Relapse

It's February now. And that makes it my fourth month without therapy. I don't recognise what I've become.

My conscience hounds me day and night. “Just start with someone new. You'll ease into it.” It urges me. “It will take months to get there. But you'll feel better again, once you begin talking to a professional. And then you won't feel this way. You won't feel so damned ineffectual.”

In response, Despair rears its head and narrates a thousand reasons why crawling over to a new Therapist and drowning her with my woes is a bad idea. What a daunting task it would be to begin again. How exhausting it would be. How exhausted I already am.

Somehow writing this down makes it sound like an excuse. It makes me sound weak. It makes me sound like a coward. Coward. What an ugly word.

It is beyond self pity, this feeling of worthlessness. And lately I've felt impure. In a spiritual sense. Mind you, not religious. But spiritual. As in; the essence of who I am. I've felt it taint, slowly and irreversibly, I've felt it taint.

I feel useless and worthless… and mostly, I feel like a hypocrite. Qualities that I used to pride myself on have degenerated and withered into pitiful semblances of what once was. I feel intolerant and overwrought and ugly, deep within my soul.

I realise the change in circumstances have forced my hand in some situations, that some insecurities are inherent and that for a while, I had been doing so well. A disciplined intake of antidepressants and regulated sessions with my Therapist had calmed my inner chaos. It had granted me some serenity, helped me gain some perspective.

My Therapist had to move abroad in October. And I'm waiting for her to settle down and arrange her set-up so we can Skype. Till then we chat on Viber. I try not to be an inconvenience. But it's been over three months and I suppose it's time I made a decision. My deteriorating mental state is hurting not just me and my work, but the people I love as well. I need to step up again. I need to help myself so a professional can help me.

The first thing I have to do, though, is cease being so hard on myself. I remember her saying once. “No one can be kinder to you than you, yourself.” I need to carve that into my psyche. And practice it.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a bitch. We all know that. The second guessing, stressing, tightening in your chest, gasping for breath, perspiring, paranoia, the list goes on. Yes. Anxiety is a bitch.

It also manipulates your mind into thinking that the entire universe revolves around you. I don’t mean this in the sense that anxiety makes a person self centered. No. Let’s go with self-preoccupied. Self-centered has a negative connotation to it. The implication being that a person is egoistical.

What i mean to say is that anxiety deceives your mind into perceiving everything that happens around you as direct responses to your existence. For instance, you could be walking into work and the expression on a colleague’s face or a lukewarm reply to your greeting could have you stressing on the possibility that you’ve done something wrong to earn the reaction. In reality, said colleague could’ve simply woken up on the wrong side of bed or not had his/her morning coffee yet. 

Somedays, every response you get from the people around you feel like minute attacks on your character. And that drains you. I don’t claim to have mastered indifference or even learned to shrug it all off. Far from it. There are medications that Psychiatrists prescribe for this condition, medications that calm your nerves and relax your body, and I have found them to be quite effective. 

When I have an anxiety attack,  i first practise this trick that i learned in therapy; “Replace images. Substitute thoughts.” Basically, the idea behind it is that when you find yourself thinking negative thoughts or when your mind is plagued by distressing images, teach your mind to substitute the thought or image with something positive or even neutral. Takes months of practise and might not always work, depending on the gravity of the situation you’re in at that moment. But you learn to do it. Eventually. 

My personal favourite is recalling a moment where I was at the beach with the ocean shimmering in front of me, a vacant blue sky above me, a refreshing drink in my hand, some tunes in my ears and the sand beneath my toes. The beach is where I am the happiest. 

If the trick doesn't work, given the magnitude of the problem or my incapability to tackle it owing to the situation or atmosphere that I am in at that particular time, I do box breathing, which is a deep breathing technique. You inhale slowly for a count of four, hold your breath for four, exhale slowly for four, and hold your breath for four. Repeat.

And if that doesn't work, i take a pill. I take Xanax as a last resort given that I already take Prozac everyday for Depression. I try to not to be dependent on anything foreign to maintain control over my mind. But sometimes, we just need a little help.

So, keep trying to overcome the anxiety attacks with those two trick when you're going through an episode. Takes time but you learn to do it. If it proves to be beyond your control, and it initially will be, see a psychiatrist and follow his/her diagnosis. Sometimes having the pill on hand calms me down... just knowing that it's there, if I need it, even if I don't take it. 

In the meantime, try to practice the tricks. I hope this helps.