Pre-warning: the most boring post EVER. I just wanted to share my (haha) "success".
So tomorrow after work I'm supposed to go for a dinner (pizza:/) with my working group and some visiting researcher. I know it since Friday and I am scared. As I mentioned in my recent post I don't feel like belonging there and to be somehow useful and like having something to say or contribute (partially it is my paranoia, but only partially:/) and it makes the eating part much harder. At Friday my first thought was: great- so you'll restrict and overexercise the whole weekend to reduce the level of anxiety at least tiny bit. Fortunately (or UNfortunately - this knowledge is nothing else than years of experience) I know that if did so, on Monday I'd be an exhausted emotional wreck panicking even more and acting even weirder than usual. So I was brave and ate every single bite of meals and snacks during this weekend (plus now I am going to eat my night snack) and exercise like every weekend and I probably'll just reorganize my meals tomorrow and hope I will survive. It is quite probable that I will actually survive. The question is the degree of anxiety --> awkwardness I will reach...
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The other side of exercise
I have realized that I was little bit unfair in my post about exercise addiction. Not that the points weren't true, but I didn't mention plenty of points that makes exercise important for me in positive or at least less negative way. I don't mean the high I get from endorphines or the better body image couple of hours after exercise and its anxiolytic effect. It is part of the addiction and similar to every crack/food/alcohol/gambling addiction. It is definitely NOT good. But I thought about some more points about exercise in context of actually staying in recovery/moving forward.
- Exercise makes me feel connected with my body (for a while). It is not only the better body image. I have never experienced significant body dysmorphia and I (ironically) don't think about my body that much. My body is something numb down there under my head and I don't feel connected to it the most of the time. I have no boyfriend, thus no feeling of perceiving my body with someone else*. During exercising I am able to feel the body in some kind of positive way (see other points). Actually I don't think that feeling disconnected with your own body is something eating disorders related. I've discussed it with a (non-ED)-friend and she told me she feels the same way, somehow almost bothered by having to have her body and being jealous of that women who enjoys their bodies and live in harmony with them most of the time. The olfactory or pain perception is also very individual, so why not the feeling of being connected with our bodies?
- Exercise makes me be thankful to my body. I know I should be thankful all the time. And it makes me feel almost ashamed that my body seems to be much more persistent and resistent to stress than my mind.
- Exercise motivates me to stay in healthy weight range. I know it is not the best argument, because you could object that it is only substituting one ED behavior with an another. It is complicated to say why exercise is so important to me, I think it is something for another post, but when I compare the benefits and damage, I honestly think that exercise (well running) is kind of saving my ass. I hate not being able to run at some pace and I know I need some minimal weight (not the edge minimum to be able to run couple of miles and be out of danger zone, but the minimum to feel strong, run fast and enjoy it at the same time). I think the idea of losing the ability to run (and the experience of going through this several times in the past) scares me enough to stay on track. Maybe not the healthiest motivation, but motivation that counts.
- Exercise makes me thirsty. This is weird reason, I know. I am terrible drinker. Well non-drinker. Unless it is not 35°C or unless I exercise, I almost never feel thirsty. I usually drink only with meals or snacks, because I like feeling at least little bit hungry/not full before the meal and fluids make me feel full. In my second hospital I really struggled with my 2 liters a day and my poor roommate struggled even more looking at me, because she had the opposite problem and was on fluid restriction. We were so jealous of each other in the first days! During/after exercise I am able to drink about 1 liter of fluids, sometimes even more and sort of enjoy it which is nice.
- Exercise gives me sub-identity. This is ambivalent. I don't want to base my self-worth on exercise (and sadly I do it quite often and hate it). But I think it is better to have the identity of someone who is active and exercises than of someone who is anorexic. It is like choosing minor hell in favor of greater hell, I know. But I live and I would probably not live if I stayed in greater hell. (Rationalizing too much?)
