Learning What You Can Do In the Moment

This morning really did start like any other morning. I got up and checked on the birds to make sure they were okay and then put them in their cages for the day. Then I started my morning routine. Certain things were a bit off for me, which later I discovered were a good thing. I had lots of things to bring with me to work so I packed up my bags a little early. This included making sure the bibs were ready to go (I get to wash them every week), so I had to also take my clothes out of the dryer and they were set out. This became very important to me in the near future. I finished up my shower and right as I turned off the water, the fire alarm went off. Not the smoke detector. The fire alarm. Those really fun things they have in my apartment building that ring like an old fashioned telephone except ten times louder. At first it took me completely by surprise, but it didn't take long to recognize what was going on. There was a fire and I needed to get out. I didn't think, I did what needed to be done. I couldn't go outside in a bathrobe at five degrees above. That would be almost as bad as staying in a fire since I was soaking wet. I looked around and smelled the air. I didn't smell or see smoke. It wasn't right upon me. I had enough time to get dressed. While I did my mind raced- what next? Out the door? Get the birds? I decided to try for the birds. Although I didn't want to admit it to myself, if they became difficult or got loose, I was going to have to leave them behind. I had one chance to get them out. I made my voice get very serious. I told them they were going into their carriers and there was to be no fighting me. There wasn't. I grabbed each bird, even the ones who never let me grab them, and thrust them into one of two carriers. Shoes untied and coat in hand, I spilled out my front door- to a car fire!

It was bad to, a space and a half away from my own car- which was to be my destination with the birds because that was the only place I could think of that would keep them warm. I checked with my neighbor, and the alarm had been pulled for the car fire, which was threatening the building by proximity, but the fire hadn't gotten out of control yet. So far, it was consuming the car and nothing else. I set the birds down just inside the apartment. The alarm might be loud, but it wouldn't kill them like the cold could. Then I stood outside and watched the car. Flames licked the ground and the windshield alike. Black smoke billowed out of the hood into the cold morning air. I hardly noticed that my hair had frozen solid. A loud pop followed by sparks made both my neighbors and I jump and thank the Lord for the snowbank that was catching the flying car parts and keeping them from hitting the building. The firetruck came and soon the brave men doused the fire while trying to keep their footing on the water beneath them turning to ice. The fire was out and the morning started to settle down to normal again. People returned to their lives with little more than a wondering eye at what happened.

I got to work but was late. I had called my boss when the firemen arrived to let her know I was going to be and she understood I would be in when I could. My car, though close to the burning car, was fine aside from a smoke smell. As for me, I handled a true emergency situation with calm and ease. I didn't panic, I didn't fall apart. I handled it and I handled it well. I got my family out safe (in my case, yes, it was the birds, but they are an important part of my life) and went from shower to ready for action in less than five minutes.

With anxiety, you always wonder what you'll do in the horrible situation you envision, but usually you never have to face it. Although it wasn't my apartment on fire, I thought it was, and now I really can move on with the knowledge that in the face of an emergency, I can handle it without my disorder even being a thought when I am in the thick of it. My GAD didn't paralyze me like I was scared it might. In fact, it didn't even come into the picture.

Living with the Fears

I would love it if every post of mine could be inspirational and talk about how I overcame the anxiety of a situation. I would love it if I eventually found a surefire way to stop the anxiety dead in its tracks. Such is just not the case. There are times when even though I have done everything in my power to stop the fears, they still happen. I can't avoid them. Sometimes they are just there. Especially when I can't or chose not to take the medicine to stop the physical side of the anxiety, I know that I am going to have to live with it. Truth is, everyone has to live with theirs anyhow, mine just seems to be amplified more than most. So what do I do when the anxiety is just there?

