Living with Anxiety

Image from CS Photography

It has only been about a year since I have realized that I have a serious problem with anxiety. There were signs years ago, as a young adult, but I had no idea what it was or that I was living through it. I have only made reference a few times, because it's not something that's easily understood by people who don't suffer. But, I wanted to give everyone an idea of what it is like to live through an anxiety disorder.

Imagine yourself lying on the ground with a 200 pound boulder on your chest. As much as you try, you cannot get up, and you cannot remove the boulder from your chest. On top of that, you have a constant buzzing in your head that feels like a series of electrodes that are strapped to the front, top, and back of your skull. You try to relax it away, but it doesn't stop. You try deep breathing. Meditation. Mindfulness. No matter what you try, it doesn't go away. You're angry. Irritable. Pissed off at your significant other, the dearest person in your life, for no reason.  Everything they say, do, or offer does nothing but make you madder. You feel like you might snap at any moment.

Those are the physical symptoms. Then there are the cognitive symptoms to deal with.

Your rational brain tells you that you're stupid.  That you need to just snap out of it. Your life is perfect. There's no reason to feel the way you're feeling. You suck at your life. You suck at your job. You're a fraud and it's just a matter of time before everyone figures that out. Every time you hear someone whisper, it's about you. About how you are fat. Or ugly. Or aren't dressed the right way. Every email you receive from your boss is hidden with innuendo. About how you're not really doing your job. About how you're not good enough. At any moment, you are going to be fired (see above about being a fraud).

Not every day is like that. Some days have the physical symptoms. Some days have the emotional ones. The worst days have both to such an extreme that you cannot focus, for it's nothing but fear that makes you function. Fear of failure. Fear of having real physiological problems (hello heart attack?). At the most extreme, you shut down completely. Unable to engage. You sleep, or sleep walk. Going through the motions. So overcome by the symptoms of anxiety that you are like a walking zombie.

And the loved ones that surround you only want to make you better. They want to offer words of encouragement. Words of love and help. And as much as you understand where they are coming from, you can't help but feel that they are coming from a point of pity. Because the anxiety tells you lies. That you are unworthy. That everyone hates you. That everyone thinks the worst of you because of that one thing you might have said or done that one time. Events from the past become instant replays that play over and over and over again. Obsession about what you did (or didn't do) become the forefront of your mind.

If you're lucky, you witness this as if from an outside party. You watch yourself go through these symptoms and think "just snap out of it." "This is ridiculous and not reality." "There is no reason to feel like this." Except that you can't. The obsessive thoughts and physiological symptoms are uncontrollable. As much as you will, breathe, mentally stop yourself from being there, you're there. There's nothing you can do about it. You have to live it and deal with it.

I like to believe that I've gotten quite good at recognizing when the anxiety monster is taking over. But sometimes, the side effects of anxiety take over and you are unable to see it for what it really is. Those days are the ones where you want to be somebody, anybody else. To not be the person you are. You yell. You scream. You retreat. You shut down. You scare your family. Anxiety robs you of your fundamental self. Of your carefree, loving, understanding self. You hope that one day, maybe, your family can understand what it is that you're going through, and that it's not your fault.

I have had some family members and friends to thank for helping me realize that I have been struggling with this demon for too long, and that these thoughts, actions, and feelings are all part of the anxiety. I am in the process of understanding and dealing with my anxiety. I say 'dealing' because I have come to quickly realize that there is no real control. As much as my cognitive, rational brain would like to believe it, this is one particular area of my life under which I have absolutely no control. If I did, I would not continue to live through these symptoms the way I have for at least a third (if not half, at this point) of my life.

I want to let people know that if you suffer with anxiety, it's not your fault. It's not within your control. It's not even rational. And all of that sucks. But understanding it and dealing with its consequences will be key to living a fulfilling life, anxiety and all. I am on my journey. It will be a lifelong journey, filled with peaks and valleys. And I am dealing with it the best I can.

