Oh For Fuck's Sake!

I can feel a full-blown anxiety attack coming on.  It starts with a mild anxiety over something, which lingers for a day or two, interrupting my sleep patterns.  Then, when those are good and messed with, suddenly everything else makes me anxious.  I relive every awkward thing I’ve done, moment I’ve had, or situation I’ve been in, starting the present and working my way back.  

“Oh god, that was awful, this is awful,” is my running mantra.

Due to sleep deprivation, a churning and burning stomach, and now a tightness in my chest because I still haven’t been able to get over that one thing that happened in 3rd grade that one time, I feel like shit.  I get hyper, but irritable, my temper is short, and I’m distracted, can’t focus, I lose my train of thought.  I get defensive and my worry over every little thing I do, say, even my very existence compounds until I start thinking about how things would be better if I just didn’t exist at all.  People could be like, “you know, that Haley girl was weird, at least I don’t have to deal with her any more,” if I were dead.  These aren’t suicidal thoughts by any means, just the irrational thoughts of someone who is gearing up for a full blown anxiety attack.

Then it hits and I can’t function.  I can’t sleep, I can’t do anything because the second I try my thoughts start screaming, “why are you doing this? you’re doing it wrong! people think you’re stupid! you’re just going to fuck it up anyway! just go away, go away, go away.”

I have to wait for it to pass.  The lead up can take days, but usually the worst of the attack only lasts a day.  Because by that point I’m so exhausted from a week of not sleeping and my brain in overdrive that I just shut down.  I shut down and sleep for 12 hours straight, or I curl up in a little ball in the middle of my bed and just lay there.  

And then, like someone flipped a light switch, it’s gone.  The anxiety is gone.  Thoughts that started a cold sweat 24 hours before, that made my chest hurt, and my finger tingle to the point that I wondered if I was having a heart attack don’t bother me one bit.  I’m kinda numb and out of it for a day or two as everything resets.  ”Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?” I tell my brain wryly, because that’s exactly what happened.

Valium helps.  But I got my prescription for back pain and can’t easily refill it, so I save it for the worst times.  Usually a double-dose of benadryl to force me to sleep does the trick.  Today, I’m at home with the animals curled up around me.  They’re all snoring, except the cat, he’s purring. I’m going to do some work so I quit feeling guilty about calling in sick today.  Then I’m going to take a valium and go to bed and hope that somehow that resets my brain and this attack will end.  Tomorrow I ride, and that usually helps too.

I told my assistant that I had some edits on a pdf she made.  So I left comments in the google doc using the full original text of the sentences I wanted changed and the full edited text, even if I was just changing one word.

She wrote me back an email that said, “you need to be more specific.”

Bitch, what?

hedgehog-goulash7:

wauwy:

I finally caved and tried watching “Elementary.”  Wow, serious mistake on my part. 

How are you going to pretend you’re preserving the integrity of the canon when you make Clyde, the famous SEA TURTLE of the ACD stories, into a BOX TORTOISE? 

Is anyone seriously pretending they didn’t do it just to pander to the thalassophobic masses? 

ugh, I’m disgusted.

plus the leads are too hot.  NEVER AGAIN. Fuck you, America

best review ever

People who feed dogs vegan diets are animal abusers.