- Exercise makes me make time for myself. I've always lived in big city. But we have traveled a lot and we were often in our weekend house and spent weeks in summer camp or sport camps. I LOVED it. The most incredible memories I have are always located in the nature. I have had very old gray-violet sweatshirt with big front pocket that I call klokanka, something like Kangaroo-sweatshirt and I spent hours in the forest walking and filling its pocket with stones, pieces of moss and resin (yep, Mum and the washing machine weren't impressed), nice twigs and leaves and other things. In Sweden I was walking on the beach and collecting stones and shells and something what we called amber (old rounded pieces of glass). I could walk like this for hours, just thinking and talking to my imaginary friends and planing what to do with the treasures in my pocket. I still have some. I enjoy this kind of splendid isolation during exercising outside. It is just me and my thoughts.
Ok, I think these are my major points. The not so good part of this all is that I know I will need to cut my exercise quite drastically in very near future and I have no idea how I will cope. On the one hand it will give me the opportunity to rearrange my schedule and make it less hyperactive. On the other hand I am scared that without this motivation exercise gives me I will feel miserable and slip into restricting (it happened in the past:/). Do you have some behaviors that are so ambivalent- part of them is disordered and other part is motivating? I hope everyone will have good week and I leave you with a song I have listened to last week very often. I think it is beautiful.
*Aaaargh. Trying not to write NO TOUCHING, NO SEXUAL LIFE and not feeling awkward turns out to be much more awkward than writing it directly.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
slightly disgusting post about anxiety and nausea
I am back from the minitrip which went ok-ish, althought I don't think I've made it to another round of the interviews (there are still some more candidates to interview this week, so I don't know 100%, but the probability is really tiny). I may write about the trip later, it was basically very tiring and lot of time spent traveling respectively waiting for some kind of transportation, but I have had surprisingly nice weather, visited beatiful botanical garden and did one little hike to the local biggest mountain (just about 1500 m, but given my shoes it was probably my maximum on that day). The interivew itself was bit confusing and something else than I expected, but all in all probably good experience.
But now I need to write about M., something I was neglecting/avoiding/dreading in the last weeks and that is on my mind almost nonstop. The thing is M. is not doing very well. He is eating and he has gained some weight (slower than he was expected in the clinic, but let's blame it on his hyperactive teenage metabolism). He doesn't cheat. He doesn't fight with Mum or doctors (usually). He is "just" struggling so much it's almost impossible to watch it. Some meals are ok-ish, some are bit distressing and some are terrors. Well TERRORS:
1. M. isn't able to eat alone. Someone has to watch or he will get anxious people won't believe him that he has eaten and force him to eat again. Well this may be normal after weeks in clinic with uber-suspicious nurses.
2. Sometimes he has something like full blown anxiety attack. Shaking, sweating, palpitations, restlessness, all inclusive. Moreover he has sometimes really imperative, almost psychotic urges to throw up after a meal. (He hasn't done it yet. Or I hope so.)
3. After such a bad meal, he is absolutely drained. Earlier, he was fighting against the bed rest after meals and was studying like crazy, but I think the resources are gone and in these last weeks he actually just lays in bed in embryonal position with his book closed in the hand and does nothing. Stares.
4. He is still VERY ashamed about all what is happening. Probably still in shock. This illness just threw him against a hard wall made of (ir)reality that noone should experience; so unexpected, it has invaded him with such a force. Where does this force come from? This malicious mind-invasion.
Like some virus or bacteria.
I have had a bad stomach infection just twice in the life I think. It was like some little, but very furious and anxious animal with really sharp claws or teeth or spines (actually it was probably couple of innocent looking single-celled "animals" or even just enveloped DNA/RNA) got into my gastrointestinal tract and was frantically trying to find its way out both upwards and downwards and taking all the food and liquids I consumed with it. And when there was nothing to take, it felt like the animal decided to find a direct way through my stomach. Well it hurt quite a lot. But I could survive pain, the worst thing was nausea. I didn't know what was happening, I knew just I was so sick and something has to happen NOW. I thought just about bathroom/toilet and why the visit to the bathroom hasn't really helped. And how I will clean all that mess I've done (at some point it was not really relevant anymore). Ugh. Why am I writing all that slightly disgusting stuff? I think anxiety is just like nausea (actually they are developementally related). You feel really PHYSICALLY ENDANGERED. As soon as it started, it is very hard/impossible to stop it through willpower. It comes in waves and it makes you feel really powerless.