I live with it. I remind myself of a couple of things in the moment. First of all, I remind myself that I am not going to die from these feelings. As uncomfortable and urgent as they do indeed feel, they are not going to kill me. Remembering that alone sometimes is calming, but not always. It is hard to have that feeling of "fight or flight" and not do anything about it. The "fight or flight" is designed to help get a person out of danger, usually harmful and potentially deadly danger. It is easy to believe that the feelings themselves herald some horrid disaster that is impending doom on me and those I love, but remembering that these fears are valid anxieties blown out of proportion by my disorder helps me keep the fears in check. I hate elevators and going on them, but panicking when it makes the slightest shudder is silly. Chances are, the elevator will open and everything will be fine.

This leads me to my second point on how to live with anxieties. I try to hold off the panic until I am in, or if I can manage, already passed the situation causing me my anxiety. Even though I recognize that getting anxious before an event is natural, even for those "normal (whoever they are) people", my "fight or flight" calls me to action before the event. I have to remember that I cannot act before the event because what I am fearful of might not even happen. Also, if I allow myself to panic before the event, I might not be able to act on the event itself, making the situation worse instead of better. There have been a couple of times at work where I have had to deal with a child who was a scraped knee or elbow. They are bleeding and I have a fear of blood. Panicking when I see them take the fall keeps me from taking care of them- something I need to be able to do to effectively do my job. If I can give myself permission to panic afterward, many times this gives me the strength to deal with the situation at the time that it presents itself.

This is the third way I deal with my anxieties. I allow myself the feelings. I don't chastise myself for having them. I don't shame myself until I can bury them deep. This is not my defining characteristic, but it is also very much a part of me. If I cannot panic in the moment, I need to give myself permission to fall apart later. Sometimes I do fall apart later. Sometimes, after the moment is over and I got through it, pride over the fact that I looked a fear in the face and overcame it keeps me from panicking and instead I am just darn proud of myself. Either way, I am allowed to fall apart for a bit after it, because if I don't give myself that permission, I invalidate the feelings I am having which is not helpful.

I would love to say that my anxiety is something that I overcame with willpower, prayer, and hard work. But, for whatever reason, God has chosen to give me this gift and I have it for the long-haul. I can't get rid of it. I can't deny it. I can find ways to live with it.

Anxiety, I'm Taking the Fight to You!

I won't even go into the list of things that can trigger my anxiety. There are too many to count. However, one that it seems I share with people who do not have a diagnosed anxiety disorder is the dentist. It is rather uncomfortable for someone to be digging around in a very sensitive area of the body. The mouth is responsible for eating, talking, breathing, making faces at friends and family, and my favorite, kissing my husband! It's not a part of the body you want to have hurting and it certainly feels like when one tooth aches, your whole body is in pain. I am so bad I didn't even want my teeth cleaned. I much preferred my mouth to be left alone. Especially since I didn't want to go in and find out I had a cavity, or worse, more than one. I was very happy to be blissfully ignorant. Then, I got a toothache. Odd thing is, it wasn't a cavity at all. However, the dentist had me in her grasps. I was scheduled for a cleaning. Ok, I did the cleaning. I take relative good care of my teeth. What should I be worried about?

Oh, and one other thing, I had my first filling- my first cavity- two years ago. It hurt- bad! I didn't want to deal with that again. After all, I have three oral surgeries under my belt. I have been through enough (not to mention the chocolate fudge swirl ice cream my mom fed me after each one- I still can't touch the stuff!) Three oral surgeries and one cavity. My quota was set. Not. During the cleaning they found two teeny tiny cavities that needed filled. Oh yeah, and that one cavity that was filled before; it was leaking. It needed to be drilled out and redone. Two separate appointments. Two days of dealing with the poking, prodding, and oh, needles in my gums. I was not a happy camper. I begged my boss to tell me that I was invaluable, that she couldn't run the place without me, and that I would have to stay at work and couldn't have the time off. She giggled and told me to get it done before I thought about it too much. Problem is, I have an anxiety disorder. Thinking about it too much is right up there with automatic functions like breathing.

