Tag: anxiety

Categories
Uncategorized

Wait! You Can Feel More than One Feeling at the Same Time and Feel Okay?

I’ve experienced something totally new within the past weeks and it feels good, strange, foreign and sometimes uncomfortable. Most of my life has been about feeling one feeling at a time or becoming completely overwhelmed with too many feelings coming right at me at once.

Just in the past few weeks, I had a breakthrough. I felt good and anxious at the same time and, again, even though it felt strange to me, I managed it and continue to manage different versions of it daily (feeling pretty good and frustrated, not feeling good while feeling love for my husband and child, etc.).

Having bipolar disorder can feed into this model easily and that is a reason to be a bit hypervigilant about this new way of being, in terms of my mood increasing to a level of hypomania or falling into a state of depression. If that does happen, I’ll work with my therapist to, hopefully, catch it in time and work with her and my psychiatric APRN to monitor these possible changes. Some feelings can so easily reach out their tentacles to take away the good and bring me down to a level of depression very quickly and while the opposite is true, it’s not as often. It’s historically been about being dragged down into a clinical depression. It’s a lot of psychological work and I feel I police myself a bit too much, but I don’t want to lose all of the work I have accomplished with the help of my therapist.

I will work hard to not allow those dark tentacles take away any of the good feelings I have, which is a rather substantial change for me, so it will take more time and more work. Right now, I am trying to experience this new phenomenon, including the strange and uncomfortable parts of it, with curiosity and interest. That feels right. That feels safe.

SOMETIMES WE DON’T UNDERSTAND OUR FEELINGS BECAUSE THEY ARE UNCLEAR OR BLURRY
OTHER TIMES, THEY ARE A BIT CLEARER AND ARE FELT TOGETHER
Categories
Uncategorized

My OCD Has Been Out of Control for Months, But You May Not Have Known That

Overall, I am doing pretty well. The thing that has been wreaking havoc on me is my OCD. I have had OCD since adolescence but didn’t disclose this until a couple of years ago to my therapist, detailing my obsessions and compulsions. They were “normal” to me but at the same time, extremely troubling.

Having OCD is, in one word, exhausting. I don’t mean this in terms of, “I didn’t sleep well last night and I just feel exhausted.” What I mean is, waking up to my brain already racing, never-ending tasking, conducting those tasks only to add more tasks as there is no relief. It’s ordering tasks, then re-ordering those tasks, planning out exactly how my day will run then starting over with another plan for the day. It’s noticing numbers on a clock, on a truck and adding those numbers together a few times. It’s ironing clothes to wear to work and then telling myself at least 10 times that the iron is unplugged and it’s safe for me to walk away. It’s planning dinners for the week and going over that plan too many times only to question and question again how the cooking will work with my schedule. It cycles constantly until I try to go to sleep at night. Sometimes my brain quiets with my night medication and allows sleep to settle in, sometimes not.

While my OCD is always there, lurking like the tyrant it is, it’s been worse the past couple of summers, which is now a time of year when my depressive symptoms also increase. Summer represents an anniversary for me of extreme illness, hospitalizations and last ditch treatments. While it hasn’t ruined the past 2 summers, it remains to be a harder time of year for me, symptomatically.

My current difficulty is that it hasn’t really quieted since it increased around June. The pressure I feel to complete an obsession is just as high:
Obsession > Compulsion > Obsession > Compulsion. There’s no actual cycle where relief follows the compulsive behavior to alleviate the obsessive thoughts. No circle is ever created.

I tested myself a couple of weeks ago while unloading the dishwasher. I have to unload it in the same order each time and would never think of changing it but on this day, I dared myself to. I put away the silverware, plates then the mugs before the glasses, when my must-do order is putting the glasses away before the mugs. When I finished the glasses, after the mugs, I almost started to cry, completely regretting that I changed the order. I knew I shouldn’t have done it and then I felt it. I felt hopeless and guilty, and actually terrified there’d be a consequence for my not following my own protocol. It’s a fucking dishwasher and I was nearly brought to tears. I know what this sounds like and how incredibly irrational this is but when I’m in it, it makes perfect sense to me as being reasonable. OCD is anything but reasonable. It taunts me whether I’m aware of the thoughts as they’re happening, after or when I have no awareness.

I don’t really have any more medication options to help alleviate my OCD symptoms as I tried 2 off-label medications last year with no luck and have tried too many others to count. I have been reading articles about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) being used in different parts of the brain for OCD, instead of the usual left frontal lobe targeted for depression. A few years ago I completed a full course of TMS, targeting the left frontal lobe for my severe depression with questionable results. I need to know more. Of course, I’m already worried that there aren’t local, reputable clinics/offices that offer this specific form of TMS targeting OCD. I don’t want to be back at square one.