Eight Sticks of Butter

This week, I have lost eight sticks of butter. That's 2 pounds, for those keeping track. It occurred to me in the shower this morning that having such a tangible way of keeping track of weight loss really helps put things in perspective.

My year-to-date weight loss is 27.6 pounds, or about 110 sticks of butter. I decided to search the web to see if I could find an image, and funnily enough, I did! Ok, the closest I got was 108 sticks, or 27 pounds. It looks like this (source):

That's a lot of butter! I'm tempted (although I likely won't) to take a selfie with that much butter at our next trip to Costco.

My next weight loss milestone: losing a kids' worth of weight. The twins are about 30 pounds each. I'll definitely take a selfie holding a kid once I reach that milestone!

Now that I've gotten the eating habits (mostly) under control, the next step is going to be to start changing my relationship with food. I definitely had a few binges this week and found myself feeling guilty. Food is neutral. It's time I start looking at it that way instead of viewing it as 'good' and 'bad.'

Losing Weight

4 years, two kids, and a cat later...

Then: August, 2015. Approx 183 lbs.

I've still struggled with my weight. I lost a significant amount of weight after the twins were born (about 50 pounds), but failed to keep it off once I stopped nursing. I gained 20 of it back.

This time is different, though. I have two kids for whom I'm responsible. I have to be a good role model for them. That has shifted my perspective quite a bit. I struggle to find healthy foods that the kids like to eat (being toddlers and all) that are quick to make on weeknights. We wind up eating out several times a week. That's not so great on the wallet or the waistline.

Now: April, 2016. Approx 157 lbs.

That being said, I have finally found a balance. I eat nutritionally dense, low-calorie foods about 80% of the time, following the clean eating principles. I have slayed my sugar dragon once and for all. Now, I'm able to walk by a sugary snack and not think twice about it. It no longer consumes my thoughts. I've lost over 25 pounds in the past 3 months, with about 17 pounds to go to reach my goal. My energy is better, my spirits are higher, and I have never felt better.  Weight loss is a journey - one I'm all too familiar with. I will never be able to mindlessly eat, or to just say 'heck with it all' when it comes to fueling my body. I will always have to be on watch. But for the first time, maybe ever in my life, I'm prepared for it.

The Realization

So here it is. To make a long story short, 28 months, two miscarriages, one diagnosis of unexplained infertility, and one intrauterine insemination later, today I found myself sitting on the stoop of my stairs sobbing uncontrollably as a result of a blog post from a former classmate. It was about how this person didn't want kids, but had a change of heart in order to be with their spouse. Exactly one shot was all it took for them to conceive. This classmate and I were in the same spot at one point in our lives - definitively against having kids. We both changed our minds. This person change their mind and boom. Baby. We weren't so lucky. How is any of this fair?

Being diagnosed with unexplained infertility broke my heart. Basically, the doctor's don't know why we can't conceive children on our own - all of the plumbing works for both of us. Eons ago, not only was I not going to have kids, I was adamantly against infertility treatments. Being diagnosed with infertility caused me to do a lot of research, which changed my mind about fertility treatments. That being said, I still feel uneasy about being poked and prodded all in the name of conceiving a child. Especially when the chances of success hover around 10% per treatment.

I'm pretty sure this will be my one and only treatment. I haven't enjoyed the invasive procedures, nor the twice daily dose of progesterone that leaves me exhausted, overwhelmed, full of hot flashes, and emotional. So I find myself in this weird place. Everyone around me is having children. I see daily updates on Facebook from people I know or have known about their pregnancies, births, and children. I want kids, but I don't want to go through any more torture, either mentally or physically. This is it. If we're successful, then we hold our breath until after the first trimester, when the likelihood of miscarriage decreases significantly. My two previous miscarriages have demonstrated to me that nothing short of a full-term pregnancy ending in a live birth means anything.