The days loomed closer to doomsday. I kept allowing myself to think about the pain, the hurt, the discomfort of not being able to eat without hurting. Did I mention I let my anxiety level spike? It was when I decided that enough was enough and that I was not going to let a little filling ruin my two weeks in between cleaning and filling. I had to come up with a plan of attack. The first thing I needed to do was sit down and think about what my reaction would be in reality. I wasn't going to die. Chances were, I wouldn't have a panic attack in public. I can usually control those pretty well. However, past history did dictate that I usually lose my cookies right after my novocaine shot. That could be a problem. I also was super sensitive to the pain and pressure of the drilling. This I learned from my last filling. I complained about phantom pain. The pain you think you should have when you smell that burning smell coming from your mouth as well as the pressure of something making a hole in your teeth.

Figuring out what were my toughest issues actually brought a wave of more anxiety. Now I knew what I was going to do! I would puke, whine, complain, and wimper my way through another filling, or three. Not this time. I am always so embarrassed after one of those episodes, too. I had been very up front with my dentist at the cleaning that I was scared of going to the dentist. She had been understanding and had helped me come up with the most cost effective way of getting through this. If I would take some of my anti-anxiety medicine before going in, I would be spared the cost of laughing gas and would still stay relatively calm. It was a great plan and I had to convince myself of it.

I had to put it into action. Well, if I was going to take some of my anti-anxiety stuff, I needed to make sure I had the day off. There was no way I could work with kids if I had that stuff in me. Request time off of work was the first thing on my list. My boss was very understanding and gave me the time I needed. I made sure that my appointments were times that Tim could come with me. Just someone there who understood that I wasn't being totally crazy and had an actual condition for this anxiety calmed me a bit. The second thing on my list, a comforting familiar person nearby, was fulfilled. The anti-anxiety medication needed to be kept at a minimum. The medicine that I usually take for sleep because I am an insomniac would have to be discontinued the night before my treatments so that I could use it without risk of an OD during the procedure. This could be a problem. However, I accepted that I was going to be anxious and allowed myself to play it out without getting out of control because I had planned up to that point how to handle what was going on with me in the moment and what was going to happen to me at the appointment. In the end, I fell asleep losing very little sleep in retrospect. My last thing to make sure of was to tell my dentist exactly what I had taken, who had prescribed it, and when I took it. This way I could make sure there was no potential drug interaction.

The result: Success! With a sore mouth. I made it though. I took the shots without showing my breakfast to the staff at the office. There was a jab of real, not phantom pain, that I had to deal with, but the rest was manageable. I even managed to crack a smile as well as I could with one half of my face frozen into a straight lip look.

I had always been afraid to face my anxiety and deal with it because I was afraid I would cause more anxiety instead of less. Turns out, taking the fight to the anxiety was just what the doctor- or maybe the dentist- ordered.

Finding a Hobby

There are all sorts of suggestions out there of how to help contain the symptoms of depression and anxiety. One of the things that I have found helpful is to find a hobby that accomplishes something. I like to know that I can do something and get better at it. It also helps me feel like I can accomplish goals completely unrelated to my disorder. I have tried some that do not work for me at all. Either I find it more stressful than I do relaxing, I find that learning it through trial and error is too tedious, or what I thought would be fun just isn't. However, I didn't give up. I kept looking for something that I could do to relax in my spare time that would not involve becoming a bump on a log or endlessly looking at the computer and getting lost in some meaningless website.

I found something that I can enjoy and that works for me. I love to crochet. I love to make blankets and I am hoping to branch out to different things once I master being able to keep my sides straight and my rows consistent. It is a lot harder than you think to accomplish those two! I have enjoyed making blankets for my husband, as presents for different people, and even a very cute scarf to keep me warm in the wintertime. The other thing that I have found with this hobby is that I have an outlet for when I have nervous energy. When I feel like I am going to crawl out of my skin with anxiety and that I just need to do *something*, I can grab my crochet hook and start making something. This accomplishes two tasks. It allows me to do that *something* that I feel that I need to do and it allows my mind to focus on something other than myself. When I am anxious, I tend to turn inwards. When I am crocheting, I am thinking about the person that is going to be using it. I think about the colors I chose for that person and how much it will help them on a cold winter's day or night. This helps my feelings find a different focus than on the current crisis, whether real or exaggerated. This has helped me cut down on the anti-anxiety medication a great deal.

I also hope to start writing notes and letters to my family. Yes, I know, it is so much easier to get on the computer, type something up, and hit the send button. But, it takes so much more thought to sit down with some nice stationary and talk to the person using a pen and paper. What's even better is that the person getting the letter gets something in their mail besides junk mail and bills, which is always a nice break!

I know that these are rather girly hobbies, but hey, I am a girl and that's what I do. However, this does come with a good piece of advice. Get a hobby. You might find that you're anxiety goes down, too!

Weight Loss and the Disorder

Losing weight when you have depression, anxiety, or both is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the disorder is strong in your system, begging you to not do anything that would help you become healthy. It is luring you into thinking that you can rest and do what you want all the time and not to watch silly things like the food you eat and the exercise you get because you want to eat what tastes good and not exert too much energy. There is also that feeling that there is so much more going on in life that energy must be saved for so the workout goes on the way side and the food is much easier to get if it is to go and can be eaten on the run. Sometimes it's just good to eat on the run because that means that you don't have to sit alone and eat, worry about the mess, or interact with the other people eating with you. It is time to be sequestered and quiet. Those times are good and necessary, except when they become the norm rather than the exception. That is the prime time to put on those extra pounds.

Now is also the time that you hear about all the ways you can lose weight after the typical New Year's resolution is made with most Americans. We want to lose weight, be healthy, and be more fit for the New Year. This goal is noble in and of itself, but it has one major flaw: most of the people who make that resolution don't want to actually have to do the work involved. They look for the quick fix: the OTC weight loss pill, the fad diet, the promise of losing weight quickly and painlessly. There are always ads on the TV for this miracle pill that will allow you to burn fat while you sleep or this special equipment that allows you to do as much work in five minutes as you would for an hour at the gym. However, most people don't need that stuff. Sure, it sounds like a quick easy fix, but if it doesn't work for our disorders, why would it work for losing weight? Disorders take time to control, to understand, and to learn to live with. Sometimes it is a combination of the right medication, counseling, good decent spiritual guidance from a Father Confessor in the church, and unconditional love from family and friends that helps tame the beast within. However, this isn't a process we expect to be fixed in a month, or even six months in some cases. It's a lifetime process. That's how one should approach weight loss.

If you decide to give up certain foods, be sure you can do it for life. Don't say, "I won't eat any more sweets" if you still want a birthday cake, Christmas cookies next year, or a sweetened soda pop for that extra afternoon caffeine buzz. This isn't to say that you should stick to the diet that helped you gain extra pounds, but look instead to moderation. "I am not going to have seconds. This is what I get and the rest will be for tomorrow." "Sure, I'll get a birthday cake, but do I really need the one that feeds 24 when only five people are going to be celebrating with me?" Reflecting before filling your plate is key. Eat sensibly but don't starve yourself. Starving will only lead to binge eating, which leads to guilt, which leads to starving. This cycle helps you add more pounds, not take them off. Discover new foods that you love but don't give up the old favorites. Just know that you can enjoy them without going overboard.

Set up a workout plan that you can live with. If your mornings are busy, try the evening. If you don't want to do something formal, go out for a walk. If you want to be indoors or outdoors, it's up to you. Don't boggle yourself down by what you think you should do to optimize weight loss. Do what you enjoy. The weight loss will come naturally after this. Set a schedule that you can stay with. Personally, I prefer the mornings. It gets me ready for the day with energy and helps wake me up after I am feeling particularly groggy. It's also something that I can easily stick with. I get up, work out, take a shower, and finish my morning routine. This keeps me from having to take two showers a day or take one at night which I don't prefer. An added bonus is that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other disorders tend to lessen naturally from the burned calories. As much as it might seem like work, will make you sore, and perhaps more tired at first, it is just as much medicine for your disorder as your prescription and counseling sessions. It's good for you all around and an added benefit is that it will make you look better too!

Know that you are not in for a quick fix. This is going to take a while. It might be six months, it might be a year. The goal is not to lose weight directly. The goal is to help with the disorder. The weight loss is just a wonderful added bonus. Enjoy the ride. This will also allow you to continue to exercise and help your disorder long after you hit your goal of how many pounds to shed. This is a lifestyle change not a diet.

Good luck if you try lose weight. Like working with a disorder, there are going to be ups and downs, successes and failures. There will be times when you want to give up and times that you are so proud you'd burst your britches if you weren't missing those extra inches. Personally, I'm down a pants size and still going! If you ever need encouragement, drop me a line! I don't have all the answers, but I can at least listen!

I Made It...

I wasn't sure I was going to. But I did. It was actually a little rough and a little easy at the same time. Christmas was always a big thing for me in my family of origin. It was hard to be away this year. Probably harder than it has been any other year because there is no way I know when I am going to be home. I love my husband. I love being here with him. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong in our marriage. I just want to be able to see my folks every once in a while. I think they know how hard it is for me, too. They are sympathetic and understanding. I cried on Christmas Eve. I couldn't help it. The tears flowed during Silent Night. It's never easy to be away from family, especially during a time when everyone talks about getting together for the big family celebrations. Being away is hard but it is also a gift.

A gift of new things. A gift of a husband and someday (hopefully) children. A gift to make new traditions and to bring old ones to my new family. A gift to help me rely on my husband more and my family of origin less. A gift to help me learn that I can do this thing called life and not be afraid of it because things are changing.

A gift to show me that no matter how life changes, my God will stay the same. My baptism is still valid. I am baptized into Christ! I am clothed with Christ and that is how God sees me. I am a child of God who receives Christ's body and blood in with and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion for the forgiveness of my sins. When I think that I cannot go on, I am supplied by God with the medicine of immortality; the medicine that cures me of my anxiety in my new self.

I made it through this year! By God's grace, I'll make it through the next.

Thoughts on Christmas Day. . .

My little guys at the daycare are sometimes great faith illustrations in action. Tuesday was one of those days. For Christmas, my co-teacher got them all little toy airplanes. They were wooden ones, like the ones you'd get forty years ago. There were no nails keeping them together, just glue. The kids loved them. They flew them around the room with big smiles on their faces. Those little airplanes were great gifts. But, it didn't last. It wasn't long before those little airplanes were used as drums on the table. The airplane crashed to pieces. There were tears and some confusion as to why the toy was broken. There was no way for these little guys to fix them, either. I mean, sure, they could hold them together, but even that didn't work so well, and it didn't fix the problem. It merely covered it up. This great and wonderful gift given to them was gone and there was no way for them to get it back. My co-teacher, picked up the pieces and the two of us worked on putting it back together during their nap time. By the end of nap, the toys were as good as new. The gift was whole again.

This is much like Christmas. God gave Adam and Eve in the garden a wonderful gift. They loved it. They enjoyed it. But it didn't take long for them to break it. They tried to cover it up but that didn't work. The damage was done and there was nothing they could do to fix it. They could try to hold it together and act like they were being good, but that merely covered up the problem. This great and wonderful gift that God had given them was gone and there was nothing they could do to get it back. However, God in His mercy sent His Son to be born in a stable and laid in a feed trough on Christmas day. His Son was sent to die on the cross for the forgiveness of sins- our sins- so that what we broke would be made new again. Our gift, life eternal with God, is whole again in Christ Jesus.

Merry Christmas!