Luna TailAnxiety, Dogs, and Life

I’ve been PMSey all day. And all the last couple of days. Okay the last few days. It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be… Tatum nipped one of my favorite skirts and tore a small hole in it. Well, before-meds I would have probably had a freak attack and yelled and screamed and felt like the world was coming to an end. Well, this time I didn’t. And anyway, I can’t get mad at Tatum. Even though she’s a brat, she’s still too cute and sweet. I never could get mad at Angel, either.

I don’t know what day it is… I thought Friday was day 28, but still nothing, so maybe I marked the date down wrong last time. So I wait, and hope to feel better soon.

Right now I’m craving salt and sugar. Mainly chocolate. I think I’m addicted to sugar and chocolate. I should read up about that. In the evenings I just crave, nasty cravings, I crave chocolate and feel like I’m going to collapse without it! Ugh!

I’ve been having bad PMS this month.. could be because I have missed a couple of days of my sertraline. Or it could be that I’ve been doing too much (yet again) and not giving myself enough down time. Today was nice, I got to sit at work all day. I swear when I retire I’m going to be going full speed all the time and even my down days at home are gonna be weird! But that’s not for a while so I needn’t even think about it!

It’s Day 25, I think. And the closer that number gets to 28, the worse I get. I want to eat everything in sight, mainly chocolate. Premenstrual Syndrome is just no fun at all. My body hurts, I’m grumpy, and sometimes I even feel like my whole life is falling apart. Even though, logically, it is just fine.

Ugh. I need a nap.

Well, today is Day One. And every single month I forget how rotten I feel on days 20 through 28… and how much better I feel on day one. But I will feel even better tomorrow. My munchies have gone down a ton.. as I sit here on the laptop I don’t have a need to be stuffing crap into my mouth, like the whole bag of chips I ate, and got sick on, the other day. Getting my period changes all that. My sores heal, if I have any. My PMS goes away as my hormones balance out. It’s too weird and all I can do is sit in my body and feel the changes I go through every month.

I am super tired now… did agility and obedience today with Levi. Had a good time.. took a nap when I got home. And now my stomach is rumbling so I’ll go eat. But because I’m hungry, not because I feel so miserable that stuffing food in my mouth makes me feel better and distracts me from feeling awful.

I’m glad the next couple of weeks will be good ones! And maybe next month won’t be so bad.

Every darn month I forget how awful PMS is… I just hate this darn premenstrual syndrome I go through. Today is day 5, and so I am feeling much better. Last week I was pretty miserable again. And I swear every month, when I’m miserable, I forget that I’m miserable because of PMS.

Ugh.

Well, I feel better today, and I’m able to get things done again. Seriously, I should be able to just not do anything during that last week of every month. It’s awful, but it’s real. And I do need to take care of myself during that time.

One of the things I learned in CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) recovery.. was that the top layer of most people’s problems is called denial. And that denial allows us to keep doing our addictions… because the next layer down is behavior. We are denial to cover up our behaviors that are unhealthy, or downright destructive.

The layer below that is the feelings. We are in denial so we don’t have to face the behaviors that cover up the horrible feelings we can feel… including Anxiety.

There are more layers, below the feelings are the beliefs we hold, and below that is self-esteem and whether we hate ourselves or love ourselves. But this post is about the Behaviors and the Feelings layers.

Lately I have been realizing that my blogging is becoming a pretty major addiction. And this addiction allows me to not feel the anxiety I feel. Anxiety about work… mainly. And also just general anxiety that I think I have learned to feel on a daily basis and I really don’t know how to stop feeling. It’s like a bad habit.. like popping my knuckles. I don’t know how to stop that either and I’ve tried a few different things.

Fortunately I am no longer addicted to men, emotionally unstable and lazy men at that, nor am I addicted to drugs or alcohol… so I don’t need alcohol rehab. But the anxiety is still there, even though I do have the Sertraline as a tool I use to keep it much, much less than it used to be.

It’s hard for me to just sit… to just sit on the couch and look out the window and not think. It’s hard for me to meditate… I’ve tried, but when I do a huge package of anxiety comes along with it and makes it unpleasant. Being still allows the anxiety to come up. Being busy keeps the anxiety down to a more manageable level.

But… as we all know, the only way to conquer our fears and anxieties, is to face them. I need to face them. I want the anxiety to go away more. Work gives me the greatest anxiety… because I have short-timers disease (even though I have over 5 years left before I can retire) and work just always has given me anxiety. I’m afraid of appearing to be an idiot. I’m always afraid of that in all aspects of my life, though.

So I do have to stop being on the laptop as much as I have been. This weekend I have an agility trial, so I won’t be blogging much. But on weekends I’m not doing dog things I have to start to enforce non-laptop time so that I can try to sit and relax and examine the anxiety that I want to get rid of. Of course.. today is day 26, which makes me even more anxious… which I forget every stinking month when PMS comes along. And so maybe using the laptop to get away from PMS is okay, for a little while.

Well, it’s Day One today. And on Day One I always get motivated. I feel so much better today. Man, my temperature has dropped. I feel more relaxed and comfortable. I cleaned the house for an hour and a half. And I cooked dinner. And I went to the Chiropractor.

