Luna TailAnxiety, Dogs, and Life

Ugh… I woke up this morning and it was just so hard to wake up. My head felt thick and heavy. My neck hurt a bit, and all my muscles were tense.

I’m thinking the Zoloft is really finally having an affect on me, and it’s bugging me. Yup… takes me about a year to get used to something new and then really try to understand it. Okay I know, so I’m slow!

The Zoloft makes me a bit foggy in the head. I can’t concentrate as much, I can’t have those nice things I am not even going to talk about… my emotions are just not as sharp as they used to be. Yeah.. the anxiety and the PMS are a ton less, but I think I’m entering the phase where I think, if I stopped taking the meds, I’d be okay and I’d still be able to handle life.

So I guess it’s time to go and talk to the shrink. Maybe I can reduce my dosage a bit. I don’t like having no motivation during the day. And at night, sleeping with all my muscles so tense that my back and neck just hurt all day long.

Once I get up and get into a routine I’m better. But if I don’t have a goal, I’m kinda mush. And then I wonder if maybe I’m catching a cold, or if it’s emotional? I sometimes just don’t know what I feel.

Two things you might hear a lot about if you are in the dog training world are Frustration Tolerance and Impulse Control. Dogs have to learn these things in order to be trained well, and to function in a human based world. Even wild animals learn both of things at a very young age.

I think both of these things translate well in the human world, too. I’ve been thinking about Impulse Control a lot lately. Mainly in the area of eating. I am pretty sure I’m addicted to sugar. And chocolate. And probably salt. I love them all and can eat them all day long.

I get major cravings in the evenings for sugar and chocolate. And usually I give in. Eating right is not only about choosing the right foods. I think a huge part of it is emotionally based, and not giving in to those cravings, and learning about that impulse control. Just because we feel something, either emotionally or physically, giving into it and doing it is not always the best thing!

Sometimes it is. Sometimes we need to follow our gut. But usually in the area of eating, in our society, in our day and age, it’s not. Following the gut, or filling the gut, isn’t a good thing! Eating less, eating healthier, helps us feel better in the long run, and live longer too! And when we lose weight, we can all win trophies for ourselves!

I really am unable, it seems, to stop eating food that is in front of me. In example, I ate a frozen dinner today for lunch… easy to prepare and it’s a limited amount. Ate it all. Then I got the munchies, which I often do. And usually I get the munchies for something sweet or salty. Usually sweet like chocolate. But I’m trying to be good, and I figure every little choice where I’m good helps, even if it’s just a little, so I pulled out the 1lb bag of baby carrots I brought.

Sitting at my desk working… focusing on the computer, and before I know it the whole bag is gone! Well, the plastic remains, I don’t eat that. LOL. But I eat every bit in the bag. It’s not like I can eat a few then put it away. I eat ‘em all, even if, when I’m done, I feel a bit sick.

I think my eating has a huge tie with my anxiety. Especially now… this time of the month, it’s Day 22. I feel more anxiety and so I eat because I want to make the anxiety go away.

It amazes me at how powerful the feeling… the taste, of food is in the mouth. It is so intense… sweet or salt or sour. It’s like the mouth, I swear, should be our major sexual organ since it’s so sensitive and we are sticking food in it all day long. At least three times a day. I can so understand why people have such a hard time with food and eating. Why it can become such an addiction, or avoidance. It’s intense and extreme. I’m dang lucky for the metabolism I have, or I’d probably be 500 pounds easy.

Anyway, so it’s been hard for me lately, and going out to eat with tons of food on my plate is very hard for me to avoid. Maybe I just need to section a bit off and only eat that. But I’m not sure I’d be able to do that, either. Hrmph.

Gads… anxiety city. Yuck. I went to the Chiropractor today and spent three hours there. Well, I guess two and a half, but still. While I was there it wasn’t a big deal. He is a N.U.C.C.A. Chiropractor. He was recommended by a friend.

Unfortunately, my insurance probably won’t cover it. So it could end up being expensive. And the two and a half hours just frazzled me. They took a lot of x-rays to see where I’m off, and then he adjusted me accordingly. My neck isn’t too bad but it’s bad enough to be causing me a whole bunch of nasty neck and back pain. And I do have to admit to myself how badly it has been hurting. Popping and cracking and I can hardly bend over at my back.