M.'s anxiety is not showing improving tendency + his therapist (who -all in all- isn't that bad. He just thinks he is mindreader sometimes) has now almost 3 weeks holiday, so that Mum has decided, she is taking M. home and taking her "holiday", so that she can feed/support him. Or at least try it. He is at home since weekend and Mum is surprisingly optimistic. To be honest, I am little bit afraid. The illness has such a grip on him and nobody of us doesn't really understand what is happening. I wish so much I could get sick with gastroenteritis 100 times and M. could be better. But maybe, I am just impatient.
While you are reading it, M., you probably think what I've thought many times:
1. Look what you (such a bad bad person) are doing- forcing your family to watch your so called pain every day, scaring everyone, making them worried and preoccupied with you.
2. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
My "answers" on your non-questions are:
1. It is our job. Watching someone suffering is not easy, but it is life. And we all are so looking forward to watching you better, to share some happier moments like graduation or simply "normal" days.
2. No. No, we won't. I won't. Nobody deserves to be alone in state like this. I am absolutely positive that you won't let me be alone if I was suffering like you are right now. We can give you privacy, but we can't leave you alone.
Oh. I'm sorry. I probably just wanted to "say", these three weeks will be hard, but hopefully it will bring some results. This post actually doesn't have much of a point.
But does this all have a point???
But now I need to write about M., something I was neglecting/avoiding/dreading in the last weeks and that is on my mind almost nonstop. The thing is M. is not doing very well. He is eating and he has gained some weight (slower than he was expected in the clinic, but let's blame it on his hyperactive teenage metabolism). He doesn't cheat. He doesn't fight with Mum or doctors (usually). He is "just" struggling so much it's almost impossible to watch it. Some meals are ok-ish, some are bit distressing and some are terrors. Well TERRORS:
1. M. isn't able to eat alone. Someone has to watch or he will get anxious people won't believe him that he has eaten and force him to eat again. Well this may be normal after weeks in clinic with uber-suspicious nurses.
2. Sometimes he has something like full blown anxiety attack. Shaking, sweating, palpitations, restlessness, all inclusive. Moreover he has sometimes really imperative, almost psychotic urges to throw up after a meal. (He hasn't done it yet. Or I hope so.)
3. After such a bad meal, he is absolutely drained. Earlier, he was fighting against the bed rest after meals and was studying like crazy, but I think the resources are gone and in these last weeks he actually just lays in bed in embryonal position with his book closed in the hand and does nothing. Stares.
4. He is still VERY ashamed about all what is happening. Probably still in shock. This illness just threw him against a hard wall made of (ir)reality that noone should experience; so unexpected, it has invaded him with such a force. Where does this force come from? This malicious mind-invasion.
Like some virus or bacteria.
I have had a bad stomach infection just twice in the life I think. It was like some little, but very furious and anxious animal with really sharp claws or teeth or spines (actually it was probably couple of innocent looking single-celled "animals" or even just enveloped DNA/RNA) got into my gastrointestinal tract and was frantically trying to find its way out both upwards and downwards and taking all the food and liquids I consumed with it. And when there was nothing to take, it felt like the animal decided to find a direct way through my stomach. Well it hurt quite a lot. But I could survive pain, the worst thing was nausea. I didn't know what was happening, I knew just I was so sick and something has to happen NOW. I thought just about bathroom/toilet and why the visit to the bathroom hasn't really helped. And how I will clean all that mess I've done (at some point it was not really relevant anymore). Ugh. Why am I writing all that slightly disgusting stuff? I think anxiety is just like nausea (actually they are developementally related). You feel really PHYSICALLY ENDANGERED. As soon as it started, it is very hard/impossible to stop it through willpower. It comes in waves and it makes you feel really powerless.
