Social anxiety and working through it

When you have panic disorder, generalized anxiety and especially social anxiety it can feel overwhelming just to think of all the people you may encounter outside of your  house. It can make you feel stuck. The thing about anxiety is once you are having an anxious day everything starts to build up---noises start to bother you, people around you bother you. Walking through a crowded grocery store? The anxiety starts to turn into a general bitterness about all the people all around you and WHY can't they all just go somewhere else where you are not???

Making small talk with people you kind of know can be difficult. Especially when you have memory difficulties. You want to have a successful conversation but it feels like you are just flipping through a rolodex coming up with all the accepted questions and answers.

No matter how I feel, no matter what kind of day I am having when asked how i am i will answer FINE. The reason I do this is because i don't have the conversational fortitude to go into anything with anyone.

That doesn't mean I am not interested. I truly AM interested in what people are doing, what my friends are doing, how they are doing and what's going on with the kids, baby, new job. It's just difficult sometimes to come up with right words when your brain is going all different directions.

This tends to keep you inside where you can have control over the people who come in; the atmosphere around you; the noise and lack of noise. I think social anxiety is about fear of a lack of control of your environment. Because when you are out among everyone you cannot control what others are doing you can only control how you react.


I have become a lot better. But still sometimes........

Internet forever!!!!


(pictures from the book Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh which is the awesomnest book and everyone should read it more than once )

POEM: Empty rooms and new doors

Do you ever feel like something is missing?

Do you ever feel like there is nothing there?

Empty? Do you ever feel that you are alone?

The quiet of the afternoon, no one around,

dusky rooms and a bright computer screen.

Trying to write out thoughts

to figure things out

like where do I go from here?

I want to continue to fly

I want to keep moving forward

My feet are turned towards the door

I just need to step outside it

Remember people love me.

Remember I love others.

Remember how much I enjoy

simple things like sunshine, rainy evenings,

animals, my friends, the woods, my job, feeling useful,

feeling needed.

And though one chapter of my life may be ending,

Another one is beginning.

My life has not been a short story,

it's been a novel.

And I am not at the final chapter yet.

h.rose

People's misconceptions about hidden disabilities and work issues

  I really questioned if i was going to write this. Then i questioned if I would release it but I think it's important for people to know. I have been told before over and over that I am able bodied and there should be no reason i can't work.
  Living with a hidden disability can be frustrating. People do not know you are sick because you don't look like you are. You have no cane, wheelchair or seeing eye dog. You are not outwardly showing symptoms, you can hold a conversation. I do have a visible sign of my disability. I have a benign tremor. That means I shake.....pretty much all the time. It gets worse when I am stressed or when I have to concentrate really hard on something. Some glitch in the nervous system I guess.
   I can sometimes get really upset at something that wouldn't upset someone more healthy. I can have obsessive thoughts that guide my behavior. I am forgetful, distant, spacey and require more patience from bosses and co-workers. I can make mistakes on simple tasks. I can get tired more easily and my mind can wear out more quickly and then my thinking problems only get worse.
    I can get anxiety talking to customers or dealing with difficult personal situations. I do not learn as fast as I wish I did. It took me three months at my job to finally get down the drinks and still i make mistakes and my co-workers have been very patient with me but I know it can be frustrating. If I work too many hours I get too stressed and tired and the quality of my work suffers.
    I may have to quit my job. I love my job. I love being a barista. I have worked so hard. I always work hard. People think if you are receiving any benefits and you are not visibly disabled you are cheating the system. But I have had trouble working or working consistently for a long time. I know as a certified barista i can find another job working starbucks at a time when things are humming along better. The only thing is when I have good days I feel so good!! When I am on top of the drinks, can handle a rush, am on with all the prep work it feels so good.
    But I get home and pretty much crash every day. And on my days off usually glued to the couch. I have good days off too. I sometimes go to my stress reliever---the woods. That always helps my anxiety. That is why I am a trail runner. The quiet of the woods really brings down those inner voices that get me overthinking and worrying.
   I hope we can work something out. I wanted that coffee master apron and to go to the district championships. I thought this time i could keep working with no problems. But after a couple of panic attacks at work and some days of depression while trying to work it may be i must admit it's time to go. I hope not. I really do.

The Overthinking Mind

           

 The Overthinking Mind

      There is a song in which the lyrics say “worries crawling around in her clothes”. When you have a brain/neurotransmitter problem worries can become monsters around every corner.

     At one level of my mind I must know that the worries are groundless—that my mind is tricking me with lights and mirrors. But my mind also has a separate place where the anxiety lives and the worries hang out there. Anxiety and worry are best friends. I have been told I have a thin skin. I have been told my whole life that I am “too sensitive”. I don't think it's so bad to be sensitive. It keeps you caring about people, seeing things through their eyes and wanting to have compassion for others. It allows you to see small signs in someone's eyes that they need more help than they will say out loud. It helps you have connections with people that are real and deep.

          The downside of this sensitivity is that it can morph into overthinking and over analyzing situations to the point of obsession. You see things in people that they may be projecting and you play with it and turn it over and over in your mind like a cat with a mouse and because minds aren't perfect they can misconstrue these small changes in behavior or attitude even though nothing at all is wrong.

         There are ways I combat this tendency towards overthinking and obsessing is that I like to write, I listen and watch stand up comedians, talk with friends, watch something interesting on the computer or read something funny or engrossing online.

      I once had a book, and still may have it somewhere, called “The Worrywarts Handbook” and what it said was one skill which I have used is to put the worries up on a shelf when they come and then you set aside 5 minutes or so once a day that is “worry time” and you sit there and just let the mind get through all the worries. It departmentalizes those moments of anxiety and helps you to push aside the worries at the time. This may not work for everyone. But you have to find what works.

     Either that or anxiety will overwhelm you. If your mind is prone to do this you can drive yourself crazy. Try to put the worries on a shelf. Come back to them later. Maybe later on you will realize that what you were concerned with never even came to pass.

Poem: Dance on, Sing on, Paint on

Dance and Sing and Paint

Dance on tender heart,

your soul music makes me smile                                                   

Dance on summer soul

your feet don't touch the earth

Dance on earth mother

your hair is wreathed in flowers

Dance on cosmic goddess

you move to the music of the spheres

Sing on joyous soul

you make the songbirds jealous                                                   

              Sing on creative genius                                                                                    your  notes breathe life to darkness

Sing on small soul of light

you have a voice of summer shimmering heat

Sing on you sweet and quiet one

we hear your song in the beat in our veins

Paint on you seer of light and shadows

you bathe the eyes like water

Paint on you silent soul

your inner darkness speaks for you

Paint on you gentle manic one

your colors are bright as stars

Paint on you follower of star stuff

we see your passion for the great unknown

Dance on you seers of things to pass

your wisdom shines through your feet

Sing on you angels of dark and light

your voice makes the heavens weep

Paint on you bringers of dreams and fears

you teach us to look inside.

Live on you bringers of darkness and light, your feet muddy, your hair in knots, your voices rising like tidal waves, your dreams upon the canvas, your soul touched by madness, your voices small or great, sweet or booming. 

Always BE who you ARE

By Heather Lake