I’m starting to wonder if my anxiety attack last Sunday was a sign that all isn’t 100% okay with my mental health. It’s okay if it’s not. I’d rather pick up on it early but it has left me feeling unsettled and uneasy.
There’s a couple of factor’s that are playing a part and making me question myself. The first is financial. I’m still trying to get myself back on track after being out sick unpaid for a time last year. My employer always pays us early in December but this means that January can be a long, long month. Its now the last few days before pay day and I am broke. It has been a very long month. I even extended my overdraft and it still isn’t enough.
The second is my bizarre and quite disturbing dreams. I know they can be a side effect of the anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication that I’m taking but they are horrible. They can also be indicative of anxiety if I’m interpreting them correctly. I woke myself up in the early hours of this morning moaning. In my dream, I was alone in a dark house (belonging to my grandparents) and feeling under attack. Outside the house was also in total darkness. I had a hockey stick in my hands and was swinging it around and smashing up the house. I was also shouting at those who were pursuing me. It was at this point I woke myself up.
This wasn’t a one off. I’ve regularly been having similar and equally unsettling dreams. Sometimes I’m being chased. Sometimes I’m unable to move and using a weapon to defend myself from my always unseen attackers. I’m always alone. The dreams are all set in familiar places from my childhood. There’s sometimes a sense that my family members are around but I’m isolating myself or feel like I’m being excluded. The dreams are not always set at night either. All classic signs of dreams representing anxiety. In addition, my boyfriend told me that I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep. It was only in passing that he told me as I’d mentioned that my jaw was sore on waking a couple of mornings.
I’ve also been finding it hard to get out of bed. Nothing unusual given the dark January mornings but I just feel like I could sleep for hours. Its a struggle to wake up and get up. Even on my days off, it’s late in the morning when I wake and I feel really tired. It was nearly lunchtime today when I got up and even at that, I could happily have stayed in bed and gone back to sleep!
My shoulders have also been very sore, suggesting that I’ve been tensing my muscles while asleep. Its not that I’ve been carrying anything heavy or straining to lift weights. Far from it. There is no physical explanation for the pain. Rather, metaphorically speaking that I’ve been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.
The final factor is my recent headaches. I had one two weeks ago that lasted over 24 hours. I attributed it to the bright lighting in the room where a meeting I was attending was held. On reflection, it was a migraine. Paracetamol did nothing for it and I was sensitive to light and noise.
I had a second migraine last week (on Wednesday). I woke up with it. It floored me. All I could do was sleep it off. I slept all day. I reckon it was triggered by stress. I wasn’t consciously stressed. I was prepared for my day and wasn’t feeling under pressure. I was still feeling a bit insecure about my relationship but nothing major. (Read Migraines and me for more detail.)
I guess what I’m getting at, is I don’t want to get to the point where I’m back where I was last year. I need to look at this as a wake up call so I don’t fall back into old habits, namely saying that I’m fine when really I’m not. I also need to accept that, like it or not, anxiety is part of my life. Hopefully not a dominant part of my life, but part of it nonetheless.
