"Fill Your Head with Stories of Impending Doom..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

This evening I decided, for reasons unclear, that the way to be a stellar houseguest would be to have a major OCD meltdown all over mhari's room. The only reason we are still friends is because she has a remarkable lot of patience and because her mother threw me out when the room was only about fifty percent cleaned.

On the other hand, we went to the beach on Monday, where I found this lovely specimen of crabhood and sat around in tidepools.

I'm feeling kind of weird--I'm not really sure where I am, mentally. I feel very lonely, in a way, like I'm terrified of everyone forgetting about me over the summer while I'm not around (for example Liz, and the_chloroplast), and also people online, especially people who I want to be good friends with but am for-ever having anxiety over (like tulipmonster, who I want to like me but who I am convinced sits around wondering when I will die already). I feel like I could be in a better state of mind, but on the other hand I'm not depressed, so--idk, be grateful for what I have? In the general scheme of things, anxiety is easier to deal with than depression (for me).

I'm also having a lot of anxiety nightmares and a lot of just random like--lying awake at night thinking of all the things that could potentially go disastrously wrong. Like I sit in my bed and think about all the ways my father could die (I think this is being triggered by Nana and Granddad just dying, and by mhari's father dying, because he was pretty much my second dad, and it's made my anxious self hypersensitive to the possibility, I think?), or how I don't want to drive any more because I'm afraid I'll hit one of the cats, or how if I pick up Perci I could drop him and he's so delicate he'd just shatter. I will run through a good twenty or so of these scenarios just while I'm trying to fall asleep, and then I'll have even more anxiety because I'm worrying about whether worrying about stuff will make it come true. And not all of it is stuff that's grounded in reality, either--I think about how the house could collapse or I start to wonder whether I left the stove on and the house is going to burn down in the night or-- And so on, ad finitum, pretty much constantly. And any little noise or anything of that sort jerks me wide awake because I immediately connect it with one of the scenarios I've been worrying about and then I have to calm myself down until I can relax enough to sleep, and it's driving me crazy.

I've also started getting the daily headaches again, and that whole mess has been going off and on for over a year now, of terrible headaches in this icky swimmy place between a normal headache and a migraine (I've only had like two true migraines, and these are definitely not that bad), which last all day and cannot be chased off by painkillers. The problem with them is that I end up taking a lot more aspirin than is good for my system in an attempt to dull them at least. I'm starting to think that I should talk to a doctor possibly. <--and this of course is triggering my anxiety even further (what if I have a brain tumour? what if I have encephalitis? &c &c &c).

tl;dr my anxiety is worse than usual and my head hurts. Also, I like to whine.

But I do like it here, and I'm sorry I have to go home on Thursday. mhari is pretty much my favourite person ever.

Comments

[nowgoesquickly.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing you're describing when I'm in a really anxious state of mind: thinking about all of the terrible things that could happen in my life, and then worrying that dwelling on them will somehow cause them to manifest themselves. It's . . . not fun.

And I'm betting the headaches are related to your anxiety.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, it is so annoying. Seriously, subconscious, I have better things to do with my life! Like sleeping.

Really? I've never had anxiety headaches before. >_>

[tulipmonster.livejournal.com]

this is how much i like you:

♥

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

WELL FINE THEN, BE REASSURING.

♥

[tulipmonster.livejournal.com]

i do what i want

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that.

[tulipmonster.livejournal.com]

i can rarely be called subtle >_>

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

you are my tulip monster. ♥

[tulipmonster.livejournal.com]

♥ that is the loveliest thing that i could be

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

good.

[erinpuff]

*huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugs forever* I can't say I know what you're going through (I do have anxiety issues, but it's pretty mild most of the time), but I can give Internet hugs and say that I love you.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*loves back. a whole, whole lot*

[ewein2412]

i think you are both pretty wonderful!

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[mhari.livejournal.com]

*squonches*

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

♥

[raanve]

Before we figured out that I have GAD, I thought that my anxiety stuff was some kind of crazy migraine aura. They might be pretty connected?

*hugs*

Do you have techniques you can use to manage the rumination component? I have some visualizations and other stuff I do to help. (My thing was not so much thinking about everything that could go wrong, but thinking about all the different ways I would deal with really awful situations. I used to call them "escape plans".)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Idk, I've really never been a migraine person. >_> I'm going to ask the doctor when I go for my visa physical.

Not sure. They're just--very pervasive. A lot of the time I don't even realise I'm going it until it just hits me out of the blue.

[the-chloroplast.livejournal.com]

It's the what-if game! There was a period when I was ten or eleven when I would go up to mother and say things like, "Mommy, what if I smashed my elbows with a hammer? Would it hurt?" or, "Mommy, what if I got burned to death? Would it hurt?" wtf. Because these scenarios, they're totally worst-case and at times nigh-inconceivable, and logically you know that but the brain still needs convincing. Because they're still terrifying. (And I still play the what-if game, sometimes, before I catch myself.)

Try this: when you want to fall asleep, get comfy, close your eyes, and tell yourself the story of the Three Little Pigs or Hansel and Gretel or some other very basic fairy tale with a happy ending (happy ending is key!). Tell it in excruciating detail, because the idea is to fall asleep before you reach the ending. Drag it out. Mine was always the three pigs, and I usually bored myself to sleep before I got to Ye Olde House of Twiges. Also, wiggle your toes sporadically while telling the story.

Maybe that will help? Hopefully? The what-if game is never fun.

Also, I promise I won't look at you weird when we get back to school and go, "Wait, do I know you?" because that would be ridunkulous. <3

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Thank you. For everything in this comment.

You are a wonderful friend.