i feel like talking

february 25, 2021

Well it’s been… quite a couple weeks. I had SUCH a bad bout of health anxiety for about two weeks straight – perhaps the worst I’ve had, maybe ever? Or maybe in a long while. This pain in my side has been so subtle, but constant, that it makes me feel simultaneously like I’m dying, but also not bad enough to go to the doctor. I think it’s the hardest part about health anxiety, is knowing when to go. I know the pain kept moving around which means that it’s not anything super serious. I wasn’t feeling any other symptoms. Even if I did go to the doctor, would I seem silly if I just said “Yeah I have a really subtle pain in my side, can’t tell you exactly where or how often. Please tell me I’m not dying.”

I’ve been feeling a lot better lately now that I’m 99% sure it’s just hypertension on my whole right side from – you guessed it – anxiety. My legs, hips, obliques, and arms are all sore, and it really feels like a DOMS type of pain. It would coincide with my posture, and my anxious habits.

So I decided on focusing on alleviating those tensions (doing stretches, paying attention to posture, eating more protein) and then, just to be safe, I’ll go and get blood tests done next week. I’m about due, and I think it’s one of those foundational things that if it comes back A-OK, I’ll feel a lot better being able to convince myself that I am health and have nothing to worry about. I can still feel the lingering anxiety, but hopefully these things will help me out.

february 12, 2021

I actually don’t feel like talking right now, but I think it might help me. I’m so anxious today. And this is making me not want to eat, which is making me feel weak and tired and worse. I know I’m causing a cycle of stupid for myself, but it’s so damn hard to break. It’s 9:08pm and I’m just waiting around until 10pm until I can sleep.

This started because of a pain I had on my right side – about at my hip bone. I’m worried it’s something with my ovaries, or intestines, or something, I don’t know. I think most likely it’s tension from shaking my leg/pressure from using my mouse. I’m trying to pay attention to where exactly it is, but sometimes it “moves” which makes me question if it’s real. But then sometimes it’s right at the spot where my ovaries are (I think?) which scares me a lot. I read a story once about a girl getting ovarian cancer very young and dying, and now that’s haunting my brain.

So now’s just the waiting game of waiting until 10pm to grab a melatonin and be unconscious for a little bit, and hopefully tomorrow is a little better.

edit: I don’t think I want to do “edits” very often but I think it’s important for posterity’s sake to make a note. It’s 10:03pm and I feel much better now. The darkness I was in compared to the relative light heartedness I feel now is insane. Me and Emily (my bff) started chatting about WandaVision and it got my mind off it enough to chill me out. Then I threw on some Danny Gonzalez videos and it chilled me out more. I also tried to REALLY pay attention to relaxing my left side and it seems to have helped. So I’m happy I feel better, but slightly annoyed at how swift of a mood swing I Just had. Oh well, I’m gonna enjoy this while I can!

february 9, 2021

I’ll give you one guess on what I’m dealing with today! Yep – health anxiety.

This time, it’s been brought on by my period. Which usually my period is almost a relief because I know all the stomach issues and tiredness I’m feeling is for a reason. But this time, it came early and has been pretty light.

I told my friend this, and she joked that I must be pregnant. (Is this a symptom of pregnancy? I’m too nervous to look it up, honestly.) If I’m looking at it logically, it’s highly unlikely. We haven’t had sex that much this month and we use protection. Everything else is on track, except that it’s early and light. But that little comment was just enough for me to be freaked out about it all day yesterday and today.

I’ve been trying to talk myself down from the fear. Not only is it highly unlikely, but even if it IS true, it’s not the end of the world. But even as I type this, the thought of being pregnant, I can feel my adrenaline surge with fear.

It’s funny because I’m not against the idea of having kids. I had a pregnancy scare a couple years ago, and I remember waiting for the result and I wasn’t nervous at all. I thought “Eh, if I am, nbd.” I think right now is tougher because I’ve been having so many bodily function fears that the idea of adding more chaos is frightening. Right now, I’m just doing that thing where I’m excited for 10:30 to roll around so I can go to bed and relax, and hopefully tomorrow I can chill out.

february 4, 2021

I had my therapy session yesterday and we did a lot of digesting my ADHD thoughts. It was very helpful in some ways, and sort of raised more questions in another. Maybe when I’m feeling a little better I’ll delve into the ADHD issues I have, but right now I have a more pressing issue.

Health anxiety!!! I’m definitely feeling it right now but like, I don’t know why? Isn’t that usually how I start these things? I feel like I have just the slightest bit of pressure in my stomach and now I’m overthinking and scared of it.

