The other day I woke up to this note on our dry erase board:
"FYI - there's a baggie of carrots for you in the fridge, ready to eat. I removed any w/ spots or that were 'funny looking.' I love you!! <3"
I seriously have the best wife ever. I am so lucky to have someone who understands this phobia so well and is willing to offer constant support.
I accidentally ate expired applesauce today, which I find especially hilarious considering the topic of my last post.
It was one of those little plastic cups, and I had only eaten about half of that when I noticed the old date. So it was basically two or three spoonfuls. But I went into a panic anyway, and I didn't handle it well at all. I was too fixated on the knowledge that an actual thing had happened to trigger this panic. That usually isn't the case. And it made me give way too much weight to it.
I kept thinking about how if something bad was going to happen because of this, there was nothing I could do about it now. I swallowed the food and it was gone, and I couldn't reach in and get it out again. That's a very obvious statement, but I was thinking "why? how is it possible that there isn't some way to take it back?" and it seemed bizarre and unfair that food would just disappear into me like I was a black hole but still be able to have whatever effect it was going to have on me.
I did some unhelpful googling (the people who post asking if it's okay that they just ate expired food never actually return to say what ended up happening) until I could get in touch with my wife at work. She gave me a long speech about how it was completely fine. I started crying from relief, which then turned into frustrated crying because seriously? I can't believe something so silly and small will be so disruptive to my day. This phobia makes me feel like an idiot. Or a child. In fact, I remember as a child freaking out on my family or baby-sitters and asking them to reassure me about food anxiety. And it's still happening.
I feel like I should know these things by now. I should have a better understanding of food in general. I think I have never bothered to learn the truth (or common sense) when it comes to some topics, food safety being one of them, because long ago I came to my own irrational conclusions and invented my own rules to keep myself safe. And these conclusions/rules aren't like normal facts that can change when confronted with contradictory evidence. If I didn't keep reminding myself, I feel pretty certain I would forget this ever happened within a couple years and it could happen again exactly the same as it did today. Because my mind wants to shove this out and go back to the simpler more ingrained rule of "any food past its expiration date will make you sick."
Not true, not true, not true. Must remember this.
I've been sick this whole month. I got some horrible cold or maybe even a (non-stomach) flu, I'm not sure. For the first two-ish weeks, I was utterly miserable. Now I just have a few mild symptoms left, but even they are annoying me to probably an irrational level. I'm just tired of this illness dragging on. I guess my immune system is not what it used to be, since 1) I'm getting older 2) I hardly ever get sick because I stay inside all the time - I think the last time was early 2012 and 3) I still haven't cemented the habits of eating healthy or exercising enough. I'm going to have to try harder, and the thought of that makes me want to groan the mother of all groans.
I basically don't do anything good for my body but then have these high expectations I hold it to, that it can't be sick or in pain or feel heavy or unpleasant in any way. I don't like my body or particularly want to be in touch with it, even though it would help me so much to be more in touch with it and break down some of that dislike.
Due to the lack of positivity I've got going on right now, I've been putting off writing here. But there. I'm done with my sickness-complaining. Moving on. To something I've been thinking about that is one of the main reasons I have such trouble with healthy eating.
I seem to constantly be finding flaws with my food. I suppose I can't say it's a bad habit to look at your food before you eat it. Because yes, there could actually be something wrong with it. That just makes sense to check it out first, make sure it looks okay.
But it probably should be a quick glance-over, and my technique is more in-depth extreme fearful scrutiny. No surprise that I usually end up finding something wrong, some detail that leads me to think maybe I shouldn't eat this thing. These frozen waffles don't feel frozen enough (I also decide they're too frozen sometimes). This soup can has weird residue in the crevices of the top. These hamburger buns have too much white on the bottoms - which yes, I know is flour and I will still pick it off just in case it's dangerous in some way. These pudding cups have a tiny bit of glue on the packaging (tiny bits of glue frequently prevent me from buying something). One corner of this box of cereal is a bit crumpled. This container of hummus has too much condensation on the inside of the lid.
I mean, there are a million examples, and for almost every single one of them, I logically know it's fine, but I either won't buy the food or won't eat it. Sometimes when I am preparing something to eat, I will get frustrated to the point of wanting to cry because I will find five or six different things "wrong" with it and have to keep making the decision to proceed, and it starts to feel exhausting.
And of course it's ten times worse when it comes to fruits/vegetables, because they will not look the same every time you eat them. I still expect them to, because I so desperately want them to. I want to be able to look at a fruit or vegetable and know yes, that is exactly the way it's supposed to look. This is a possibility when you're dealing with super processed homogeneous junk food, but it will pretty much never be the case for healthy food.
