I don't think that I realized how well Paxil was working for me (and had been for eight years) until I switched off of it to Lexapro. Lexapro sent me plummeting into a bottomless pit of anxiety and despair. OK, maybe I'm being a little dramatic. But it did suck.
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| Coffee, anyone? |
I'm back on my old friend Paxil now, and I am feeling 100% better. I'd be lying if I said I was completely anxiety free. I'm not. But, the idea of driving by myself no longer makes me feel like I'm going to lose my mind. I actually want to do things other than sleep. In fact, I signed up for my second half-marathon yesterday!
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| The desire to run 13.1 miles is probably a mental illness in itself. |
With the help of my therapist, I have made a list of things that traditionally give me panic attacks in order from "least scary" to "most scary." I am doing exposure therapy with these things. That is, I am intentionally exposing myself to things that scare me in order to desensitize myself to them. It's not the most fun thing I've ever done, but it is an action I can take to help myself.
One of the "less scary" things that I am currently working on is going into large stores alone. Any run of the mill grocery store, Target, etc has extremely bright fluorescent lights. All of the products on the shelves are designed to sort of jump out at you to grab your attention. Places like this bother me because they are overstimulating to my senses.
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| Too.Many.Choices. |
I am currently challenging myself though, to go into these stores alone. Once there, my mission is to walk around and browse until I find that the anxiety is a non-issue. Here's the crazy thing: it's working! I am actually enjoying overcoming these small personal challenges.
There is no doubt that exposure therapy will become more difficult and probably less fun as I move down the list to more frightening things. I am excited though about the prospect of being able to do things that I previously thought impossible.
Even though it's raining outside, the sun is coming out for me!
