Last week was a rough one. There was good too, though. I started waking up early to get in more writing time and I love the productivity of that. I made a lot of progress on my current project and also sent Avalanche out to beta readers so I can get to the next phase of editing. It's an exciting time for me and I can't wait to give you all a free story!
But all that said, my mental health was a wreck. I don't know why, but my anxiety was off the charts last week. I'm never good about diagnosing why I'm feeling anxious and maybe there is no normal reason for me to figure out. All I know is that several days last week were really hard to get through because I was certain I'd either royally messed something up or something terrible was going to happen. I didn't have specifics, but I knew it was one or the other. Sometimes both.
My heart was racing. My whole body was tight. My mind was moving a mile a minute and refused to shut the heck up. Everything was too big and too much. I was overwhelmed and going to explode.
I don't know why, but of all the issues I have with my mental health, anxiety is the hardest for me to deal with. When I'm depressed or manic it sucks, but I get it. I understand it's a chemical thing and I just need to keep taking my medication and eventually it'll pass. Anxiety isn't like that for me. I have pills that I am supposed to take as needed, but for some reason I don't take them a lot of times. I sit in my stress and let things get worse. Why is that?
I think it's because I know I'm being stupid. I know I shouldn't be losing it over nothing or whatever minuscule thing triggered the attack. I know this shouldn't be an issue and yet it really is. I need to get better about taking my medication. I hate the feeling of anxiety swimming through my body, but I never use the tools I've been prescribed to deal with it.
I'm pretty sure some of it is that mindset of 'everyone experiences stress at times and they don't need medication for it'. It's something that a lot of my family has said to me when trying to convince me to be normal and do the things that I know trigger me. They seem to enjoy explaining that I shouldn't need medicine to be normal. But I'm not normal. I know it, and yet it's hard to wipe out that voice in my head that says I should be. I've come to terms with the fact that my family will never understand my mental health, but the damage was done and it's going to take a lot for me to get past it.
Hopefully, the first step in fixing my hesitancy to take my medication is knowing what the issue is, but I think it's going to take a lot of time too.
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