It also probably doesn’t help that I had a dream last night that I was diagnosed with some terrible disease. And the diagnosis was “you’re going to die by 3:15pm today.” But then 3:15pm came and I didn’t, so I was like “Oh great, glad that was wrong.” Now that I think about it – that’s actually a very similar way to the way I live my life. I’m constantly thinking “Oh I hope I don’t die today” or “tomorrow” or “by 33,” so on and so on and so on. But eventually that time passes around, and I feel a wave of relief that I didn’t. It’s definitely not a healthy way to live – spending so much time worrying about the one day that I do, that it’s negatively effecting the hundreds, thousands of days that I don’t.

I’ve been working on what I realized in the last post with the feel wheel. It has definitely helped a lot in the past already. Today it’s a little rougher to get my head in that “content” place but I will keep working on it. The real challenge is doing it when I’m in the middle of a physical sensation that makes me uncomfortable. Fear is a very, very worn down path in my neural pathway. And I’m still working on carving other ones.

february 2, 2021

That last post I made was sort of enlightening for me. For some reason, seeing a visual interpretation of my feelings, and trying to rework my neural pathways from “anxious” to “content” has really, really helped.

I still get weird little moments where like… my dog will be slightly more tired than normal and I’ll think, “welp, guess he’s dying.” Which is an insane leap to take, I know. And I realized that I do this because it’s like I want to prepare myself for the inevitable bad things that will happen. “Well if I think about these horrible feelings now, I’ll be prepared for when they actually do happen.” But what that actually does is rob me of the time I could be spent, ya know, happy.

So I’ve just been trying to be mindful of that. My mom went to the doctor because her heart rate is fast. We’re pretty sure it’s tachycardia which is a common and relatively harmless condition, triggered by anxiety and stress. She said herself she was very nervous for this doctor’s appointment, but her heart rate since than has been 65-70 since. This definitely eased my mind, and I’m trying to use this as a little test of working with my anxiety. Not jumping to the worst case scenarios and not letting it take up my entire brain.

I’ve also been trying to not jump right to “Avoidance” as my main action. Basically any time I feel slightly anxious and I’m ready to run to my distraction, I do one thing that’s actually productive. Might mean doing a little drawing, or writing up a script for a video project, but just do SOMETHING. Even after 5 or 10 minutes of this, I actually feel like I’ve reworked that neural pathway that happens after “fear,” which feels great.

So yeah – despite feeling a lot better than when I started this journal, I want to make sure that I also log the times when I’m feeling good. Maybe for the good days I’ll start doing a gratitude section. Here, let’s start now:

GRADITUTIONAL THOUGHTS

I thought my chicken sausage went bad, but it didn’t!
COVID numbers are down! (wow, I can’t believe that was second after chicken sausage)
My uncle is set to get the vaccine soon!

january 25, 2021

I’m doing the thing again. I feel a slight pain in my side and it could be IBS, or maybe be a vaguely strained hip muscle. It’s not painful, but noticeable. At least to my brain. This is making me want to “not think about it” so I’m spending my time desperately searching for videos to watch to take my mind off it.

It’s insane how often I go through this cycle a day. My Thought > Emotion > Action cycle is almost consistently Pain > Fear > Avoidance. But I’m not sure what other emotion I can have in regards to that, besides fear. Let’s take a look at one of my favorite things ever – coined by Holly Conrad – the feel wheel!

So when I feel any sort of sensation in my body, my brain goes to that shitty brown slice of the pie: scared. And honestly, all of the sub-emotions from that as well. Especially foolish/embarassed – I know it’s ridiculous to feel such strong emotions for something that logically is FINE.

I think this is where my neural pathways take hold. I am so used to the Pain > Fear > Avoidance cycle that it has become a well worn path in a garden. There are other paths to take, but this one I’ve used so much that I take it without even realizing it.

I know this journal is supposed to be just “get out the emotions” and maybe it says something else about me that I don’t want to just express, I want to fix. I want optimism. I want to make it solveable. Maybe another time I’ll work on “expressing without fixing” but for now, I’m kinda on a roll here.

What emotion can I replace fear with? Maybe contentment? I think I can try to be content with uncomfortable sensations. Contentment is not nearly as strong of an emotion as “scared.” But holy shit – I just realized that they set this up for you to see what the opposite emotion is and guess what – the opposite of anxious is contentment! So maybe that is the pathway I need to go down.

