Anxious Abby
October is mental health awareness month and anyone who has been touched by mental illness has an important story that needs to be shared. There are people that need to understand that these issues are okay to talk about and feel all the feels.
I feel compelled to share this story about my anxiety and depression because mental illness took the voice of a friend of mine and countless others when it doesn’t have to. It’s a journey, but there is hope.
“I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. I did not ask for it, nor did a diabetic ask for their illness. Yet, you stigmatize me for mine and call me crazy yet you give compassion for the other.”
That chemical imbalance for me, according to a psychiatrist, is generalized anxiety disorder and depression. Before the diagnosis, let’s go back to December 9, 2016 at around 3:30 in the morning when I was literally catapulted from my bed and my journey began… I jumped up as if someone was stabbing me in the heart. I thought for sure, this is it, I’m dying. Not realizing that I was walking around and pacing in order to decide what I should do next. Needless to say I wasn’t dying… I decided after calling my primary care doctor that I should go to the ER. They pulled me into the room right before the ER pretty quickly after getting there as they often do with unexplained chest pain. They took an EKG of my chest and sent me back to the waiting room. After they took me back to the ER they went through chest x-rays, physical exams, multiple doctors and nurses, and then they said you’re not having a heart attack. We only treat you for what you came in with so we’re sending you home and just follow up with your primary care doctor. What?! That’s it?! Do you people not realize I am actually going to die? Spoiler alert- I’m still here.
I sought the advice of my primary care doctor upon instruction and we went through every stage of pain that I was having at the time. Which was head to toe, everything. MRIs of my hip, physical therapy for my hip, neck, jaw, back, GI tests, blood test after blood test, pap smears, ear exams, hearing tests, vertigo tests, kidney stone ultra sounds, x-rays of my chest, back, kidney stones (small back story on the kidney stones in case you were curious, in 2015 I had a tumor removed from my parathyroid that was basically causing a ton of kidney stones…yeah.. fun stuff!). It all came back normal. NORMAL!?!! Don’t ya just hate that word? I thought that is just not possible. It’s not possible to have all this pain and for nothing to be wrong. It wasn’t logical. It isn’t logical. So after everything came back normal I did what I really need to stop doing and I consulted the other doctors in my life at the time. WebMD and Mr. Google. They are not my friends or your friends, believe me. They told me that it must be in my brain. It is cancer, I’m dying, and this is it. I asked my ever-so-patient and truly-there-for-me primary care doctor for script to get an MRI of my brain. She did and I suffered through another awful MRI to find out that I again was completely normal. At this point I’m exhausted. I’m not sleeping well, I have all these thoughts running through my head and I’m still not dead? What’s wrong here?
The New Year came and went and I was getting by at work and in life by sleeping and working and not much more. It wasn’t until January 15, the day of my first diagnosed panic attack that I started to understand what was happening. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was doing what I normally do- binge watching some Netflix shows- duh. And my Dad invited me up to his house for dinner. I had to take an Uber and so off I went. I didn’t think there was anything particularly heavy on my mind that day but as I sat in the Uber some strange sensations started happening to me. My feet felt tingly and kind of like they were falling asleep. It felt strange and abnormal but I shook it off, as maybe I hadn’t had enough water that day. Still in the Uber stuck in traffic… just thinking get me out of this car. It escalated from there as the tingly/numb feeling traveled up my legs through my arms, and eventually to my neck, face, and lips. I thought my throat was going to close up and I was going to die. Do you hear the pattern here? I was shaking and we were not quite at my Dad’s house yet. I called my Dad and said start the car, we need to go to the ER. He didn’t really understand what was going on but I knew when I got there that I would explain. I called my modern day saint-Dr. Primary Care and she stayed on the phone with me all the way to my Dad’s house and then in the car on the way to the ER. SAINT, I am telling you. I was still violently shaking at this point but the tingling had subsided slightly as I felt more comfortable with my Dad and my doc on the line. We get to the ER and they immediately put me in a wheelchair, which was a frightening feeling as the woman thought I might pass out. They took me pretty soon after and I got everything all checked out. I’ll never forget as we waited for the doctor and all the results that the NFL Playoffs were happening on TV. Green Bay vs. Dallas. It was really distracting me, so thanks guys (As a die-hard Eagles fan, that really pains me to say, but the truth is the truth). My Dad was doing everything in his power to get my mind off of what was happening but I could not relax. The doc comes in and says, “Well my dear, you just had a full blown panic attack”. I remember distinctly questioning him, as I’ve been primed to do with any and all doctors unfortunately… (I’m trying to get over that one) and said something along the lines of, “That doesn’t make sense. How would you even know that? I’ve never had one before”. The ER doc very confidently and patiently said, “I can see the CO2 levels in your blood that you were hyperventilating and this tingly feeling you have will probably last for several hours before you really calm down.” WHOA. That was a panic attack?! Who knew that’s what it felt like? It really does feel like you’re dying! Sheesh!
