I'm jealous in a sad way for myself. I want what they have. I want the energy to conquer life. I want the stamina to be surrounded with family that loves me. I want the vitality to explore the world. It's all a dream to me, one that's getting fuzzier as the years with this illness drag on. Don't get me wrong: I love my husband to death. But I'm dragging him down and making it hard for him to get his doctorate and advance in his career. I'm spending all our money on medical expenses so we can't save for a house. I'm not able to start a family. I'm really grateful that he's handling it so very well, but I know this isn't what he wanted out of life either.

I have a new favorite song, Breaking Down by Florence and the Machine: