I feel like I should title these things a bit more than just a number. I've been depressed or in a mixed episode for the last two weeks. It corresponds pretty strongly with the weather being crappy. I am right now feeling anxious because my eldest child is off on a field trip wherein he is rafting down the mighty Genesee river. He's not the strongest of swimmers and a bit prone to panic when things don't go exactly as he assumes they should. Hence my deep feelings of concern. Still, as Beloved said last night, he is eleven and they've got people chaperoning this trip who know him well and the trip is run by professionals. It doesn't make the anxiety go away, but it makes it easier to argue against it and see it as irrational.
I'm kinda mad at myself because I haven't been keeping up with any of my writing. I have been getting a little bit of crochet and fiber arts project work done, but mostly I have been sleeping and just staring at things trying to figure out what the hell I should do with myself. I know this is symptomatic of my anxiety stuff kicking in and this is why I'm on medication for it. At the same time, these psychiatric medications slow my brain down and makes it harder for me to think. This, in turn, makes it harder for me to do stuff like write and make art. Just yesterday, I had to rip out about a third of a scarf I am making because I kept messing up my stitch count and it was tapering down to a point. Brain fog is a hell of a thing.
I'm trying not to be mad at myself. I'm trying to write and do things as best I can. The problem is, if I can't perform at my peak abilities, I get anxious and upset. This leads me to thinking all or nothing about the project. I don't have many UFOs around (unfinished objects) but those that I do are because my anxiety about them is getting in the way. Unfortunately, some of my UFOs are pretty important ongoing projects that I really should be working on a little bit every day. Therapy writing is important when you are trying to make sense of the chaos inside your head.
That perfectionist all-or-nothing thinking is my anxiety at work. The drive to do and be the best at what I do is my anxiety at work. It tells me if I'm not performing at peak levels then I'm not good enough to even try. It sucks. I'm not sure what to do about my anxiety. I've a few ideas but I'm not sure which one is best.
One is to keep a 'burn book' where I log my anxious thoughts as they come up. I'm not sure if that's a good idea because it may lead to a cycle of more anxiety. Another idea is to have a physical representation of my anxiety that I treat as a separate part of me and try to figure out what they anxiety is trying to tell me / teach me aside from 'SOMETHING IS WRONG! THERE IS DANGER HERE!' all the time. The third idea is to log anxiety triggers and thoughts through out the month to find out what the connections are and what triggers I can avoid. I have a feeling, however, that most of my triggers are PTSD related and are not going to be resolved by avoiding them. I mean, washing dishes triggers my PTSD but they have to get done every day.
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