After all my drama last week, I was glad to have a weekend at my friend’s house in Hereford scheduled in. I needed to have a couple of days where I didn’t even have to think for myself and by the time I was due to go home, I began to feel excited about the future again and it felt like such a relief! I managed to get some good sleeps in before Monday came back around.
I was thankful to be getting my eyelashes done, they needed doing so badly after I had spent the past three weeks crying almost every day.
Unfortunately, my anxiety was creeping back in, what even is this? It’s kicking my arse. I was fine until I sat at my desk and had to send an email. I have dealt with people on email every day for years, so why is this crippling me today?
The anxiety was more of a physical sensation than a mental one, the stress and tension in my body was overwhelming and I knew I needed to learn how to deal with it.
By Wednesday, I felt like I was losing it. I had had enough of feeling like a hostage in my own body and at that moment in time, would quite happily have gone to live in a padded cell.
I’d had less than 3 hours sleep and spent the early hours of the morning downstairs crying, thinking about all the shit I needed to do when all I actually wanted to do was sleep. I felt like I did not have the mental capacity for anything.
I started to get angry at myself for feeling overwhelmed. Why the fuck am I struggling so much? Why is everything such a massive deal when it’s really not? Why do I want to scream at every single noise that intrudes my thoughts?
I toy with the idea of going to the doctors but even if I could get an appointment, which is nigh on impossible, I’m not sure I even trust that they know what they’re doing. When I went to them a few years ago saying I thought that perhaps I was Perimenopausal, they told me I was probably too young, sent me for 3 rounds of blood tests, which I now know tell you nothing about perimenopause and eventually put me on anti-depressants.
When I Google my symptoms, I end up feeling more confused. It could be many different things and each has a different solution so what do I do? Anti-depressants seem to be an all round solution to most things but that will only mask the problem when I want to resolve it.
Do I take supplements? Which ones? Should I go back on the pill? In order to decide this, I need to know what I am lacking but it would seem that the fluctuating of our hormones makes this impossible.
Thinking about this starts to make me angry – no surprise there. If this happened to men, there would absolutely be a resolution. How have they found a cure for impotence but women are spending over a decade living in this hormone hell and people aren’t even being educated about it?
I just want to feel like me but I don’t even remember who the f*ck that is anymore. What happened to the capable woman who went into the city every day? Who Socialised with ease, laughed a lot, didn’t panic about speaking on the phone or get anxious about the most minor things? Where did she go? I can’t remember the last time I saw her, was that even me?
Now, I would sooner stay in because I feel hideous in everything I wear because I seem to gain weight with ease and losing it is virtually impossible. I get overheated just getting ready and god forbid if I sit bare-legged on a chair, hello contact dermatitis, at least that’s what Google tells me it is as I can’t get in to see a doctor, who will probably Google it anyway.
Google also tells me, as well as the lady that did my facials, that I now have rosacea. I have crippling anxiety that shows up at the most inconvenient times and despite having dealt with it before, this seems to be a new and improved super anxiety that manifests through my body making me feel like I have been wound up so tight that I am in physical pain and to put the icing on the cake I have no idea what exactly is making me so anxious.
I cry like someone whose world is coming to an end and I have no idea when it is going to happen or why. It even happens when I am driving along in the car singing along to the radio. I get random ringing in my ears, which although isn’t really loud, can be quite disorientating.
There are brief interludes of happiness and confidence but they are becoming so few and far between. I know it’s not depression, I’ve experienced that and it’s not like that at all. I can function and for some hours in the day I feel normal. I am exercising, eating healthier and drinking less than I ever have, none of it makes any sense.
Someone somewhere must have the answers?