Although I am constantly working on combatting my symptoms with my therapist and can notice more when I’m in an obsessive/compulsive state, I am having such a difficult time getting out of it and not feeling like it’s “pointless” or “impossible.” I need much more help with this than I care to admit which is what led me to research TMS as an option. I can’t keep going through each day like this.

The image I have is of an amoeba seen through a microscope, constantly moving, searching for food. My OCD is also unseen to the naked eye, and although it would not be seen in a microscope, it is also in constant motion, searching for ongoing sustenance to maintain itself. I wonder how exhausted that amoeba feels. Does it feel out of control in its quest for food? I feel out of control within my own brain, desperate for relief. My OCD has been well-fed for much too long and the end result for me is irritability, frustration and utter and complete exhaustion.

Categories
Uncategorized

Anxiety, OCD And On and On and On…

My therapist is on vacation and my OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is out of control. It’s been one week and I am now in week two. I see her again a week from today. It has been difficult. Parts of each day are difficult but time is moving, just not as fast as I would like. I see my therapist 4 times a week with an additional 15 minute phone check-in on Sunday mornings. It is intense work. This work, though, as well as seeing her, is part of my routine, part of my weekly schedule. Right now, that is completely thrown off. As a result, my anxiety is increased and is manifesting itself in my OCD as well as my irritability.
I am micromanaging my every move, from getting out of bed to the order of my morning: will I take my walk first or do my physical therapy exercises (hurt back in April) before eating breakfast? If I do my physical therapy and then eat, I will be ready to walk, whereas if I walk, eat and then do my physical therapy, I will be very uncomfortable as 90% of the exercises and stretches are lying down. But, which makes sense in the moment? Which will make me feel comfortable? Which will determine if I have a good or bad day? And on and on and on…
I plan out the order of my morning the night before over a course of 5-60 minutes of constant thought, as if this is the most important decision of my life, but that is how it feels to me. If I do it in the “wrong” order, what will happen? Something bad will happen. That is my thought process. And then, if I am working the next day, how does that timing factor in? It becomes even more complicated in my brain and requires even more of my time to “perfect” it to my liking, yet whatever I do, in whatever order, is never to my liking. This isn’t happening just since my therapist went on vacation, this is how it is whenever my OCD increases to this level.
I plan meals for the week, which, actually, a lot of people do, but this can take hours over the course of a weekend. If I cook on Monday, a day off from work, then we’ll have dinner for Monday and Tuesday, as I always cook enough for the next night, as well. That means I will need to cook again on Wednesday which will cover Thursday, but that leaves Friday, a day that I work. On Fridays I am tired as I get up at 5am to see my therapist at 7:15am, before working for 4 hours on my feet, but want to make a nice Shabbat (Sabbath) dinner for my family. Then the guilt rises, which is beyond wild now anyway and I think I can’t do anything right. And on and on and on…
I can’t stop moving. I get up, do my walking, PT, breakfast in whatever order that ends up often disappointing me as I believe it’s the wrong order, because when you have OCD, all you want is relief and while there are those who suffer with it who complete a task and feel relief, I rarely feel that. My obsession leads to the compulsive behavior which should lead to some relief, but not for me. I end up feeling guilty and angry with myself.
I made homemade frosting yesterday and it was too sweet but I kept in in the fridge overnight to see how it would be today. It was a good consistency but still very sweet. I had to make another batch today. I HAD to. It did come out better, but it was as if making frosting to have with cupcakes I made the other day was the most important thing in the world. While doing this, I was also making dinner in the early afternoon. This is a rare occurrence but I wanted a healthy and good dinner tonight but I had to take my daughter to her guitar lesson which ends at 5:30pm. Constant thinking, constant analyzing, constant motion.
My husband is fully aware that things are stirred up right now and he gives me his total support and understands that it doesn’t matter if he tells me to “relax” or “not to worry about dinner,” as my mind is quite powerful right now and reasoning is not a skill that is easily practiced. I know it pains him to see me this way. I am in pain. I want to control it. I want to feel more mastery over my OCD and I know there are times when I can. Things are simply too stirred up with my therapist away. It’s sad, unfortunate, frustrating and maddening for me. Having OCD and skin picking disorder (yes, it’s a real diagnosis) is a tough combination as they can easily go together. I have more band aids with bacitracin under them right now. My anxiety is just too high and mixed in with the OCD creates a very difficult state of being for me at this time.
Mental illness is hard. Just when you feel you are managing well enough, something else happens that throws you. Unfortunately, that is life. So, my therapist is on vacation for one more week and whatever that looks like for me, I will go on and on and on…