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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

About That Anxiety....

These are just the books I am currently using in my classes!

I forgot to mention yesterday that it is the week before midterms and the animals can go crazy at this circus during nursing school midterms.  Everyone is alive and well here, anxiety and all.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Anxiety r/t Everything AEB Mood Swings, Insomnia, and Feelings of Powerlessness

I...have an anxiety problem.  Some of this I can blame on my hectic lifestyle, my past experiences, my personality.  But some of it is inherited.  There's a direct chain of this phenotype down through the generations of women in my family.  Grandma spends her life in a medicated state; mother had a stress-induced heart attack 5 years ago.  And I use my anxiety as a weapon to propel me through life.  In many ways, this is a useful mechanism.  I study way harder because the fear of failure is always hanging over me.  I can accomplish in a few hours, tasks it would take someone else days to do.  Angelina Jolie has a tattoo somewhere on her person that says, "What nourishes me also destroys me."  I have been thinking a lot about just how true this statement really is.  My anxiety, my relationship, my grief process since my son died, parenting my child, and my drive to become a NICU nurse are all aspects of myself that keep me alive and eat me alive all at once some days.  I am one of those people who never feels like she fits anywhere or measures up to what she should be.  I always fall far short of the life I envision for myself and sometimes I subject my family to those expectations as well.

So what's a girl to do?  Medication?  I can't be too relaxed and lose my grip on my busy life.  I also can't have another baby while on these medications.  Counseling?  I've never seen anyone in my life benefit a whole lot from it.  Deep breathing exercises?  Progressive relaxation techniques?  Church?  I'm not sure which way to go, but I don't feel healthy and I'm worried that it might be a result of my persistantly-oscillating-at-a-high-frequency state of being.  I really can't pinpoint any one cause for why I'm this way; it just is.  I don't want my daughter to live her life this way.  I don't want to live my life this way.