My primary care doctor sent from up above recommended I see a psychiatrist to get on medication to get these symptoms under control and a psychologist to see if I could get a handle on my anxiety. I started seeing them in January and it has been a battle of meds, therapies, meditation, acupuncture, sleep stories, podcasts, Oprah’s daily inspirations, every lavender/peppermint/ginger oil/tea/chew/candy while rooting through my past and examining every single part of my literal being. It is hard work, it feels like a full time job on top of my full time job and that’s just the breathing exercises because for several months I was hyperventilating almost every day all day. I am by the way not advocating for any sort of treatment regiment for anxiety as I’m not even sure what really works for me as I’m still trying to figure it out.
My mental health journey started with anxiety and then somewhere along the way the depression seemed to hit me. As I’ve started to get my physical symptoms of anxiety under control, depression is something I’m still perplexed by and am still trying to figure out. I can’t seem to anticipate it and the episodes for me have lasted months, months of pure exhaustion, like difficult to get through the day exhaustion. Not wanting to eat anything ever. Wanting to isolate myself from the world completely, which I became kind of brilliant at. I would wake up, go to work, and come home to watch some TV, go to bed and do the entire charade over again every single day Monday through Sunday. I ignored text messages, phone calls, invitations to do anything. I just didn’t want to get up off of the couch. I felt that a successful day was a productive day at work and afterwards I was so drained it felt like that was all I was capable of producing in this life. Some days I was isolating myself and numbing it all with any and all Netflix shows that I could get sucked into and other days I would just sit at home and hysterically and uncontrollably cry for hours. I didn’t feel like myself at all. I didn’t feel like myself when I was by myself or when I was with my family or my best friends. The stigma of mental illness makes us say, “I’m fine”, when we’re really not. None of this was okay. I wasn’t giving up though. In January, February and March at the beginning of my mental health journey, the depression was mixed in with all of the anxiety and I was really focused on getting the physical symptoms under control. I had a few good months in April, May and June and then seemed to have a relapse of depressive episodes again in the summer. I was so frustrated that I was feeling this horrible way again. The biggest lesson of all of this is that you can’t give up. I learned one of the most valuable little sayings from my therapist: “Depression cannot hit a moving target”. I started moving again- going on walks, meditating, socializing, and just getting up throughout the day when I have negative thoughts. It has been helping. It is all part of the journey.
Some days I am literally counting the breaths until I get through the day and other days when I have a good day or even a good hour I feel like I’m ME again or at least some recognizable ME and I remember what that feels like. That’s hope. That is something I want to hold on to and be again. There is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. The little wins are wins nonetheless. This is helpful to know because if you are struggling with something- it doesn’t even have to be a diagnosed something, just know you can get through it. “This too shall pass”. If you’re going through it, I feel ya, I hear ya, I’m with ya. Let’s not be afraid to talk about the truth. Some days I am afraid of living and my anxiety and depression tries to get me but other days it helps me wake up and recognize that I need to start living my truth.
