Wedding (Hell's) Bells

This time last week, I was lounging on the beach of St. Augustine, Florida with a glass of red wine and August's issue of Cosmopolitan. 

Today, dear reader, I write you from the confines of my office, pecking out the lines of my blog in between convincing my clients to pay their bills and trying to sell insurance policies.

The problem is that ever since I returned from vacation, I've been on edge.  I haven't had a full-blown panic attack yet, but I have this free-floating anxiety that I can't seem to shake. I of course anticipate that at any moment, all hell will break loose and I will need to be institutionalized.

Artistic rendering of my future home.

Sunday, July 14th, 2013 is a day that will live in infamy.  On that day, sometime in the late afternoon, Boyfriend officially became Fiancé.

He liked it and subsequently put a ring on it.

Increased anxiety following a major life event...this ain't rocket science, folks.  It's clear where my anxiety is coming from.  But is it normal?

I have the most beautiful diamond solitaire I have ever seen on my hand.  I officially get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend.  I know that my life will probably not change in any way once we are married.  We already own a home together, and live together.  Our finances are combined.  I'm not afraid of being married.  Essentially, we already are.  I think that I am mostly afraid of getting married.

We have been engaged for one week and three days.  I am already stressing about wedding details.  Where should we do it?  When should we do it?  Should I get a dress from a bridal boutique, or order one off the internet from China?  Who are my bridesmaids?  Is Fiancé's sister going to want to be a bridesmaid? (God I hope not.)  3 tier cake or cupcakes?  Red velvet or vanilla?  What type of flowers should we use?  Who to invite?  How are we going to pay for all of this?  I AM LOSING MY MIND.

"Angry Bride Attacks Florist With Stiletto"

To add to my anxiety, I am coping with an identity change.  I have changed from Girlfriend to Fiancée.  Fiancée is nothing but a transitional period, for I will soon become Wife.

Sheryl Paul, author of The Conscious Bride, says this is normal:

"This book is based on the premise that the wedding is a rite of passage, and that all rites of passage--adolescence, the wedding, the birth of a child, a geographic move, a job change, midlife, old age--involve a transformation of identity as the initiate sheds the old way of life and makes way for the new role."

According to Paul, it is okay to experience a sense of grief/loss (and even anxiety!) as we transition from one life phase to another.  I think this is an incredibly wise sentiment, and I wish that society was more accepting of these feelings.  According to cultural norms, I should be bubbling with excitement every moment of every day.  That's not real life.  I AM excited, but not all the time.  I am probably as anxious as I am excited.

And you know what?  It's fine.  I am going to allow myself to experience a full range of emotions while we prepare for our big day.  Lucky for me, I have the unwavering support of Fiancé to help me weather the storm.

Nope to Dope

I am 24 years old, and I have never smoked marijuana.

My mother also suffers from panic disorder. Long before Mom ever met my dad, she worked for a lawyer. Said lawyer invited my then young and impressionable mother to a party at his home, where she tried smoking pot. Her first time would prove to be her only time, as smoking weed caused her to have a panic attack that lasted several hours. Having heard this story numerous times growing up, I am somewhat afraid of the potential effects that the drug could have on me. It is for this reason that I have politely declined each time someone has passed me a joint.

In the past few weeks, I have had no fewer than three people offer marijuana to me to help my anxiety.

"Here, bro."

The way I see it, my smoking weed could really only go one of three ways:

1. I have the same reaction to marijuana that my mother did. I have the worst anxiety attack of my life and end up going to the emergency room for help. The hospital staff call the police and I am arrested for doing drugs. I go to jail. Or something.

Dead weight.

2. Smoking weed goes AWESOME. I feel calmer than I ever have in my life and I regret not having done this sooner. In the months following, I gain 150 pounds due to a lack of exercise and a chronic case of "the munchies."

Dinner time.

3. Smoking pot is relatively uneventful. A few days after trying it, however, I am offered my dream job as a professional mattress tester and must submit to a drug test.

Where can I find clean urine at this hour?

I feel fairly certain that getting high will end catastrophically for me no matter how you spin the situation. I won't say that I'll never try it, because maybe I will one day. For now though, I'm just gonna have to pass.

Here comes the sun

I can't think of the exact quotation, and Google isn't helping.  But, there is a saying that says something about how important it is that there is sadness/darkness/evil in the world because that allows us to enjoy the happiness/light/good that much more.

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.



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!

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.

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!

Squeaky Wheel

I've been told by several people in the past couple of weeks that I am very good at hiding my anxiety.  After thinking about it for a while, I decided that those people are right.  My more casual friends have no idea that I even have a problem.  I have panic attacks in the presence of close friends and family all the time, but they never know anything about it because I keep it bottled up inside.
It occurred to me that no one can help me if they are not aware that I am having a problem.  They say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."  Well, I haven't been very squeaky!

I am challenging myself to find the happy medium between acting like nothing is ever wrong...

Everything's fine here!

...and crying publicly every time I have a twinge of panic.

I'm afraid of EVERYTHING!

Two nights ago, Boyfriend was scheduled to leave home at 4am in order to catch a flight to Oklahoma.  I was feeling very nervous about the prospect of a panic attack between the hours of 4am and 8am that morning (the time between when Boyfriend was to leave and the time that I leave the house for work).

I decided not to hold my fear in and let it eat me from the inside out.  I called my friend, Kelly, and told her I was feeling anxious.  I asked her if she would spend the night in our guest room.  Within a few hours, Kelly was there.  What a great friend she is for coming over to make me feel better!