M.'s anxiety is not showing improving tendency + his therapist (who -all in all- isn't that bad. He just thinks he is mindreader sometimes) has now almost 3 weeks holiday, so that Mum has decided, she is taking M. home and taking her "holiday", so that she can feed/support him. Or at least try it. He is at home since weekend and Mum is surprisingly optimistic. To be honest, I am little bit afraid. The illness has such a grip on him and nobody of us doesn't really understand what is happening. I wish so much I could get sick with gastroenteritis 100 times and M. could be better. But maybe, I am just impatient.
While you are reading it, M., you probably think what I've thought many times:
1. Look what you (such a bad bad person) are doing- forcing your family to watch your so called pain every day, scaring everyone, making them worried and preoccupied with you.
2. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
My "answers" on your non-questions are:
1. It is our job. Watching someone suffering is not easy, but it is life. And we all are so looking forward to watching you better, to share some happier moments like graduation or simply "normal" days.
2. No. No, we won't. I won't. Nobody deserves to be alone in state like this. I am absolutely positive that you won't let me be alone if I was suffering like you are right now. We can give you privacy, but we can't leave you alone.
Oh. I'm sorry. I probably just wanted to "say", these three weeks will be hard, but hopefully it will bring some results. This post actually doesn't have much of a point.
But does this all have a point???
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
In which she makes an idiot of herself...
So the plan is:
Tomorrow: 13+ hours travel to "foreign" country S (which is not absolutely true, because I don't feel as complete foreigner there, but still it makes me bit nervous)
Thursday/Friday: some rather short travels in country S because my accomodation is in another city than the inteview (as I am traveling alone I am uber-anxious that I will be so tired that I oversleep/be so anxoius and psychically exhausted that I won't sleep at all/get incorrect train or tram/forget my keys or money or bag somewhere/won't be able to speak in a language I am not 100% confident in etc. And than on Friday morning: Job interview.
I am beginning to think that I must be absolutely crazy, because the hospital/Uni is definitely one or two leagues higher than where I am. And with my ability to present myself + language it will look like four leagues. Sigh. I still think it is some kind of mistake that they have invited me. I am basically going to spend money and nerves on a trip where I will make an idiot of myself. I am trying to look for some positives like: first really serious experience, having nothing to lose, training myself in the language, some kind of exposition therapy for my anxieties (that unfortunately rise and rise after end of school and the Big Uncertainty Ahead)... well nothing of it makes me feel significantly better. Maybe little bit.
I was trying to prepare a bit, so here are some wins and failures:
Tomorrow: 13+ hours travel to "foreign" country S (which is not absolutely true, because I don't feel as complete foreigner there, but still it makes me bit nervous)
Thursday/Friday: some rather short travels in country S because my accomodation is in another city than the inteview (as I am traveling alone I am uber-anxious that I will be so tired that I oversleep/be so anxoius and psychically exhausted that I won't sleep at all/get incorrect train or tram/forget my keys or money or bag somewhere/won't be able to speak in a language I am not 100% confident in etc. And than on Friday morning: Job interview.
I am beginning to think that I must be absolutely crazy, because the hospital/Uni is definitely one or two leagues higher than where I am. And with my ability to present myself + language it will look like four leagues. Sigh. I still think it is some kind of mistake that they have invited me. I am basically going to spend money and nerves on a trip where I will make an idiot of myself. I am trying to look for some positives like: first really serious experience, having nothing to lose, training myself in the language, some kind of exposition therapy for my anxieties (that unfortunately rise and rise after end of school and the Big Uncertainty Ahead)... well nothing of it makes me feel significantly better. Maybe little bit.
I was trying to prepare a bit, so here are some wins and failures:
- win: it's unbelievable, but I've spend more than 3 hours in shopping center (and only about 40 minutes in bookstore and no tears!) on Saturday and I have bought a decent clothes. Even more unbelievable is that I actually feel kind of good in them. It is just blouse and skirt, but for me it is a win.
