One Month into 2014

Ah, January. You are a strange month. You fall low after the holiday razzle and dazzle of December and New Year’s, but also promise new things and change. I had a quaint little list of resolutions I wanted to hop on. Let’s see how I did:

Yoga has been going….decently. I try to do it every day, but it isn’t especially consistent. Sometimes I do half a routine and then get bored. Sometimes I do half a routine and then do situps on the exercise ball and lift the kettlebell. And then sometimes I dig in my heels and do a full routine until I’m sweating and as limber as a rubber band. Chris has this weird habit of getting really clingy when I work out and is very distracting. He either likes to “work out” next to me, which means doing push-ups and then lying down staring at the TV, or he’ll stand over me and pat my head or try to kiss me. He’s worse than Yoshi, who used to just steal the yoga mat and stretch out, or the cat, who would sit on my back. 

Cooking has been going very well. I already made two new recipes this month, so I’m ahead. Those were turkey sloppy Joe’s (barely a “new” recipe, since it just substitutes the meat, but still) and broccoli chicken cheddar soup. Both were successful. Next month will be pizza with homemade crust with new friends Ren and Bonnie, whose names I have changed. Very proud of myself for the way I modified them.

Reading has been the same. Writing has been slow, I’m in the outlining stage of my new book and it is PAINFUL. Counseling is going well, too. I was all ready for class this week until I got sick from medication withdrawal and then Thursday’s session was cancelled. That was pretty weird and anti-climatic. My birthday is next week, which I always enjoy. I will be 23. I guess I’m about where I thought I would be in life; I thought I would be graduated by now, but I definitely didn’t think I would be married, so those two big life things got jumbled. I never really thought about where I “should” be in terms of years, I kind of thought in decades, or just didn’t bother with it. In the words of Edna Mode, it distracts from the now.

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Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

I always go on these health sprints. They are short and overly ambitious, such as deciding I’m not going to eat any sugar. That’s not going to happen, especially since it directly contradicts one of my other goals, which is baking more.

I read somewhere that adding things is always easier than subtracting. It’s the same philosophy that states that repeating positive actions is more efficient than trying to stop negative ones. So, this time, instead of trying to cut things out of my diet, I’m adding.

1. Water

I’ve made it a goal to essentially be constantly drinking water. People are supposed to drink something like 8 glasses a day, which, after feeling like a camel preparing to enter the desert after only 3 large glasses, seems insane. However, it’s been about three days since I started my water regiment and I already feel a lot better. I have more energy, I feel lighter, and less hungry at mealtimes. When we feel hungry, especially between meals, it often means that we’re actually thirsty. So drink water.

2. Replacing sugar

I’ve tried this a couple times already, and it doesn’t mean “less” calories necessarily, but better ones than white sugar. I’ve used honey and applesauce in a few recipes. I’m also looking up desserts based on avocados, dates, bananas, so I’m still getting to eat all the desserts I love, but they’re better for me, like instead of buying ice cream, blending frozen bananas into a creamy cold mixture and adding flavorings like peanut butter or Nutella. It’s also cheaper that way.

3. Exercise

This is probably the hardest thing to add, because I’m wimpy about being sore and such. I’m getting back into some yoga, working with my exercise ball and kettle bell, and squats. I also do a lot of push-ups, which I HATE, but I’m still just so happy I can actually do them now after not being able to, oh, I don’t know, my entire life.

Adrenaline Rush

In therapy, we’ve started to focus on anxiety. I’m much more concerned about that right now than I am about depression; depression is something I’ve learned to deal with and to a certain degree, can’t be “cured,” but anxiety is relatively new, and I believe that can be trained out of me.

I don’t remember my life without depression, but I remember it without anxiety, and I want that life back.

We talked about activities that I can practice, the ones that are on the lower end of my anxiety. Leaving the apartment to do laundry, going to the store alone, talking to clerks, and driving are all things I can practice pretty easily, and have made a lot of progress in. I went to my psychiatrist yesterday, and when I saw her last month, I wasn’t even able to go downstairs to the laundry room because of the anxiety. Since then, I’ve done laundry four times, gone to the store twice, and driven myself to every counseling appointment. The changes in medication has definitely played a part in that; when I sleep better and stay asleep for longer periods of time, the rest of the day automatically goes better and I’m able to concentrate my energy on achieving my goals.

There are certain activities that I can’t really “practice,” and those are on the highest end of my anxiety spectrum. Job interviews, saying something potentially embarrassing, and going back to school are all petrifying. When I think about school, it’s not school itself that I’m anxious about. I’m afraid of repeating what has happened before and what can only be described as a crash and burn. I’d start out the semester ok and then over time, get more and more anxious about things, miss more classes, and panic about everything. As I went through college, the periods of time where I could push past my fears got shorter and shorter until I collapsed on Chris’ floor just before midterms of my junior year and stopped going to school. I’m afraid that will happen again.

I’m afraid that when I walk through the school buildings, sit in class, and just navigate life as a Macalester student, the memory of my anxiety will be too vivid to ignore. Simply by being in a situation where in the past I’ve felt a lot of anxiety will be enough to send me spiraling. My brain will go into protection mode and a shot of adrenaline will disrupt the normality of finishing 20 credits.

What has basically happened to my brain is that my adrenaline is overly sensitive. While most people only experience that level of intensity when there’s an actual crisis (running from danger, gaining super strength when a car falls on a child, etc), I will begin feeling a sense of danger when I’m just doing everyday things, like asking for help in a store or meeting with an academic adviser. The physical symptoms of adrenaline kick in and I interpret that as meaning something is actually wrong, and my thinking follows. Why can’t I stop shaking? Why is my mouth so dry? If I talk, it sounds like I’m going to cry, and that will make me seem weak and weird. I can’t be around people right now, they’re making it worse. Now I can’t breathe. The fears going through my mind only make the adrenaline rush worse and that can cause anxiety attacks. The physical and mental panic build on each other until I can’t tell the difference between them.

Since my anxiety is so physically based (shaking, difficulty breathing, dizziness, feeling out of control of my body), the solution is also physical. What I basically have to do is calm my physical state before my mind can interpret the situation as one involving actual danger. In my head, I know that sitting in a class is not scary, but when my body is responding to the situation with shakiness and cold sweats, it’s hard to convince my mind that everything is peaches ‘n cream. When an adrenaline rush happens at an inappropriate time, I need to make some physical adjustments to ease the adrenaline back to a normal level. Deep breathing is key. When breathing gets out of control, everything just falls to pieces. Focusing on maintaining deep, even breaths calms down panicky feelings and concentrates the mind on something other than the non-existing peril. My therapist also suggested carrying water wherever I go, since getting a very dry mouth and not being able to swallow are very common symptoms for me. Drinking water helps so many things. The dizziness might even be caused by partial dehydration or low blood sugar, which I also tend to have, so having water and keeping a good blood sugar level are possible solutions. It certainly wouldn’t hurt.

I may not be able to go practice going to school by actually going to school, but thinking about it is all it takes for a lot of my anxiety to kick in. I can use that to practice breathing and other techniques to calm myself down. Simulating anxiety-causing situations and then learning to control the feelings that arise is definitely a new goal on my list.