Evening to you all...
How is everyone doing this evening? I apologize for not being around here the last while. Work has been busy, holidays have been taken and to be quite honest, I have been doing pretty good. So the evenings when I would have been able to blog, I really didn't have anything profound or intelligent to say. Well wait a minute, I always have something intelligent to say, just not regarding my anxiety disorder. But tonight is the last night of holidays for me and I figured that I owed you a posting here. I actually have a few things to say tonight, so hold on to your lug nuts, its time for an overhaul! I hope that you have all had as an enjoyable summer as I/We have. We got to visit with some very good friends from the coast, went to a wedding, out to Kamloops to visit the in-laws and we had some really great weather. Unfortunately, the nice weather is on its way out the door and our favorite time of year is quickly approaching. Yes, the w word. Somebody had to say it here...
So I went and saw my doc last week about my meds and how they are working for me. I gotta be honest, pretty darn good, but I am and was feeling that I needed just a bit of a tweak on them. So I have been bumped up to 125mg of Zoloft now. As I told Krystle, I'm just not quite feeling all there yet. I'm doing my work on my own that I need to but, the meds just aren't cutting it, or weren't anyways. I've still been having some real struggles with the thought of someone near and dear passing away on me or my dog passing away. I have been trying to cope with those thoughts and how I will handle that day when it comes. I'm not morbid and don't think about it everyday, but I must admit it crosses my mind from time to time. I have also been struggling with the leaving of my comfort zone to go on a holiday somewhere. The thought of getting on a plane scares the crap out of me. This past weekend we went to Medicine Hat for a visit and wedding. We've lived there before and I have travelled that road many, many times but, I was anxious about that drive, staying at Krystle's grandparents house and being in a "different" town for a "new" experience. Weird eh?
It has only been a week now that I have upped the meds, but I am hoping that it does the trick for me in the end. I also had a really cool thought this past week regarding Ativan. Now, I know that awhile ago I blogged about talking an Ativan and how it bothered me to take one. How it made me feel somewhat more anxious. Some of you either messaged me, facebooked me or BBM'd me and gave me crap about not taking it. I didn't take anything personal from it and I was not offended that anyone gave me hassle about it. In fact, it made me feel good that some of you cared enough to say something regarding the taking of the Ativan. Anyways, this past week out of the blue, I was thinking about taking Ativan. Not because I needed one or anything like that, I was just thinking about it is all. I started to think back when I was anxious before how did I use the Ativan or cope with it back then. And I realized that I just took the damn thing! I didn't question it or wonder how it was going to affect me. I didn't wonder what the implications would be or anything like that. I just decided that I was not going to win this battle, so I would take the Ativan and live to fight another day.
Huh. Well, that is not at all how my thinking is now. Now, my thoughts run wild about how this will affect me, what could happen to me, where will this put me and so on and so on and so on. I had a minor epiphany I guess. I didn't have any concerns with taking it, I just took it. So why does this bother me now? You know, I don't have an answer for you on that one. I don't know why my thinking has changed on it just that it has. So, I am going to try really hard here in the future to just take it if I need it. Please don't message me and say that you told me so or anything like that. You didn't tell me, I had to figure it out on my own and get down to the crux of the matter.It just felt really great to realize that and be able to move forward from there. I guess the point of me telling you that is this, how or why does our minds change or we forget things? Besides all the "getting old" jokes there are out there, I'd really like an answer to this one. But, I digress...
As I said at the start here tonight, I have been feeling rather good lately. I did have a minor breakdown on the way to the Hat on Friday. Once again though, the super hero in plain clothes helped me out of it again. And yes, you all know her name...Krystle. This last week I also realized that my son was starting Kindergarten, my daughter is moving into Grade 2, we were getting a new dog when we came back from the Hat, work was starting again etc. The only constant thing here for me, was going back to work. Otherwise all of those things were; wait for it...wait for it...wait for it...changes! And how much does Shawn NOT like changes? Just a teeny bit. lol. Anyways, those changes along with driving down a desolate highway to a town where a few bad things happened to me and my family, added up to a nice little anxiety attack between Brooks and Bassano.
I started to feel warmth in my groin, and not the good kind either, mildly dizzy, sweaty palms and warm armpits. Uh-Oh...this can't be good. I told Krystle right away and she really helped me through it well. She was as cool as a cucumber. On a side note, what the hell does that even mean? Cool as a Cucumber?? Well, too late now, we've used it...gotta go with it. Anyways, Krystle just calmly and quietly rubbed my back and changed the topic so fast it was great. She got my mind thinking and off of the panic/anxiety attack by asking me to "name 10 things that..." are chocolate bars; different cars, boys names, girls names, name the 50 states, different flowers, colors of the rainbow, shades of blue and so on. It worked great and before I knew it, I was calm and relaxed and we were pulling into Medicine Hat.
Damn! I have the greatest wife and partner in the freaking world!!!!! Maybe next time that you are feeling anxious, get your significant other, friend, mom, sister or co-worker who knows what you are facing to try this with you. Maybe it will work for you and maybe it won't; but you won't know until you try it right? Well, I think that I am going to close for this evening. I have really missed doing this and I really enjoy all the emails, BBM's, Facebook messages and so on that I get from you all encouraging me to keep it up. Again, I am sorry for the tardiness as I have stated above, but it sure is great and fun to get back on here and pour out my thoughts and feelings to you all. Have a really great evening and I promise that I will do my best to be back here very soon. Take care of yourselves and love your families!