- fail: I've emailed with the assistent of the Prof who is making the interview and I've copied part of another email (pretty insignificant, but still..:(..) into the email for her accidentaly. It wasn't visible before I've send my mail, but I've reread it after and..well it was there:/ Awkward.
- win: I've tried to exercise less and/or more careful (and partly succeeded), becuase hyperthermia, dehydration and fatigue are the last things I need right now. It wasn't some huge success, but given the anxiety, I did decent.
- fail: During these days and my attempts to exercise less, I was often panicking about how it will continue after/if I start work. I don't think I will get the job in S, but I don't think I will be unemployed either and I don't think I should stay at home, so that there is option full PhD (more time for my routines, less responsibility, less anxiety...) or clinical work with a perspective of PhD next year (step into uncertainty, adulthood, but also the thing I wanted to do when I was 8, 11... I kind of owe this kid a lot...).
- win: I've trained a language and a --ology during last 2 weeks. Partial fail: Can't believe how much I have forget! But I enjoyed it and I am definitely decided about one particular area of medicine, doesn't matter if it will be research or clinical work. I am starting to be curious again after couple of months of apathy and it feels good.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Lonely as my discarded student card
My head is mess. Maybe I've read too much Faulkner lately, dissolved in his dysfunctional deep and broad families, relationships, ochre rivers and states between slow lifes and slow deaths. In his weird time and amazing language. Instead of reading, I should study for upcomming interview that I am dreadig. Oh I am really imagining the most catastrophic scenarios. Moreover I need to buy a ticket and some reasonable clothes and work a bit on the language (the interview is in the worst of 3 languages I consider as native and it worries me more and more) and I am doing nothing nothing nothing except reading even crazier than usually and being anxious. The thing is- when my anxiety is over the roof just because this one interview, how can I actually one day work with people? Maybe my place is really in the lab. Who knows. Probably I will end in the lab after all, because there is no way that someone with normal brain can see me as doctor. Do you want to have a doctor who thinks that her childhood probably should end, because there will be last Harry Potter movie? (And no- I am not sleeping with stuffed animals and I don't want to be pediatrician.)
My best friend is for two months in another continent watching ants and my "best czech freind" has just married and is traveling around Europe and school is definitely past and I miss my classmates more than I thought. I feel weird when I visit M. and I am not a student anymore. I can't wear my white coat that makes you feel like you are bit covered, that you have some kind of identity. I can't use my student card to open the doors. I am a sister visiting her anorexic brother. I am not hurrying to the lecture or to the library. M. is gaining weight and I don't see it, he is stil rachitic and sad in my eyes. But my eyes are fucked up. My sister is going to holiday and I feel really lonely. And than again I am absolutely glad I am alone and don't have to speak and I am really ambivalent and emotional and bit overwhelmed with everything.
...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain."
--Anne Michaels
You can't. You have to.
--Wiliam Faulkner
My best friend is for two months in another continent watching ants and my "best czech freind" has just married and is traveling around Europe and school is definitely past and I miss my classmates more than I thought. I feel weird when I visit M. and I am not a student anymore. I can't wear my white coat that makes you feel like you are bit covered, that you have some kind of identity. I can't use my student card to open the doors. I am a sister visiting her anorexic brother. I am not hurrying to the lecture or to the library. M. is gaining weight and I don't see it, he is stil rachitic and sad in my eyes. But my eyes are fucked up. My sister is going to holiday and I feel really lonely. And than again I am absolutely glad I am alone and don't have to speak and I am really ambivalent and emotional and bit overwhelmed with everything.
...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain."
--Anne Michaels
You can't. You have to.
--Wiliam Faulkner
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Fat Miss Failure
I promised myself that with stable healthy weight my emotions will be stable and healthy.
My weight is one or 2 kilos from target (and my target was not set at BMI 17,5 or so). (Actually I think I have higher BMI than my younger sister now- don't worry K, I am NOT going to count it, but I am much shorter and... stop it).
