Anxiety breaking point

I’ve talked a bit about anxiety before this… mentioned how it is to love someone with anxiety as well as talked about what anxiety feels like to me. But I haven’t really shared with you the day to day struggle that sometimes cripples me.

Hello, I’m Chel – and I have major anxiety.

To be honest I don’t know when exactly that I was told that I have anxiety – I just remember always having it and always having to deal with it. It was a major reason why I was pushing away from my friends when I was younger. I always cancelled plans at the last minute or worse – never showed up and had them call me.

It was excuses that no one wanted to hear and after a while, the invites slowly stopped coming. People stopped asking me to hang out with them because they knew most of the time I cancelled. I wasn’t fun – or was too much for them to deal with because of the manic behavior that I had when I would be there.

Perhaps it is the fact that I now know why it is that I do what I do – or because I’ve found a collection of people who understand me… but I feel safer in my skin (for the most part).

But it all trickled into having a major anxiety attack and being left to pick up the pieces.

We moved – or have been moving for what seems like ever.

The stress of that plus not really feeling like I had my own space to just be me I kind of been a pain in the rump to Travis. My anxiety was getting the better of me and I was lashing out (big time) to him. Not real fights were had, but moments where I kept venting or was in a constant state of “bitchiness” was clear to him that something wasn’t right.

He did what anyone would do in his position. Tell me to get my act together and go see the doctor because clearly, my coping techniques were failing me. So I did. After many tears at the office, I came out with a plan of attack… medicine for now as well as therapy sessions.

Now that we are moved in and I have my space again I’m in a better frame of mind again.

Moving blows. To any and everyone that does it – you know. Nothing was wrong – it just with the extra stress of EVERYTHING my anxiety got the better of me.

Tears were shed and ugly snotty cry faces were giving. But, we stuck it out. Travis tried to help but felt that this time around it was more than either of us could handle. Which there is nothing wrong with.

Sometimes you need a little extra help and you shouldn’t feel ashamed for getting it. The medicine has made a big difference dealing with the extra hiccups that have happened while moving. The stress of money leaving our hard earned pockets and constant changes in our schedules have had me all out of sorts. But, now I feel better. Ready to tackle on the day… and ready for the new upcoming school year to bring.

What are some ways you cope with your anxiety?

27 September, 2016 0 Comment

Mental Health, Personal, Writing

Is she depressed or just lazy?

Sometimes I feel like that’s what people think of me when they come over to my house. Seeing the dishes haven’t been done or that there is a bit of dust collecting on every surface.

Is she depressed or just lazy?

Perhaps that’s the anxiety talking. You know that feeling you get when the house isn’t clean and people drop by expectantly and you just sit there and nail bite until the very moment they leave so you can go back to doing what you were doing before…

You know – nothing.

Is she depressed or just lazy?

I’ll be honest – yes sometimes I do get lazy. When it’s ten pm and the dishes from dinner are still sitting on the stove… I’ll leave them until tomorrow. Or the laundry is still not put away or even folded neatly into the dresser. (Shoot – Travis doesn’t have a dresser… just assorted baskets where he places all his stuff into it.)

But sometimes – it’s not just being lazy. It’s about taking care of you and not doing anything else but that. So seeing me sitting on my rump at 7pm watching YouTube or Netflix after a rather hectic day isn’t about me being lazy. It’s about me trying to decompress myself after hours of little children screaming at me, pawing at me, or even getting sick on me.

It’s about me trying to calm myself down from another random anxiety attack or worse a way to hide the void of depression seeping in.

Pointing things out to me that I haven’t done isn’t going to help me out and “snap” me out of it. In fact usually, it makes matters worse because if you haven’t noticed – I’m stubborn. I’ll dig my heels in and tell you no until I’m blue in the face and you’re walking away rolling your eyes. (I work with children for a reason.)

So when you come into someone’s house, please, please, please don’t judge them straight off the bat. By calling those lazy because a few key household chores aren’t done. You don’t know if they are dealing with depression or anxiety or something else.

They aren’t just being lazy they might really be struggling to keep themselves sane.

20 September, 2016 5 Comments

Personal

Living out of boxes

As some of you have known I have been in the process of moving. I say this because we were unfortunate to have our closing for each home about a month apart. This means that we had to move not once, but twice within two months.

Not really ideal – but at the same time not as bad as it sounds. Considering that we got the house of our dreams. It’s a little price to pay for having found something that works with both Travis and me.

Throughout the month of August, we moved in with my mother-in-law in her tiny townhouse. It was squished, but overall it was a good experience. We all got along (even Bolt and her elder kitty) so it was a good month.

The only thing was that I didn’t have a proper workspace – and working a lot lead to me not having enough energy to devote to my blog. For this, I do apologize for the lack of posts, though I think that I did an excellent job taking care of myself. (Hurrah!)

Living out of boxes is never ideal – you can’t find half the stuff that you need. Even now after moving into my new home I still am at a loss as to where some boxes have run off too. Seriously, I think that they just sprouted legs and wondered off to a better home. Sigh.

Now a few days into living in our new home – I’m still baffled as to how we managed it. We lived out of two food boxes, half a bedroom, and a basket each of clothes. Not too shabby if you don’t mind me saying. Though, my back still is killing since we slept on the ground. I think I missed having an actual bed the most.

Now it’s going to be a little while longer before I am able to get the computers up and functioning. Mainly this is because the house is older and all the outlets need to be changed since it still has aluminum wiring. (Travis has assured me that nothing is wrong with the wire it’s just that he’ll need to connect the copper to the aluminum a specific way.)

That plus all the renovations we are doing in the house means that my office is going to be put up later this coming weekend – or next week. Safety first guys, because the wrong connections can and will spark and cause an electrical fire. Good times.

So what does this mean for Oh Chel?

It means that blog posts will be postponed until I can get my office up and running. Though I am taking this downtime to work on different posts and unpacking I can’t set up my high-powered computer (and place graphics here) until all the electrical is up and working correctly.

So, I’m sorry that my blog isn’t posting on its usual schedule, but that will be coming either next week or the following weekend.

Please don’t mind the basic images – I will be updating them once I get my computer back up and working. For now, I’m using a basic laptop and cellphone. (Sweet!)

07 September, 2016 3 Comments