I buy a lot of raw fruits/vegetables. Every week. And every week I probably end up eating a third or less of what I bought. I ask my wife to pick everything out for me at the store, because I know if I looked at them, I wouldn't think any of them looked edible. But this doesn't really help, because later at home, when I go to eat one, I get to inspect it for myself. Almost every time, I get scared and end up throwing it away. Apples, peaches, nectarines, grapes, etc. will have spots/dents or soft spots or discolorations or be oddly shaped or the first bite won't taste the way I remember it tasting last time. Carrots will have parts that are slightly green or gray or black. Bananas will have black spots. Clementines will have some green on the peels. Berries will be a little smushed and wet because of that. Etc.
Every single one of these examples is, again, something perfectly normal and not indicative of danger. I know that, but part of me is still terrified that if I stop being overly cautious, one of these "strange" fruits/vegetables will make me sick.
So I don't know what to do about this. I think I'm just going to have to suck it up and start eating them anyway to prove to myself nothing bad will happen. I have done this occasionally already, and then I will worry for a few hours, and nothing will come of it. But that doesn't seem to result in less fear next time.
Maybe it would help if I kept an actual log of these instances, so I could refer back to it and see that on such and such date, I ate a clementine with some green on its peel, and all was well. It would also be a good reminder of various "flaws" I might run into, because I will stop eating a certain fruit for a while and then buy it again and tell my wife something like "this clementine is green. I have NEVER seen this before" and she will laugh at me.
Anxiety amnesia confuses me.
It's been too long since I've written an actual post here. Sometimes I get intimidated by blogging and think I shouldn't bother unless I have something Really Important to say. Which just figures - feeling anxious about blogging about anxiety.
Things have been going pretty well lately. Today I spent hours hanging out in a nearby city (about a two hour drive from home) - walking, shopping, eating, shopping more - without any major anxiety incidents. I started feeling a little unwell towards the end, as I was heading back to the parking garage. But I knew it was dehydration. I am still having a problem with drinking enough when I am out places, especially when I am walking around outside, which unfortunately is when it is most important to do so. I guess it's a combination of 1) not wanting to have to use the restroom in case there isn't one around and 2) not wanting to use the ones that are around, because they are public and thus diseased in my mind. My same lifelong pattern of thinking it's better if I just "shut down" my body until I can be home and safe again.
Despite that, I feel today's outing was a success. And I've also been doing well with the more routine stuff - going out to restaurants, grocery shopping, going to the mall or other stores. I haven't been experiencing anything beyond the mild worry that I might have some kind of anxiety attack.
Since I'm getting more comfortable with these situations, I know it's time to push myself to do even more challenging things, but for the most part, I've been lazy about it. My wife and I want to take another trip to VA to see our families. It's something that has been on the back burner for a while. The last time we went was 2011, and it was difficult for me to handle the trip at the time. I know I would do better now. The only problem is that driving all that way is exhausting, so we are considering taking a train this time.
I don't believe I have been on public transportation since 2008, so pre-breakdown. I probably shouldn't think this way, dividing my life into "pre" and "post" breakdown, but every time something challenging comes up that I haven't done since before that period, I get scared I can't handle it as the "new" person I am now. It feels like that person from 2008 that was able to survive the anxiety of a long train ride was not actually me.
So my wife and I have been discussing taking a practice train ride somewhere closer to where we live (maybe 3 hours away) just to see how I do. Just to prove to myself nothing catastrophic will happen.
Which brings me to this past week, when I suddenly get an email from my boss saying the company wants me to travel to the office for a week for training on a new system (I work from home, but the actual office is in VA). They haven't decided exactly when they want me to come, but possibly as early as the last week of September.
So much for one step at a time! Plus this trip would be much more overwhelming than what I have been imagining. My wife probably won't be able to go with me. Since the company is paying, they will probably want me to fly. I will have to deal with rental cars and a hotel and seeing my family all on my own. I will have to go to work and socially interact with lots and lots of people, something I'm very rusty at. Basically, it's a terrifying scenario that I'm not at all convinced I have the strength to manage.
My current coping mechanism is to pretend it's not happening. And maybe it won't. They have wanted me to travel before and either changed their minds or asked someone else to go instead. So I suppose I shouldn't get all worked up over it until it's finalized.
This is what sucks about having anxiety issues but still being able to fly under the normal radar most of the time. I'm sure no one expected this to be a big deal for me. I mean, yes, my anxiety is always an issue at work because sometimes I'm afraid to make phone calls or to speak up in meetings, but that kind of stuff is manageable. I can be doing badly in those areas and still overall be doing a good job. But I can't flat out refuse to do something they ask me to do because of anxiety. It's not like I've requested any mental health accommodations at work (although this has made me wonder if I should have). Not to mention I just don't want to formally brand myself the problem employee, especially when I have a job that so rarely forces me into large-scale scary situations like this.