Yesterday I made lots of appointments I’ve been avoiding. Chiropractor was one of them. Dentist was the other… my tooth has been hurting lately. I think it’s the one where I had the root canal a couple of months ago. I also made an appointment for a Mammogram. Uck. Actually, they are not too bad. I’ve had a couple done already.

So I feel better now. And I’ve gotten a lot done today. Yay! Tomorrow it’s back to work for me.

Today is Day 24. Since I started taking the Zoloft my PMS hasn’t been as bad. And the Vitex Agnus Castus helps, too. However, today and yesterday were particularly bad days.

My back aches, anxiety tightens my stomach and makes me feel hungry when I’m not, and I feel tired. My whole body aches, too. And all these things cause my temper to be short and my tolerance to be low. I am happy to say, though, that the meds do keep me in check and I’m not as awful to be around as I used to be.

PMS is a whole body and mind thing that makes women feel miserable. It’s not only the physical symptoms. It’s also the emotional and mental ones. I’m also a complete klutz. I drop things, I try to get things to just ‘do’ what I want them to, instead of obeying the laws of physics. I can’t add worth a darn.

To say I feel miserable is not a good descriptive term. But to only describe my physical symptoms is also, not a good description. I’m sure the physical discomfort does cause some of my emotional discomfort. However, when I’m not having PMS and I’m sick, I can tolerate not feeling well much, much better.

So on top of the physical, I just feel emotionally rotten, too. Cranky, very little patience, much more anxiety than non-PMS days. It’s an interesting thing, actually. And if any doctor tells me Premenstrual Syndrome doesn’t really exist, I will smack them upside the head and tell them they need a new career. It’s real, and it’s nasty. I manage it. I get by. I wish it would go away.

Today is Day Two. By tomorrow, I’ll feel even better than I do today. I am amazed, every month after day one rolls around again, how completely awful I feel during PMS. Man, it is so real. It is so intense. It is so awful. The Vitex Agnus Castus keeps it in control, as does the Sertraline, but still my entire body feels like it’s stretched out on a wire, every cell is full of tension and misery. When my hormones start to even themselves out again, I feel like a rush of good drugs are flowing through my system, through my bloodstream, making everything okay again.

Already I decorated my office, office furniture and all, for Christmas. Put up my Christmas tree and lights, and cleaned my whole desk. I’ve emailed people, talked to people, and relaxed. I feel normal again. Like a normal human being. I really wish ‘they’ would find a complete cure to PMS. Until they do, I manage as best I can. And I try to control the Anxiety that comes with it.

I used to be filled to overflowing with intense anger and hatred during PMS. Overwhelming feelings of hatred. And I was not pleasant to be around, for people or for dogs. And I regret that. However, I am so much better now and everyone around me knows it. I have read that the hormones/chemicals of PMS can trigger the anger and hate centers of the brain and trigger these feelings. Which is really odd, because an external source is not causing me to feel these things. It is inside my brain, an internal world. And that is why, my friends, I do believe in depression and anxiety and yes, PMS, as being treatable diseases.

I am better today… the anxiety is less thank the gods. And today is, finally, Day One, which always makes life more pleasant. And I did have fun yesterday participating in Wordless Wednesday. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a Friday Meme, too. I enjoy checking out the other sites and seeing what they have to post and say.

My anxiety comes in the evenings mostly, before bed. During the day… it’s like being an adult and being a child. When I was a child I didn’t have a choice about how I was treated or what my world was like. Now that I am an adult I do. In the evenings I don’t seem to be in control of my emotions as much, and I am not in control of my dreams at all. During the day I can be more like an adult and have more control on what I do.

So.. working today, blogging today, going home to watch Mona Lisa Smile with the husband. I wish I could get the Netflix widget to work on this blog.

I’m having major anxiety right now. It usually happens now, just before sleep. As I lie in bed waiting for sleep to take me away. I have to think of a story for myself or else my thoughts go round and round and they are not good thoughts. I am having PMS, it’s Day 27 today so I am at my peak.

I think I am a failure, and I have the most awful feeling of shame and anxiety and humiliation inside of me. It’s not as bad as before I was on the Sertraline, but it can still get pretty bad. I think my job is in trouble, and I wonder what the hell I am doing trying to do collie rescue. Talking to the people is so very stressful for me. Trying to find foster homes. Not sure how to be honest with people and at the same time not having much idea about what I’m really feeling under the anxiety and shame so I can’t express the truth because I don’t know what it is.

And as a physical representation of the anxiety I have a cold sore developing on my lip. It exploded into existence right after I had my navel pierced… that evening, and I was getting nauseous with nerves during and after the piercing. It hurt quite bad and now I am terrified that it’s not going to heal up again like it didn’t last time and that is just going to be the entire end of the whole world and my whole little life.

Writing about this does help, because one of the steps of getting over anxiety is to dispute irrational thoughts. The PMS hormones, the stress of the piercing, the stress of working with someone to foster Tony, my report at work still not working after months, all of this makes me feel like a total failure. But I can sit at home in my quiet and clean house (maids came today) and just be. Just be in the house and try to know that none of these things represent who I truly am. My soul and my spirit are still beautiful even if I am not able to do things and I am not perfect. I can be unperfect and I can have limits and I find those damn limits all the time.

So I am going to sleep now and I know that in the morning I’ll feel better, and in a couple of days my hormones will settle themselves again and I will hopefully be full of myself with confidence.