But still, if I didn’t have my sertraline as a crutch, I think I’d be a mess. I feel like I want to crawl in a hole. Why all the anxiety about this? Well, it’s a different place, for one. And for another I hate admitting that I feel bad physically. And third, the money is freaking me out, too. We don’t have that much how with my Husband not working, so we have to be tight. Plus Lucy might have a blockage and might need surgery. I need to redo my budgeting and planning in order to make sure we can pay all the bills.

Gads, it all happens at once. I’m just glad that right now and for the next couple weeks I don’t have any dog trials going on. So I can try to relax and take it easy.

And as for the anxiety, sometimes it’s just there, and doesn’t have a logical reason. Even though it’s probably driven by my own thoughts in my head that I don’t even recognize are there, sometimes I think it’s emotion pure and simple and I just need to be okay with myself.

Had some anxiety going on today… performance anxiety maybe I can call it? LOL. Agility trial, and it was teams, and we didn’t do very well. I think teaming up with someone I didn’t know made me really feel the pressure. I don’t know if I’m going to do the teams thing in August when it’s offered again.

I don’t like it when someone else depends on me… oh yeah, well, it wasn’t too big a deal because if my partner was serious about qualifying, he would have been more picky about his partner. But still, I feel like I failed, and the anxiety is high, and I feel pretty humiliated and idiotic.

So time to look up a travel guide and head out of town… at least that is what I want to do, or buy my head in the sand, or hide in a closet, or just not go tomorrow! But I’ll feel better tomorrow. Or at least I hope so.

I’ve been thinking lately… that I think too much. This morning I got up and was planning to go jogging with the border collies. And while I’m in bed I start to weight the pros and cons of jogging… how nice and comfy and warm it is in bed, how it’s raining outside, but how it will be so good for the boys and healthy for me too… back and forth I go in my head thinking of what I want to do.

Then I just said to myself, quit it! Stop thinking so much! I know that jogging makes for a healthier me and healthier border collies. The Boys, Chase and Muffit, have so much energy they really need to work it off. And so I just decided that I really needed to stop thinking so much and go!

So I got up and went. The boys loved it, of course. While I was out there, again I kept thinking too much… about how far will I go, the rain is cold and unpleasant… and I had to shut myself up again and just do. Just be. Stop thinking.

And I have to be happy with myself, too. Happy with my body, happy with my skills, happy with my weight and not look at a list of best diet pills that might help me lower my appetite…

I just need to be. And do. And not think so much.

Fitting in with people is, to put it lightly, hard. When I was younger I used to think I could get along with just about anyone. As I get older, I am pickier, and I think I maybe I can tolerate anyone. But sometimes it’s just hard!

I missed out on a lot of social development when I was in my early 20s. Due to being filled with anxiety and fear and a lack of self confidence, I really didn’t develop friendships or learn how to keep friends. Grade School and High School didn’t help, either. Grade School I had the most awful ‘friends’, and in Jr. High one day one of my ‘friends’ decided to stop talking to me. So suddenly, mortified and humiliated, I was alone and friendless.

In my 20s I jumped from emotionally unstable man to emotionally unstable man until my divorce when I realized I needed to figure out what was going on with me, and why I was choosing such men. And yes, it was me, choosing such men. It wasn’t that all men are bad or awful. It’s that boy.. can I pick ‘em.

Anyway, so now that I’m much more comfortable with myself and confident, I’m being more social. But that is hard, too. And I don’t want to be clicky or snobby, but I am finding that some people I fit with better than others. Is that clicky? I don’t know. I think, though, it’s normal.

And so now, beginning my 40s, I’m trying to find out how to tell those I like and that I fit with, that I want to spend time with them. And tell those I don’t really fit with very well, to tell them that I don’t really want to spend time with them. Of course I can’t come out and say these things, it’s not socially acceptable… is it? And so I try to say it with actions.. and lately I’ve been screwing that up. But this subtlety escapes me and I’m trying to learn all the trickiness of how this works.

Without, of course, feeling hurt myself.. which I don’t do, because if someone doesn’t want to spend time with me, more power to ‘em I say. But I don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. And I hope they will have the same attitude, more power to everyone else.