So why is the anxiety so brutal? Why every meal or deciding what I will eat is struggle? Yesterday I was trying to fool myself that this is just traveling anxiety, my jaws are aching from chewing gum so intensive and the fact I can't even read a book (I can always read at the bus) is alarming. But this morning I was again almost vomiting, feeling so desperate and void here in Berlin, Miss Failure in the city of opportunities and progress. The "prescription" would be so easy...seriously, stop it,
The fact that I have done most of my research last semester and now I have plenty of free time (everyone is jealous - irony) makes it even harder. I need some distraction and I can't think about nothing but exercising etc. Stop it- there are variety of cultural opportunities in Berlin, nice parks (for walks, photographing, making picnics and reading books- not just frenetic running).
How comes that after all those years I am not able not to feel almost ashamed and inferior when I don't overexercised and see someone exercising? Am I and really so shallow and my values so vain? My ex-therapist would probably say that it is not me, "just" the disease, but the disease is in my mind and who am I if I am not my mind? (My body? Haha- somehow tricky as well).
Ok, got to plan some distraction program and social challenging for this semester as my labmates are really confused to see me in the lab much more often than I need to be there.
Why is it sometimes so damned hard to just be a normal human being?
My weight is one or 2 kilos from target (and my target was not set at BMI 17,5 or so). (Actually I think I have higher BMI than my younger sister now- don't worry K, I am NOT going to count it, but I am much shorter and... stop it).
So why is the anxiety so brutal? Why every meal or deciding what I will eat is struggle? Yesterday I was trying to fool myself that this is just traveling anxiety, my jaws are aching from chewing gum so intensive and the fact I can't even read a book (I can always read at the bus) is alarming. But this morning I was again almost vomiting, feeling so desperate and void here in Berlin, Miss Failure in the city of opportunities and progress. The "prescription" would be so easy...seriously, stop it,
The fact that I have done most of my research last semester and now I have plenty of free time (everyone is jealous - irony) makes it even harder. I need some distraction and I can't think about nothing but exercising etc. Stop it- there are variety of cultural opportunities in Berlin, nice parks (for walks, photographing, making picnics and reading books- not just frenetic running).
How comes that after all those years I am not able not to feel almost ashamed and inferior when I don't overexercised and see someone exercising? Am I and really so shallow and my values so vain? My ex-therapist would probably say that it is not me, "just" the disease, but the disease is in my mind and who am I if I am not my mind? (My body? Haha- somehow tricky as well).
Ok, got to plan some distraction program and social challenging for this semester as my labmates are really confused to see me in the lab much more often than I need to be there.
Why is it sometimes so damned hard to just be a normal human being?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
City B
Note to self: Don't move your things and bike to Berlin when the whole city runs marathon.
Note to the-lady´s-voice-in-my-GPS: Sorry. I was soooo nervous.
Berlin is huge. And still you don't feel small or lost there. It is somehow transparentely kind and kindly transparent. I will live in old house in the former western part near the place where the wall used to be. I've seen only one of my future flatmates so far and she seems to be all right, I don't know if we will be real friends, but it is too soon to assess.
Now I'm back in Prague and have last follow-up therapy week. In some ways it is even more intense that inpatient therapy. I am trying to change the conscious part of my altered reward system. Huh sounds like shamanism. I also got long cognitive behavioral plan for first weeks in Berlin which I will copy and post soon.
I have almost no time for being absofuckinglutely scared.
Note to the-lady´s-voice-in-my-GPS: Sorry. I was soooo nervous.
Berlin is huge. And still you don't feel small or lost there. It is somehow transparentely kind and kindly transparent. I will live in old house in the former western part near the place where the wall used to be. I've seen only one of my future flatmates so far and she seems to be all right, I don't know if we will be real friends, but it is too soon to assess.
Now I'm back in Prague and have last follow-up therapy week. In some ways it is even more intense that inpatient therapy. I am trying to change the conscious part of my altered reward system. Huh sounds like shamanism. I also got long cognitive behavioral plan for first weeks in Berlin which I will copy and post soon.
I have almost no time for being absofuckinglutely scared.
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