Nothing I Don’t Already Know

I went to therapy today. I haven’t been in months. And I know I’ll be going about once a week from now on because….I’m getting worse.

Well, let me clarify on what that means for me.

My social anxiety has taken a huge turn. I’m honestly not so scared of people anymore. I’m still not super involved until someone takes the effort to pull me in, but I’m more than happy to be pulled in now. I can have full conversations with other people without my husband in the room and not break out in hives. And even though my therapist congratulated me on this, saying I’ve come a long way in a short amount of time, I’ve never given myself much credit for it.

Now, my health seems to be depleting…and rapidly. My anxiety has formed into a whole new form that I’ve never experienced. First off, after my second “Atypical migraine with aura” (Basically an intense headache on the left side of my head with the right side of my body going numb and a lightning bolt flashing in my right eye) I’ve been having almost constant headaches. These, of course, are rebound headaches. And I’m supposed to be taking less to no medication for these, because if I take more, they’ll just keep coming back and get worse. Now, my doctor gave me a new migraine medication and my response to it wasn’t so good. I took it, got snuggled up in bed and then these terrible constricting pressures filled both of my arms (above the elbows). I began to panic. I thought my legs were going numb too and began to scratch them. But I got up and was fine.

Now, I refuse to take that medicine ever again. Apparently the only actual migraine medication that’s recommended for people like me is just Excedrin Migraine. And I’m so content with that. But I have to avoid medication for a little while.

But here’s the deal. Now, I’m having a huge increase of arm, shoulder, chest, neck, and (obviously) head pain. And to make matters worse, 3 nights out of the past 2 weeks have been the most terrifying since I had my first migraine attack. Basically, I lay down in bed and I get that “spinning” feeling. You know what I’m talking about, right? Sort of like you’re spinning on a boat while floating on water? But it’s CRAZY intense. And no matter what I do, it doesn’t go away. Then I start to panic. And all of the sudden I feel completely and totally unreal. My therapist called it depersonalization. I’ve been feeling this “unreal” feeling more and more. Describing it as a combination of being stoned, having an anxiety attack, and feeling trapped in my own body. Sometimes I get small doses of it randomly, always thinking it’s going to get worse. But in those moments, I’m able to control myself and focus on real life.

So, what do I do? I have to get back to reality. My therapist says people like me, who are always looking for links between my illnesses, my anxiety and my past, know what’s wrong and how to fix it, are intelligent people, who commonly suffer extreme anxiety and a plethora of other issues.

I’m not going to lie. When he said I was intelligent I almost laughed. I’ve felt like the biggest idiot since I got extremely sick my freshman year of high school. My grades were terrible. I had zero focus. I got no sleep. And my memory has been depleting ever since. Or so it seems.

But then I thought about it. I LOVE so many things. I love research and I love writing. I love learning and I love facts. I just can’t remember a lot of them. He says I take in too much during my daily life and instead of filtering it out like the average person, I obsess over every last thing. I seem lazy to everyone I know. But in reality, my mind and emotions are so overwhelmed that I have no physical energy left to do anything. While he was telling me this I couldn’t help but realize the similarities between what he’s saying I am, and Autism. Autistic people are usually quite intelligent, but they take in so much information at once that they can’t handle it and get agitated. Is it weird that I’m proud of that comparison?

Regardless, I know what I need to do. I know how to do it. It’s all just sitting down and actually doing it. Giving my brain and emotions a breather. Letting things go and not letting them get bottled up. And getting a routine. Staying busy.

The best part is that we haven’t even started talking about my family and childhood yet. Once again, I know everything I could possibly know about why I am the way I am. I made sure I knew. But…it’s dealing with who I am that’s the hard part.

Intelligent, huh? Not bad.