two years

Today's the anniversary of my "breakdown." Actually, I guess it really started the night before with the first of the panic attacks, but this was the date where I was in the hospital all day, so I consider this to be The Infamous Day.

I never thought I would feel like myself again, but I do. I can now say I feel like my anxiety is under control, at least as much as it can be while still having a phobia. It's just exhilarating to know that. Two years ago I was such a mess, and I had never imagined that things could get that bad. And then I couldn't imagine that they would ever get this good again either.

In celebration of this, I'm posting the timeline of my improvement. This is pretty much how the last two years went:

September 10, 2010: I was in the hospital most of the day discussing my non-stop panic attacks with various people. Then they gave me Ativan, and I went home and took that immediately, and then one or two other times in the next few days.

September 11-19: I went to the doctor three times. The first time I was given Lexapro, which made me feel sick, so I only took it once. The second time I got my thyroid tested (problems with it can cause anxiety issues), and nothing was wrong with it. The third time I was given Cymbalta, and I only took that once too. It didn't make me feel sick, but it did have minor side effects that bothered me (like restless legs).

I missed a lot of work. I couldn't eat or drink much. Everything I ate made me feel nauseous; I was taking a lot of Zofran during this time. I couldn't sleep and basically spent every night in the living room, dozing with the TV on.

I started seeing a therapist and doing breathing exercises, and I listened to a guided meditation CD every day and tried to meditate as much as possible. It was not something I had done much in the past, but it helped immensely anyway. Just made me feel temporarily calmer.

September 26: I started working through The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook. I know I've talked about it a lot, but I'll say it again. It's an amazing book. It helped me so much.

October 5: I joined a gym and started exercising more to see if that would help. It does help, but I still have a hard time sticking with the habit, even now.

October 8: By this point I was doing word searches almost constantly, especially when I woke up in the middle of the night (which was almost every night). They really helped me calm down when I was anxious.

October 16: I wouldn't let myself watch anything (on TV or in movies), read anything, think about anything upsetting or anxiety-producing. I felt frustrated by having to hide from negativity, but now I think it was the right thing to do. It helped me get better faster, and obviously I no longer have to do it. But I still don't watch horror movies. I used to watch them all the time and now don't let myself, because they have too much of an effect on me.

October 20: I had gotten a little notebook and was writing out affirmations in it every day. I would pick one from The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook and write it out five to ten times in a row, pausing in between to reflect on what it was saying and really try to believe it. I did this at least once a day, but more if I was really anxious. It was another activity that calmed me down.

December 4: I started noticing that PMS always made my anxiety issues much worse. I began reminding myself of this every month around that time so that I wouldn't take my thoughts and feelings so seriously.

February 3, 2011: I started doing yoga. I don't do it much anymore, but it was helpful and calming at the time. 

April 30: I printed out some of my favorite affirmations and would tape one to the wall above my desk so that I'd be reminded of it frequently throughout the day. Every so often, I'd switch to a new one. 

May 9: I was still seeing that my anxiety got significantly worse and hard to deal with during PMS, so I started taking 100mg of B6 daily (on top of a multivitamin) to help with that. It seemed to work wonders (after a couple months I think). I still take it. 

July 23 - 26: I started having bad panic attacks again. It felt like a repeat of the initial "breakdown" only to a much lesser degree. But again, it was extremely difficult to eat or drink for a few days, and I felt horrible all the time. I'm not sure what caused this relapse, but I got it under control much faster than I had the first time, mostly through forcing myself to eat as much as possible, which kept me somewhat stable. This gave me hope that I was moving in the right direction. 

August 29: I started taking a class at a college nearby. This forced me out of the house on a regular basis, forced me to interact with the world again, which was something I really needed. I had gotten pretty homebound. 

September 10: I tried hypnosis for the first (and only) time. I felt slightly better for a few days after it, but I have no idea if it was the hypnosis that caused this. Or the placebo effect. Or coincidence. 

November 22: I took a trip to see my family for Thanksgiving. This was very stressful and didn't go as well as I had hoped. Again, I had problems eating, drinking, and sleeping. I felt sick almost constantly. But I did manage to get through it without any medication (psychiatric or anti-emetic). I used affirmations that I had written out on index cards and the EmWave2 I had just gotten.

February 19, 2012: I did an online emetophobia study which started around this time. It involved a lot of CBT and exposure work that was helpful.

May 1: I stopped going to therapy, because I felt pretty confident that I knew what to do when I was anxious. Most of the time I could calm myself down by countering my negative thoughts and focusing on more positive ones.

That's about it. I've been doing really well this year. Basically, the Thanksgiving trip was the last "crisis" period I had, and I am sure that if I took that trip again this November, it would go a lot better.

Speaking of trips, I am taking a small one later this month. I won't even be leaving the state, but I will be staying in a hotel in another city. I'm excited. For the first time in a long time, I feel excited about a trip. I'm not dreading it! I think it's going to go really well and be loads of fun.

vacation update

I'm still on vacation. I have had Internet access but up until now have been either too busy or too overwhelmed to even think about what to write here. I'd love to make this entry have a coherent message, but I'm guessing it's going to be more of a blow-by-blow recounting of events. I haven't gotten the best sleep this week.

The first two days were the traveling days. We drove for six or seven hours each day. We got lost twice, once around NYC, once around Philadelphia. I managed my anxiety pretty well while in the car, except for the fact that I hardly ate or drank, because I felt "nauseous" a lot of the time. It was the first nights in the two different hotels that really threw me. It took hours of reassurance from my wife (that I wasn't going to throw up, go crazy, die, or always be this way) before I felt okay enough to get any sleep.