An old friend of mine, her mother used to say, “there’s no pot so crooked that a lid won’t fit.” So really, everyone will find people they fit with, right?

Ugh.. it’s just hard.
What do you do… how do you give clues to people you want to spend time with them, or you don’t?

A couple days ago I posted about how I felt so responsible… well, that has turned around and now I feel very irresponsible.

I guess things just happen in life and prevent me from doing things.. and I’m not going to go into that here because it’s private and not for the world to know. But when that happens and there are things I really need to do, I get more and more anxious about not doing the things I should/want/need to do, and then I actually start to put them off. And the more I put them off, the more stressed I get about them.

It’s a vicious circle, I think. And when I get stressed, instead of shopping around to find the best buy on something, usually I just buy whatever I find, and then I’m spending too much money, and I get even more stressed because my Husband and I are running out of money.. since he doesn’t have a job yet.

But actually his job thing isn’t stressing me. I love him… I want to encourage him and support him and help build his confidence. And for the first time in my life I actually feel comfortable and secure in a relationship. There is no thought at all about not being with him. We are married… and this is how marriage is supposed to be. In my past I’ve always thought about what I would need to do if I was out of a relationship.. prepare myself, but now.. I don’t think that at all. Instead I just think of what I need to do to support and love my husband. And wow, I really like this feeling!

Anyway, thinking of my husband is helping me feel more responsible. I hate being irresponsible… yet at the same time I have a need for it, and so I create it for myself. It’s odd… for sure. Maybe someday I’ll work it out. But I doubt it! I sure am better than I used to be though!

Well this morning I gave a training class at work. I have to admit, it makes me feel responsible. Like I’m getting something done. And I will admit, too, that I’m rather proud of myself. There were ten people in the class, and I was only a little nervous.

A couple of years ago, and before the Zoloft, I would have been a wreck. Thank the gods for drugs.

And I also know the subject matter a lot more than I did just a year ago. Which definitely helps me. I didn’t even have to go in overly prepared like I did the first time I gave the training. I’m a programmer, not an accountant… so I ask the accountants, the students, what they want, and I can, pretty much, put something together.

So yup, I feel responsible, mature, and proud of myself that I can give a training class. Really, I never thought I’d be able to.

I’m going to Colorado tomorrow morning, too, so this might be my last post for the weekend. No Hilton Head rental for me, though, I’m staying at the cheap Motel in Colorado to do dog agility!

Lately I have been thinking about my own frustration tolerance, as well as my husband’s. And, of course, the dogs.

See, my husband is not working right now. And he did take a Semester at the Salt Lake Community College, but he really didn’t like it. He had a hard time dealing with the instructors lack of knowledge, ineptitude, and being unorganized. I went to SLCC years ago to get my associate degree, and I understand how the instructors are. The adjunct instructors are better than the full time ones. But for me, I am just able to brush off the frustration level and get through it, because I wanted that piece of paper.

But my Husband has a harder time dealing with frustration. I think he has, in some areas at least, a lower frustration tolerance than I do. We both have social anxiety, which makes tolerating being around people harder. I work at it… keep doing it, and I am better. I’m also on meds for anxiety and oh boy, they help me a lot. He doesn’t want to go on drugs, he is afraid of their addictive nature. But this is not a post about that.

I think a good thing my parents taught me was to be able to just deal with frustration and let it slide off my back. Thus, I can work, and even if it’s a miserable day, I can get through it okay and go on to the next day. I can eat foods I don’t really like and tolerate them. Life is just life and can be pretty miserable sometimes. But most of the time it’s okay.

Many people, an couple of old boyfriends of mine for example, had very, very low frustration tolerance levels. To the point where they could not hold, and keep, a job. Little things would bother them so much they had to quit. Long customer lines, heavy lifting, coworkers that complained a lot. It’s interesting, to me, to see people with different frustration tolerance levels. I don’t think it means a person is bad, to have a low frustration tolerance. But I wonder if it’s a sign of a mental illness? Or is it an upbringing thing?

What are your thoughts on tolerating frustration? Can you tolerate a lot, or do lots of things bother you to the point that you have to remove yourself from the situation? Or are you somewhere in the middle? What is the ideal place to be?

Just an interesting thought.. at least I think so. Maybe I’ll have to find some adjustable beds to lay one and really think about this topic!

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