If we're not successful, then that means that we won't have kids. My life is in complete limbo. Of those couples I know whom have undergone fertility treatments, they all have been willing to do anything to get their baby. I'm not in that same boat. In fact, of all the people I know, I know of only one couple whom found themselves in the exact same boat that I'm in. They wanted kids, but weren't willing to put themselves through the wringer to get them. It's a lonely group. I find myself having a hard time relating to my friends that have kids. I feel distanced from them. Like we have nothing in common anymore. As more and more of my friends have kids, I fear that I'll be in the same state with each of them.

If you've read this far, you're probably thinking "What about that realization?" Well, my realization is this: Whatever life holds, whether we have kids or not, I cannot let the latest news of someone expecting rule my life. I have only a handful of friends who never wanted kids. I suspect that a majority of our friends who do (hoping that they don't have fertility issues like we do) will start having them within the next couple of years. There's no denying that it hurts. But I have to find a way to be more productive with my time than sitting around feeling sorry for myself that we weren't among the lucky ones. It's time to pick myself up by the bootstraps and realize that my limbo has an expiration date - the day that aunt flo comes to town or that we learn we need to hold our breath for the next twelve (or forty) weeks.

I am the Face.

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook that I am the face of miscarriage/stillbirth/infant loss. 1 in 4 women in the US suffer this horrible fate. By opening up about my own miscarriages, I personally have spoken to many women whose lives have been affected by the loss of a child. There are no words for the feelings that arise as a result of losing a baby, regardless of when it happens. For those of us who struggle to have a child, and there are many of us who do, the news of learning you're pregnant is like a weight being lifted off your shoulders. The ups and downs of infertility, the emotional monthly ride, finally comes to an end when that stick has two lines, a plus sign, or simply says 'pregnant.'

Last year, I was fortunate enough to experience that joy myself. After wasting tons of money peeing on that stick, just hoping that it would say yes, it finally did! I was on business travel, and was overjoyed to send the picture of the positive test to my hubby and tell him "We're having a baby!" I was barely home two days from my trip when the spotting started. I knew in my heart that something was wrong - really wrong - with my pregnancy. Three days and a trip to the ER later, the doctor delivered the devastating news - I had miscarried. Our family got to live with the joy for about a week before our dreams were shattered. The shock of the experience sent my head reeling. The innocence of pregnancy had been ripped from me like a child learning cruelly for the first time that life doesn't always go the way you want it to. A million questions immediately began swirling in my head: "What did I do wrong?" "Could I have changed the fate of my baby if I had only...." It seemed like there was no end to the question of "Why?"

It took 7 weeks for my body to go back to normal - eg, have a period again. Those 7 weeks were like torture. I desperately wanted to try again. I wanted to move on, but my body betrayed me. Every day that I didn't have a period was a brutal reminder of what I had lost. It took me a long time to come to terms with the whole thing. After reading about others' stories, I decided to commemorate our baby by purchasing a piece of sapphire jewelry. Sapphire is the September birthstone - mine and my husbands' - and the month in which we conceived our first child. Our baby would have been one year old this past June.

Almost exactly a year later, long after we had given up hope of conceiving a child on our own, we found out that we were expecting with our second child. September must just be our lucky month! This baby's due date, June 10, was only 8 days before our first, on June 18. Joy was followed by trepidation - after all, we had already lost one baby. Because of our history, we were sure to get early tests to ensure that everything was going along as it should. While my hcg serum tests were perfect, my progesterone was low, and my midwife had me begin a regimen of progesterone. That should have been our first clue. 6 weeks in, I was feeling the full pregnancy effects. If there was an early pregnancy symptom, I had it. I took all of this as a sign that maybe, just maybe, we would be able to keep this one.