Welp, guess I need to start wearing down a new path in my garden.

january 21, 2021

Alright. As much as I really want to go back to my tried and true method of Avoidance, I’m going to try to get some thoughts out first. I have my favorite YouTube video lined up for when I’m done with this. But first, let’s dig into some feelings.

Today has been rough, but I’m not really sure why? Last night around 8p.m. I felt my chest tighten up briefly, and I convinced myself I was having some sort of heart issue. For the rest of the evening I sort of just wanted to go to bed because my anxiety was really getting to me. One of my favorite things to do when I’m feeling anxious is sleep. It feels really good to just let go and be unconscious for a little while.

I know that sounds suspiciously close to “I want to die” but trust me, I do not want to die. Not wanting me (or anyone) to die is my biggest anxiety-creator in my life. But sometimes, it does feel like the only time my brain is not going a mile a minute is when I’m sleeping. And when these “mile a minute thoughts” are horrifically negative, I’ll take one unconsciousness please! Other times, my “mile a minute thoughts” are super fun – like projects, drawings, and ingesting content that I love. Those are the times where I’ll stay up to 4a.m. and dread having to be unconscious because I’m addicted to the thought party I’m having by myself. Lately, that has not been the case.

Anyway, I woke up with some of the residual anxiety from last night. Worried that I’m missing some big health sign. My throat feels a little weird – is it throat cancer? My face feels a little weird – is it poor blood circulation? My stomach is unsettled – stomach cancer?? Sounds ridiculous when I type it out, but the problem with these feelings are that they are so vague, but SO scary, that it’s a constant underlying dread throughout my day. And of course, if you look for weird body sensations, you’ll feel them. Your body is constantly moving and adjusting and working, so there will be sensations. Doesn’t help that my anxiety reduces my appetite, which causes a host of sensations on it’s own. My problem is that I assume every sensation is something catastrophically wrong.

I know the things that have helped me in the past; one of them is to look up health anxiety communities on reddit. I’m not the least bit alone in these fears, and some of the best advice I found is on those subreddits. So maybe once I’m in a bit of a better space, I’ll check those out again. As with most troubles, finding solace in other people is probably the best way to feel better about them.

Another thing that I’ve found that is helpful – and much, much more existentially deep – is getting in tune with the fact that death is a reality for every living person. Whatever helps you cope with that, is what you should do. If you feel better believing in heaven, focus on that. If you feel better focusing on it simply being The Great Rest, focus on that. If you feel better not thinking of any of that and focusing on the now, focus on that. I remember last time I’ve been through this I decided that I felt better believing that heaven is real. Sure, the skeptics could give a million reasons why it doesn’t make sense, and that’s fine. But frankly, I’d rather be wrong and happy while I’m here.

january 20, 2021

So. Today is quite the day for growth. On a grand, national scale? Joe Biden’s inauguration was a success. After the insane events at the Capitol last week which seemed to freak out everybody around the world, myself absolutely being one of them, I think we were all a little concerned that something terrible would happen again. But it was a beautiful, lovely ceremony that went well, and I am so glad to get The Orange Fuck out of our government.

On a personal level, I had a therapy appointment today at 11am (around the same time as the inauguration) which brought me to a realization. She asked me what a fear was of mine, and I said “oh, you know, people I love dying.” Then I immediately started sobbing. I then realized that I think I hold in emotion to much, and she suggested I journal.

I’ve dabbled in journaling before, but it’s usually a pretty surface level “Oh I went on a trip with my friends and it was fun,” kind of journaling. Mostly to remember the good times. I’ve never attempted to write out how I’m feeling in regards to my deepest fears and anxieties. It’s not something I like to think about much. In fact, my favorite mode of coping – especially during this pandemic – is “avoidance.” Here’s how it goes:

Hey, wouldn’t it suck if someone I love died? OH GOD DON’T THINK ABOUT IT, HURRY, PUT ON BUZZFEED UNSOLVED AND STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!!!!

Turns out, this doesn’t really help things in the long run. I mean, it helps a little. I don’t think it’s good to revel in fears and anxieties. Life is about being happy, and if you spend too much time battling fears and anxieties, it leaves little room for good emotions. But there’s a balance. Stomping down fears the moment you get them only allows them to fester and grow.

I hope this journal helps me with the balance. I think I can spend most of my day doing the fun stuff, but if I take a half hour or so out of the day and sort through my Thoughts > Emotions > Actions cycle, it could really help in the long run.

But not today. I already cried for an hour straight a couple hours ago so I think I earned self care for the rest of the day.