I know that I need to become able to spend a night alone.  I'll get there.  That wasn't the lesson I think I was supposed to learn that night though.  I learned that: 1) It's OK to ask for help and 2) There are wonderful people in my life who care enough to help me when I ask for it.

I squeaked.  Kelly greased me.  I am thankful.

Be Nice

There is very little that makes me angrier than seeing people act rudely toward folks who work with the public (who don't deserve it).

1. The person being yelled at is at work.  They can't say or do much to defend themselves while at work.  Most importantly, they cannot leave.  If you are yelling at a person at work, it's like yelling at someone in a cage.

Work/Jail.  Same thing.

2. You have no idea what is going on in that person's personal life.  As human beings, it is our duty to show kindness and compassion to one another (strangers included).

I work as an insurance agent.  Yesterday, a gentleman came in to add his son as a driver on his auto insurance policy.  The problem was that his son only had one year of driving experience.  In my state, there is a rather large surcharge for inexperienced operators (people who have had their drivers license for less than three years).  Adding this gentleman's son to his policy made his premium increase substantially.  Yelling ensued.

Customer: What do you MEAN it's going to be that much a month?!  I've never had a wreck; I pay my bills on time!  Where are MY discounts?!

Me: I'm sorry, sir, it's the inexperienced operator rate that's making the premium so high...

Customer (interrupting): HE'S NOT INEXPERIENCED!!!

Me: He only has one year of driving experience.

Customer then stormed out of my office, slamming the door behind him.

Facepalm so hard.

If you read my post from yesterday, you know that it was a really difficult day for me.  I was nervous and upset the entire day.  The last thing I needed was for someone to yell at me for something that I had zero control over.

Of course, the man yelling at me yesterday had no way of knowing what I was going through.  It is for that very reason, though, that I am so sweet and nice to cashiers, baristas, customer service representatives, etc.  I have no idea what is going on in their personal lives, so it is best to assume that everyone needs to be handled with care.

The moral of this blog post: be nice!

Look Homeward, Paxil

I am 24 years old.  I have been on Paxil for eight years.  That's one-third of my entire life.  I recently began to feel that Paxil just wasn't doing it for me anymore.  I figured that I should've be able to drive wherever I wanted anxiety-free.  I felt I should've been completely calm and collected at all times.  In my mind, Paxil was supposed to have erased panic attacks for me.  But it hadn't.  In eight years, Paxil had kept my anxiety static for the most part.  I decided it was time for a change.

I began seeing a new psychiatrist who promptly switched me from Paxil to Lexapro.  I took my dosages of Lexapro enthusiastically, knowing that I was getting better with every pill. 

First, I was feeling OK.

Then, I started feeling kind of detached from reality.

The third phase was when I began feeling anger and hatred toward everyone and everything in my path.

And I do mean everything.



I hate you.

For the past two or three days, I have been in a new phase: the anxiety and depression phase.  My anxiety has been worse than ever before, and I am anxious most of the time.  When I'm not feeling anxious, I am depressed because I have been anxious.  It's really a vicious cycle. 

Each time I panic, I wonder "Is THIS the panic attack that's going to land me in the hospital and deplete my savings account while doctors perform hundreds of unnecessary tests on me while I happily snooze away because I'm finally on medical watch and have probably been given tranquilizers and/or sedatives?"

 Or... "Is THIS going to be the panic attack that never ends and the only way to make it go away is to literally die?"

Or... "Is THIS going to be the panic attack that sends me running home to my parents, crushing any sense of independence I ever had?"

How my brain feels.

Obviously, the thoughts that I am having are less than constructive and certainly aren't doing me any good.  I realize this, and thus made an appointment to see my psychiatrist earlier today.  Together we decided that Lexapro is not the best option for me.  Tonight I will restart my Paxil regimen and begin to taper off of Lexapro.

I'm tempted to give Lexapro a great big two thumbs down, but I'm not sure I gave it enough time to really make that judgment.  I knew though, that I didn't have it within me to keep going on that drug at this time. 

It is crucial to remember that just because we try to do something and don't see it through all the way doesn't make us complete failures.  So I wasn't able to switch medications.  So what?  The important thing is that I was brave enough to try.

Spain

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - Andy, The Office


In 2009, I did a really crazy thing.  I was admitted to a study abroad program in Sevilla, Spain for the summer.  That May, I boarded an airplane with several strangers.  Little did I know that these people would become my best friends over the following six weeks.

During the six weeks that we spent in Spain, we saw more cathedrals than we ever wanted to.  We lived without air conditioning in > 100 degree weather with a woman with a penchant for leaving meat out on the counter and who never actually learned our names.  We took weekend trips to various Spanish beaches, Italy, and my personal favorite, Portugal.  We tasted all kinds of interesting foods, but we loved to meet at one particular Burger King to grab hamburgers when all we wanted was a little taste of home.

Comfort food.

I could do anything in Spain.  I went places alone.  I skipped medication dosages when I'd had a little too much red wine.  I was unafraid.

Spain's official beverage.

Why were things so different in Spain?  Why do I have a hard time sleeping at night in my own bed stateside, but I never missed a night of sleep in Europe?

I don't know the answers to these questions.  Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly anxious, I think to myself "Just pretend you're in Spain."  It kind of works, if only for a second.

My mission in life currently is to find the inner peace here that I had in Spain.

I am in Sevilla in my mind!