Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Fuck You Anxiety

I'm pretty sure my anxiety has gotten worse since I was a little kid, I just didn't know how bad it was until recently.

I've been on the web researching anxiety and my mind was just blown on the symptoms I've been suffering because of it.

Before I get into my personal bout with anxiety, here are some treatable methods without the use of chemically altering state drugs which I strongly advocate against:
 - running
- yoga *physical*
- meditation *mental*
- no caffeine
- blogging
-therapy
-psycho therapy

But thats just me, if your chemical inbalance is so out of whack that you need a quick fix, then by all means use medical marajuana or prozac to ail your symptons.

Oh shit, where to begin.  When I researched anxiety the first sympton that caught my eye were body jolts, which I've been experiencing since I was a little kid.

The earliest I can remember is at the age of 12, laying down to sleep and having the feeling of sudden jolt wake me from sleep.

I hate to play the finger pointing game but I knew exactly where those nerves came from that night.  Growing up, my brother and I use to keep score in a bowling league.  We enjoyed it because we were bowlers and plus, the bowlers from the adult league use to tip us for keeping score.

While keeping score on an adult league night, an older Native gentlemen gutter balled an easy shot and I remember sticking out my hand for a high five as to say, "no big deal, get em next time" , and wouldn't you know it that fucker walked right by me.  I was torn about that.  These days as an adult, when you give another guy a high five and they dis, its understandable why its considered an insult

I grew up bowling and there was so much tension associated with that sport its no wonder why I quit.  The only thing I regret about it was not letting myself fall in love with one of my youth bowling league teammates, he was so fine.  To this day I still think about him.  Long story short, we went on a youth bowling trip and he made a move on me, I was just too scared to do anything with him. I really regret that because I know he was supposed to be my first love.

I probably didn't learn how to start relaxing until I was 14 and thats when I began attending Sherman Indian High School.  Sherman was probably the best thing for me because I honestly didn't know how stressed I was.  While at Sherman, I remember some Pima boys making fun of me because of the way I walked.  They were like, "check him out, he walks crazy" .  Of course I didn't know what the fuck they were talking about until I passed by some mirrors and they were right.  When I looked at the window reflections, I saw myself hunched over on my toes with this weird rocking rhythm, knodding my head back and forth like angry chicken.  Needless to say, I changed my walk after that.  These days my walk is upright, shoulders pointed forward with my arms swaying side to side, simply put, with grace. I copied that walk from an Apache girl I admired.

Another big change in my anxiety came from a fear of flying which I never had before.  Growing up, I use to love to flying and the turbulence never bothered me at all.  That all changed at 18, I remember staying up all night washing clothes while still in college. I was on my way back to home and didn't get one wink of sleep that night.  On the plane I could feel every bump on the way home which kept me wide awake.  These days I can barely stand any kind of turbulence and appreciate a smooth ride.

Back in 1996 I use to grind my teeth because we were having home issues and I feared that were going to end up on the streets. Grinding teeth is a really bad symptom, the rescuers from 9/11 grinded their teeth so bad many of them lost their teeth because the tension from that event was still with them.

Flash forward to December 17, 2012.  I come home from a Bathhouse and I couldn't sleep for shit, whats worse is that I'm sweating in my sleep with a dry throat.  All of these things were symptoms of anxiety.

When I checked my myself into the ER a couple of days ago my blood pressure was extremely high, it came down considerably when the nurse and doctor diagnosed me with anxiety and depression.  They asked if I experienced a recent traumatic event, which I did. *read previous blog*

I'm a firm believer that we're all in control of our bodies, which is why my blood pressure came down because I was like, "oh, so I'm not dying" .  I felt a little embarrassed because I took an ER bed from someone who probably needed it, so I checked myself out as soon as I calmed down.

Today really does feel like a new day, I've been in the dark about my illness my whole entire life, not paying attention to the symptoms and warnings.

I will say that because I sobered up a while back, I do use some of these tools above for wellness like jogging, meditating, no soda, and of course, blogging.

I just have to learn at the end of the day not to let shit get to me.

xoxo












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