As is usually the case, two days of bad sleep and inadequate eating/drinking led to me feeling horrible. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I felt slightly less anxious but couldn't get up and walk around without feeling nauseous and dizzy. I decided I needed to cancel all my plans for that day and just spent the day in the hotel room forcing myself to eat and drink as much as possible. It was upsetting / frustrating, but necessary. Sometimes the hardest thing about all this is having to accept that I can't do whatever I want whenever I want. I get jealous of other people who can keep pushing themselves without taking a break, who could have packed a million activities and social interactions into a vacation this long. Sometimes I have to work within my limits, and for now, sometimes that includes missing out on things I was really looking forward to. But I'm sure that won't be the case forever.

I did visit my family briefly that night, because I thought I might get a guilt trip if I didn't make it to their house within 24 hours of arriving in the city. That went well, no anxiety attack there, so I knew I was heading back in the direction of normal.

The next day, finally, was like actually being on vacation instead of in hell. I felt almost 100% better physically. First thing in the morning, I went back over to my parents' house, because now my older sister was there with my 15-month-old nephew. I got to meet him for the first time. He wasn't sick at all. I still worried he might throw up on me whenever he coughed, but he didn't. I spent a couple hours with him, and we played with all his toys together. He is adorable, and I love him so much. Spending that time with him really cheered me up.

I also went to the company I work for and saw all the coworkers I haven't seen in two years, which was awesome. I love them all too and have missed actually being around them. My anxiety got really high again though. I think it was partially because I'm not used to being around so many people who know me and are all looking at me, and partially because I knew some of them had been sick recently. I ended up spending a few minutes hiding in the bathroom until I didn't feel so nauseous and shaky. I didn't even really care though. I was so happy to be there that I couldn't muster up the usual annoyance I feel at myself. Seeing them plus seeing my nephew made me feel certain that this trip was a good idea, that it was all worth it, even though it has been challenging. Besides, I'm almost positive I'm not going to get sick. I took Emergen-C for a few days before we left, I take a regular multivitamin every day, and I'm generally very physically healthy and have a great immune system.

The afternoon was a lot of fun too. I hung out in the hotel room with my wife and an old friend of ours from high school. I went to see my grandmother, who is the sweetest woman in the world. I don't think I know anyone who knows how to love people as unconditionally as she does. In the evening, I went back to my parents' again to hang out for a while. Despite doing all these different things, I managed to eat well the entire day!

Today I'm "embracing" my limits again. Both my family and my wife's family are having Thanksgiving meals / gatherings, but I decided not to go to either. I really wanted to go to the one with my wife's family, because I haven't gotten to see my sister-in-law or mother-in-law very much while here. But both gatherings are in another city, and I know a long drive, lots of people, and pressure to eat is likely going to result in me feeling "nauseous" for hours. I know I could handle it, but I really don't feel like forcing myself to get through something else. So I'm hanging out in the hotel for most of the day and seeing my family one more time tonight after they get back from their party. We're leaving early tomorrow morning, and possibly these last two days of driving will be just as bad as the first two days, so I'm sure it's a good idea to have a "chill day" before that.

This trip has really driven home the fact that there is a lot more work I need to do in order to get to the point where I can function the way I want to. I'm definitely going to be recommitting to recovery hardcore when we get home. Less thinking about and resenting my anxiety all the time and more actually doing the things that will help.

Oh, but the good news is that I didn't take any anti-nausea, anti-emetic, or anti-anxiety medicine on this trip. I either talked to my wife or used word searches and crosswords, my emWave, and affirmations to calm down. I'm really proud of that, and of how well I managed to eat overall despite feeling "sick" for hours every day. I suppose I can go as far as to say that this trip has been a good representation of the "emetophobia shmemetophobia" mentality. Not everything went perfectly, but I bounced back like a badass.

happy thanksgiving!

We're leaving early tomorrow morning on our trip. I'm trying to be excited, but I'm more on the nervous end of the spectrum. I do think we are extremely well prepared. In addition to the regular luggage, we packed two extra bags:

-- an "anti-anxiety" bag. It has my thermometer, anti-nausea medicine, a couple of my anxiety workbooks, word searches / crossword puzzles, and relaxation CDs. I also have 10 affirmations on notecards and my emWave in my purse.

-- a food bag. I didn't want to have to rely on whatever was around, restaurant-wise, both while driving and also when we get to the hotel. So we packed things to eat - some peanut butter sandwiches, chips, pretzels, and Luna bars.

We've got tons of music to listen to in the car. We've spaced out the trip so it's not too busy and overwhelming. I've just been trying to distract myself from my worries about it. If I'm having a hard time doing that, I try to think about it as a series of manageable steps rather than the whole trip at once. The first step is to get through six hours of driving tomorrow. That's it. I can handle that, and once I have, then I can think about the next part.

emWave2

I have the greatest wife in the world. She bought me an emWave2 for Christmas! She gave it to me this morning. She wanted to give it to me early so that I could practice with it and then use it on our upcoming trip.

I've been thinking about getting one of these for months, but I kept hesitating and putting it off, because it's pretty expensive. I haven't actually charged it or gone through the instruction booklet yet to see everything it can do, but my therapist has one and showed me the basics a few months ago. Basically, it's a biofeedback device that measures your heart rate and breathing rate, allowing you to better see what is going on inside you. Then you can practice achieving relaxation through various methods and see which methods work best for you, work the fastest, etc. You can also download what's on the device to your computer and then look at your information over time, review your progress.

I'm sure I'll write more about it later. I don't think I am going to have much time to play with it today though. Since it's our last weekend before leaving, there are a ton of chores and errands to do. I'm going to be spending the whole day cleaning.