It’s hard to say I’ve relapsed or not when you pretty much aren’t even allowed to go anywhere.
Honestly, what even counts as a relapse for me? It seems like my anxiety ebbs and flows. Sometimes I’m able to go 30 minutes away, sometimes I can’t. Right now I can drive like 20 minutes on the freeway, no problem, but god help us if I need to go somewhere 30 minutes away.
My boyfriend and I took a trip this last week. We went to a hotel about 30 minutes away. Honestly, the drive wasn’t even bad. It didn’t seem far at all. But the whole time we were there I was just constantly thinking about rush hour and how long it would take to come back home and what if I had bad anxiety at like 4pm and I needed my mom to pick me up and I had to wait like an hour before I got home? I literally didn’t even get to enjoy the trip and neither did my boyfriend. We weren’t even that far and it was just so much anxiety.
I kept planning my way out. I didn’t unpack and I kept everything close together just in case I needed to leave immediately. When we went to pick up dinner I thought “Okay, well we’re closer to the house now that we’re not in the room, so that’s good.”
I didn’t even sleep the first night, mainly because the room was so hot. It wouldn’t go under 67 no matter what, and I need to sleep at 62. It doesn’t seem like a huge difference but I promise it is!
So it wasn’t even really a vacation for me. I didn’t enjoy much of it. The place was fairly pretty but it was just way too humid. I hate Texas.
My city mandated that we have to wear masks in all businesses. It’s totally understandable but I hate it. I can’t be in businesses for too long because I can’t breathe. So usually I would be able to go grocery shopping or whatever and that would be my little excursion but now I can’t even be in the building for more than 10 minutes without freaking out because I can’t breathe. I don’t go for walks because it’s hotter than Satan’s balls here. So it feels like I’m just stuck in the house.
I started to go to therapy about 3 months ago. I like her a lot. She’s helped me realize that I’m way too hard on myself. I worry about what didn’t go right or how it SHOULD have gone, instead of praising myself for what I did actually do.
I did actually go to the hotel 30 minutes away.
I did actually try something new, even though it didn’t pan out in the end.
I did actually go to another city with my boyfriend so he can buy a car.
I recently also switched medications; from Prozac to Cymbalta. I was put on the Prozac for anxiety and I didn’t know just how bad my depression was since I was on Prozac for like 6 years. Switching to Cymbalta I see a little difference in my anxiety but not too much. However, my depression came full force and with no mercy. Granted we are in a pandemic and we’ve all basically been locked down for the past 3 or so months, so I can’t be too hard on myself.
That’s really all I can do right now is try to not be so hard on myself. We’re all just doing the best we can right now, with the limited things that we can do. I’ve been reading up on meditation and mindfulness in hopes that I can slow down my mind. I haven’t actually had the opportunity to practice anything yet because, well, I never made myself. But reading up on it counts as a first step, right?
Tag: mental health
Second Trip of 2019: Going to Ohio
In 4 days I’ll be taking a flight to Ohio with my boyfriend. We’re going to surprise his family, mostly his mom who’s been doing chemo. His dad is the only one that knows we’re coming because we wanted to make sure we could stay with them and because the flight lands at midnight and we need someone to pick us up.
The flight is a little longer than the last one I took in May–it’s 2 and a half hours. It’s not that bad if I can download a movie or a few episodes of something on Netflix to keep my mind at ease. That’s what I did for the last flight and it worked pretty well. I had bought the wifi for the plane ride to Wisconsin in May and nothing would load except Facebook so all I could do was send messages. So Netflix letting me download episodes/movies makes me real happy.
The thing is, I’ll be staying with his family who I’ve only met once. There’s really nothing that I could control since I don’t have a car. It seems weird to visit someone and ask them to take us to get food or drive us to and from the airport. It might be different if my boyfriend knew how to drive because they would let him use the car, but he doesn’t and I would never ask to use their car myself.
It’s hard to go somewhere and not know what to expect. I don’t like the uncertainty of things, of not knowing where something is, what we’re doing, how long something will take, etc. Everything in my life generally has to be in my control.
My boyfriend is pretty good with my anxiety but I can’t always expect him to be there, especially since we’re visiting his family who he doesn’t get to see that often. So while I’m there I don’t really want to lean on him too much. We’ve already talked about outcomes and how to handle them so we should be on the same page.
When I travel I try not to think too much about it before we go all the way up until the shut the door to the plane. That’s when I allow myself to have the anxiety because there’s really no turning back. Once we’re in the air I have some anxiety but I guess since there’s nothing I can actually DO about it, my anxiety doesn’t get that bad. It’s at its worst when we’re about to take off and I have that small window of time when I can actually say no, nevermind I can’t do this, let me off.
But on the flight back it’s different. My agoraphobia started when I decided I couldn’t get on a plane going home 5 years ago. So the plane ride home is always the most important because if I don’t get on that plane, I’m screwed. There’s a mix of anxiety that I won’t get on the plane, but then there’s excitement that I made it through the trip and the only hurdle I have left is the plane ride home.
We booked the flight back at the end of June and I’ve been fine with my anxiety up until a few days ago when I realized that the flight was a week away. My anxiety seems to take up different forms and lately it’s just me being really needy. I guess it’s because when we go, all I have to lean on is my boyfriend so maybe subconsciously I’m trying to make sure he’ll be there for me when we go.
In reality I think it will be a really good experience and I’m mostly just happy that my boyfriend gets to see his family. I’m sure everything will be fine, I just like to be prepared for as much as I can.
agoraphobic.health.blog 