Yesterday, we went for what was supposed to be a joyous event - an early sonogram to hear the heartbeat. Normally a woman doesn't have her first sonogram until at least 8 weeks. Just like the early blood tests, we scheduled an early sonogram to ensure that everything was fine. Turns out that the embryo was malformed and at 6w6d, there was no heartbeat. I had actually started to look at baby furniture the night before - had dared to allow myself the time to dream about bringing this little one into our lives.

I don't know if I have the strength to go through this again. At this point, I am uncertain about pressing forward with the idea of being a parent. We had gotten the first round of fertility testing when we found out that we were pregnant. So obviously the plumbing is working, but our babies keep having something wrong with them. I know that there is no way to even predict that at the beginning, which is why the idea of going through fertility treatments scares the shit out of me. I mean, what if we go through all of that, and we still don't wind up with a baby? Or worse yet, we have a baby, and everything goes along just fine until one day during the pregnancy, it just doesn't? Just like it had the first two times?

I'm sure that in a year, I'll have a perspective on this that has some meaning. But now, as I am still carrying our second child - a child whose life was to never be - there is no meaning. It's completely senseless. As a relatively intelligent individual, I understand that life is like this. Event occur at random, and we're left to pick up the pieces of our broken hearts. In some sense, I suppose my own lack of faith actually helps me through this - helps me realize that there's no grand design, nothing that's happening 'the way it's supposed to' or anything like that. It relieves some of the stress.

It is slightly easier the second time around. I'm not experiencing the same shock. My innocence about pregnancy was stripped the first time around. But, I am grieving for our baby. I know I will always wonder what he or she would have looked like. Would they have my husband's smile? My hot temper? Would the parental curse of "one day, you will have a child just like you" have come true?

I will always wonder how this baby, our second, would have gotten along with their sibling. Would they have loved each other and taken care of one another? Who would they become? Who would they marry, and how would they have chosen to live their lives?

There's not much else to say about lost dreams and hopes. Other than I am not alone. Countless women have suffered the same. Knowing that gives me strength. For those who have lost a child during or shortly after pregnancy, I am sorry. Please know that you are not alone, and it does get better.

Saying Goodbye

I was given a bit of shock today, as I found out that I have to say goodbye to something that has been a part of my life for over 5 years. I must say that even though I wasn't all too surprised, the suddenness of it all really rocked me to my core. A year ago the stress of the situation would have probably made me crack. After all, I've got a much more solid foundation now than I did a year ago at this time, and it still threw me for a loop. It's funny how you can find yourself taking things for granted, only to have them pulled out from under you going "what just happened?" Come to think of it, I guess that's usually how it goes. The initial shock lasted about 45 minutes while I had this deer-in-the-headlights sort of feeling. "Did I really just have that conversation? I must have been dreaming." The tears that were shed were shed out of sadness, but also out of a sense of feeling like I had just been personally attacked and left for dead. I couldn't help but feel like my whole world was going to tumble down all around me.

After the shock wore off, I found myself falling into a loop of desperation - it's so-and-so's fault, and this thing happened that had nothing to do with me - that I have seen in other people and have despised them for having that attitude. I definitely played the blame game, and as I did, it was almost like I was watching myself from the outside. I didn't recognize myself and certainly didn't like myself in that moment. Although I have endured many things in my life that could easily allow me to play the victim card, I for one was not going to allow myself to go that way. Yes, the situation sucks. And yes, chances are when I have the conversation that is unavoidable, I am going to find out things about myself that I didn't want to know.

But I ultimately believe that this is how people grow and learn. We get too comfortable with ourselves and how we operate, and life has this funny way of coming along and reminding you that we must forever be vigilant about ourselves and our actions. Getting comfortable means getting sloppy, and once you get sloppy, you make mistakes. Isn't that what being human is all about - making mistakes and learning from them? The thing that is different between last year and now is that I'm armed with tools to help me cope with it. Last year, my stress levels were already operating at 80% capacity 24/7. I was overworked, tired, and on edge at all times. Now that I have gotten used to the stressors that caused my brain to overload, I have had time to re-evaluate how I react to the world around me. I recognized that I could no longer continue on the path that I was taking. Stress was taking its toll on me and the people around me that I love.