On top of potentially having to do this trip, I hate being reminded that this is who I am. I feel like my life is set up in such a way that I can pass for being mentally stable most of the time. Then something like this happens, and it's like 'oh, right.' Other people can casually hop on a plane and go somewhere for a week - or casually tell someone else to do it - and think nothing of it. Whereas my first thought is 'maybe I should quit right now so I don't have to do this.' In general, most people can deal with so much more than I can deal with. I pass for mentally stable because I live in a tiny box where going shopping without getting panicky is a great accomplishment.
I know this shouldn't actually make me think any less of how well I've been doing. I'm just frustrated because I was planning on working my way up to this trip, and I should have been working faster. Whether this ends up happening or not, I should be working faster and harder than I am. I don't know why I expect that life will always proceed according to my super-gradual exposure hierarchy.
This is my favorite guided meditation CD, and it's now available to buy online!
Quiet Moments - Music and Words for Relaxation
I listened to this so many times in the year or so after my "breakdown" that I'm pretty sure I know some of the tracks by heart. The body scan meditation and progressive muscle relaxation tracks are amazing.
I'm reading Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, and it is a really amazing book. She's such a good writer. There is a part where she is talking about a conference being held for people with a specific disease/condition, and it reminded me so much of how I feel about emetophobia forums:
When does empathy actually reinforce the pain it wants to console? Does giving people a space to talk about their disease - probe it, gaze at it, share it - help them move through it, or simply deepen its hold? Does a gathering like this offer solace or simply confirm the cloister and prerogative of suffering? Maybe it just pushes on the pain until it gets even worse, until it requires more comforting than it did before. The conference seems to confirm, in those who attend, the sense that they will only ever get what they need here. It sharpens the isolation it wants to heal.
She says it much better than I did. It's why I sometimes feel like I am walking a fine line with this blog (because let's face it, a blog focusing on a phobia is not all that different from an online forum focusing on it). Am I actually helping, or am I making things worse for people? By sharing my perspective and what it's like for me to be living with this, am I encouraging others with the same problem (maybe even a milder version of it) to fear situations/objects they wouldn't fear on their own? Am I setting a bad example by avoiding so much? It's why I try to always show my bravest and most positive face when I write here and leave out details of some of my more irrational (harmful) anxiety thoughts. I don't like to post anything that doesn't include some bit of hope or advice.
I guess I'm over-thinking this and that it's up to each individual to know their limits and what they can or can't handle reading. I'm somewhat inclined to avoid reading what anyone else has to say about their experience of emetophobia, which seems like a silly philosophy for someone who blogs about the same topic. Sharing symptoms is just a strange practice, but especially so when it's a mental illness. It's already "all in your head" and that makes it easy to pick up a new aspect, to think "oh, that person's right, I should be afraid of that, why haven't I been avoiding that too?" The line between body and mind, or health and illness, gets very blurred with this phobia.
But I can't say that we should absolutely never be communicating with each other about our issues either. Especially when there is still so little awareness of this phobia (and such a stigma around mental health issues in general).
I don't know what conclusion I am drawing here, just musing about this. I guess I want to say that if any blog or forum is giving you new worries, it's probably best to take a break from it. And that you won't only ever get what you need from other people with emetophobia. Yes, it's nice to know they're out there, but sometimes it's better to seek out someone who can be a good example of how to live as if you don't have this fear. Maybe that won't be someone who can completely understand what you're going through, and maybe that's a good thing. We don't want to get so wrapped up in our reality that we forget there's another better reality we're supposed to be trying to reach.
Can a period of severe anxiety (or a nervous breakdown, emotional collapse, whatever you want to call it) change who you are forever?
This is a question that has plagued me over the past few years. After my anxiety spiraled out of control in 2010, I felt like I changed almost overnight into a very different person. Other people didn't seem to agree with that assessment, which was comforting, but I was obsessed with the idea that I was different, that it had destroyed/ruined me, that I would never recover, never be "the same" again. And I kept focusing on every change I noticed and claiming it was proof or at least cause for concern, from completely minor changes that didn't even matter to the really big ones.
I expected these alterations in my personality / behavior to go away almost immediately. I definitely expected them to go away after weeks and months of anxiety-fighting work. What's funny is that most of them have gone away by now, but it happened gradually over about 3 years, and during that time it seemed like I was throwing my hands up every month and saying "it's been six months! It's never going to happen!" or "I've done everything I'm supposed to do and I'm still not myself again!"
