Entry 3-
I am beginning to feel like my old self again.
Yesterday I had a little bit of anxiety walking around my neighborhood but nothing major, I kept myself busy throughout the day and even left the house to go to church. Unlike normal I didn’t have to leave early because of anxiety I just sat through the sermon end to end (almost we got there late). I was able to think about my issues a bit and regulate my anxiety and stress levels, although it was a struggle at first.
I find that breathing easy helps me in addition to concentrating on taking longer/deeper breaths when the worry thoughts begin but I also have to use compassionate self talk. Without that I feel like the a.d. sufferer is still treating themselves like the perpetrator of their own anxiety. Interestingly enough, if you do this you are fighting your feelings, blaming yourself, guilting/shaming, and not accepting that you did not ask for these feelings you just wanted to live a normal life.
YOU HAVE TO GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO FEEL ANXIETY.
These are of the things I learned.
In other news even though I got no sleep I have to go to a job interview today, but I am very hopeful that it will go well and can help me fight my A.D. Also I feel much better illness wise. I am able to breathe easier and FINALLY feel like I’m back to myself again. Let me tell you, it’s no fun having both anxiety disorder and being very ill for over a week (almost 2!)
Kind of a short post because I only just woke up but I find when you have a lot of progress you have less to say (ironically) healing is far more straight forward than struggling in my opinion; the cut dries, closes and scabs, over time goes away entirely. Not much more to it. But when you are currently in pain you harp on the pain, what you are/are not able to do normally, what you’re plan is to deal with the pain, how you’re feeling on an hour by hour basis, how you’ve dealt with this before or how you would like to deal with this in the future. I will consider myself lucky and in a good place that I do not have as much to say this morning.
I plan to proceed with my morning preparations, meditate, go to the interview, and when I come back exercise and get some work done.
As always I will be concluding with my worry thoughts at the time of writing this:
What time is it, what if I run out of time before the interview? I will not because I planned ahead and have been ready since last friday for this interview. If I come late then so what, I will simply not get the job and continue to look for work elsewhere.
What if they ask me to do something I don’t like, what if I have a panic attack during the interview? I am actually terribly excited to see what the specifics of the job are and learn more about the opportunity, everything presented to me today will be a challenge to overcome rather than an burden/obstacle to cause my suffering. If I have a panic attack then so what. Panic Attacks are mostly benign and harmless, they can’t kill you and they always pass. If one happens in the interview it will pass, they always do. I’ve had many and survived 100% of them!
What if I’m still sick? I don’t feel sick, therefore I have no reason to believe I am, if I feel sick I will leave home early.
What if they don’t hire me? That’s fine, it’s all part of the process as stated earlier I will then continue to look for work elsewhere.
What if I smell bad? To combat this I will be showering very shortly before my interview just to be as prepared as possible.
There are probably more but that is all that I have time for right now since I am in a rush. Worry time is now over for the day.