So now, faced with this challenge that has happened, all I can do is move forward. Forward into a world where I mitigate what can be mitigated, serve penance for my mistakes, and grow as a person. I'm not going to blame everyone and everything around me for what has happened. While circumstances arose that ultimately led to this point, no one circumstance or person can be blamed, including myself. What I will also not refuse to do is take a long, honest, hard look at myself and the mistakes I have made that were contributing factors to this goodbye. To turn a blind's eye to one's faults is to never learn from our mistakes, never grow as a person. I don't want that for myself. I'm short enough as it is.

And what about this goodbye? It's strange. I have mixed feelings. I know that I will learn from this situation, and ultimately it will help me be a better person in the long run. But at the same time, I am saddened to have to let go of something that has been a part of me for so long. It was there when I took my first steps, learning day-by-day what it is to be who I am. It was there as I endured the growing pains of pushing myself beyond what I thought my preparation taught me. Could it be that this goodbye was meant to be - a casualty of those growing pains? I may never know the answer to that question. One day in the future, as I look back on this situation I hope that I can say that this goodbye, as painful as it is, has taught me to push the envelope, reminded me to keep a watchful eye, and made me a better person. For now, saying goodbye has taught me that I still have a lot to learn, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

A New Year, A New Decade, A New Beginning

I kind of think it's funny that we as humans put such emphasis on the passage of a year, a decade, or even a millennium. Remember the panic that was Y2K? Hard to believe it was a decade ago. :-P I wonder what it is in our nature that makes us place such significance on the passing of one second in time. Because really, that's what it all comes down to - one second. (I suppose I could make the argument that it comes down to a femtosecond, but really.. who counts down in femtoseconds besides the occasional physicist?) When the clock strikes 00:00:00, you're a year older (in the case of your birthday), it's a new year (in the case of January 1), and everything is supposed to change. When the clock strikes 00:00:00 on your 18th birthday, you can all of a sudden buy cigarettes, vote, and join the military. One second stands in the way of whether or not you can legally order a drink at a bar. Yet I'm susceptible to the same labeling scheme as the rest of us. This year, one second meant making (and keeping) a New Year's resolution for me.

So what is it that keeps us coming back to the turning of a year? And what is it that makes us believe that the passing of a year is the best time to make new beginnings, new resolutions? What is to prevent us from making those resolutions at any time of the year? What is preventing us from deciding that, right at this moment is the best time to take charge of our lives and our destinies, rather than waiting for some perceived significant passing of one second?

I made a resolution this year for myself, despite that in past years I didn't even believe in them. Why the sudden change in heart? I realized that the reason why I didn't make them in the past is the same reason why I decided to make one this year. I've always wondered about the New Year's resolution phenomenon. I thought "why wait until now?" And then I realized that I was always waiting for some significant time to make a change in my life - until I reached a certain milestone in age, until work settled down and wasn't so hectic. Was it really all that different than making a resolution? Not really. Our lives are short. The average life span of an American woman is 79 years, which is 2,491,344,000 seconds. We spend 30% of our lives sleeping, leaving 1,743,940,800 seconds of our waking time. Approximately another 30% is spent at work. That leaves 1,220,758,560 seconds for me to do what I chose over my lifetime. Now, given my age, I have slightly over half of my life left. Divide my free seconds in half, and I'm left with 732,455,136 seconds.

Given the availability of seconds left in my lifetime, do I want to wait for some perceived significant time in my life (a promotion, a new pet, more time, etc) to decide that I want to make a change? No! So, I guess I really have made two resolutions for myself this year. The first is to finally make the changes in my life that will leave me healthier and 35 lbs lighter. The other is to not wait for some "significant point" in my life to decide I want to change something. Life is just too short to make excuses or "wait" to make changes.