Some examples (I do so love to make lists):
- My entire life (for as long as I can remember) I have slept curled up on my side. After my breakdown (and even in the weeks leading up to it), I couldn't anymore. I started feeling like I could only sleep on my back. Whenever I lay on my side, I felt convinced I was hurting myself in some way, crushing my organs, or squishing some part of my body to the point that I would end up cutting off circulation, and this would cause me to die in the middle of the night. Even lying on my back, I had trouble falling asleep because I didn't know what to do with my arms. I didn't want them lying next to my body because when they pressed against me, I felt that same 'being squished' sensation. It seemed at the time that I could even feel the pain of this imaginary crushing.
This went on for a very long time. I think it's only been within the past few months that I've finally started to go back to my old sleeping position. Also, I think it was one of the changes that freaked me out the most, even though it had no real significance. Maybe because it had no real significance. I couldn't understand why it had happened and just saw it as evidence that I wasn't me anymore, not even in the most relaxed scenario possible.
- When I was younger, I had problems eating in restaurants and usually would refuse. When I went out to meals with my friends, they all knew this and didn't expect me to eat, and even some of their parents knew and didn't push the matter. But from around the last year of high school up until the breakdown, I had made serious progress in this area. For example in 2009 (1 year, 2 months before breakdown) I went out to lunch with my boss. Ate normally, small-talked, no panic. After the breakdown, I lost my ability to handle restaurants again and frequently complained about this and how I thought I would never be able to eat normally in one again. I know I've mentioned this issue in a lot of my posts. I would say I'm still not fully back to where I was, but I was absolutely wrong about it being a permanent setback. It's obvious to me by now that I'm continuously improving in this area.
- Same for long car rides and vacations. When I took that vacation to VA in 2011, I was a mess. I wrote about it here and tried to put a positive spin on it, as I always do, but I was barely functional for most of the trip. I haven't taken another trip to someplace that far away since then, but I feel certain it would go better if I did. I've taken smaller trips since then. Stayed in hotels. Went to Warped Tour. I got through all of that while still feeling like a sane human being - even, I would say, feeling like myself.
- I had terrifying intrusive thoughts. It was very OCD-like, but I didn't have any compulsions. It may have been something I read about called pure-O, or just my brain's total meltdown. At first I was afraid I was going to kill my cat, and I was afraid to go near him. That only lasted about a week or so. Then that switched to being afraid I was going to kill myself, which lasted much longer. Several months. I didn't want to kill myself, but I thought I would anyway, that my body would just go on auto-pilot and do it, out of my control. I think it was because I was so anxious / unhappy all the time, and I worried it would never get any better. That caused a nightmare chain reaction in my brain. "Not happy --> things will not get better --> you will kill yourself --> oh my god, but I don't want to --> too bad, you won't have any control over it - after all you didn't have any control over this happening in the first place --> no I can't let this happen! must tell someone and/or have them watch me to make sure I don't do anything" etc. I got so panicked over this one day I called my wife and made her come home from work to keep an eye on me.
This has gone away completely. It went on for about a year. I think the last time I had that thought was the end of 2012.
- I couldn't handle sad/dark books or movies or shows. This was a big adjustment for me, and I was incredibly frustrated by it, because most of what I liked to read was dark in some way. I couldn't read anything that referenced death or suicide. I couldn't read anything that was gross or gory (including things that aren't even that bad, like accounts of childbirth) or surreal or that caused any intense emotion (so that was basically everything). I even remember freaking out while reading a young adult book because of a part where one of the characters fused with a chair. The simple (but surreal) idea of someone becoming half-chair was too much for me.
This has been gradually going away over the past few years and I think I am finally at the point where I can read/watch anything without having an anxiety attack over it. Except maybe horror movies. I'm still being super cautious with those. I'll probably never go back to watching the extremely scary ones I used to.
This is getting long, so I'll stop. My purpose in writing all this is just to point out that everything did seem to change drastically, and (especially because the breakdown itself was so traumatic) it was scary to feel like I had lost myself, and I convinced myself I was irreversibly damaged. And that wasn't true. Now I'm seeing that it was all temporary. Of course it was hard to be patient and rational at the time, because everything was so unpleasant, but looking back on it, I can see that it was unreasonable to keep telling myself that because x amount of time had passed, I was clearly going to be this different person forever. As much as I wanted to, I didn't get to dictate how much time it would take to recover.
Maybe it is partially true that the experience forever changed me, but if so, it's in a more positive way than I am used to thinking. Yes, it was intense and horrible, and I'll never forget it completely, and I learned a lot from it. By that I mean I learned how to ensure it never happens again. I learned to take care of myself, both physically and mentally, enough to keep myself from a complete mental collapse. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but I have reached the point where my day to day life is manageable, and I have reached the point where I feel like I have my identity back. Those are both things I used to think I would never be able to say again.
