I don't understand anxiety. For most of my life, I regarded whatever I was feeling as symptoms of depression; anxiety was just a word. Earlier this year after a brief breakdown, I met a doctor I feel really good about. He has sincerely helped me expose a number of issues which had been haunting me for almost twenty years over the past year of seeing him intermittently. Even brief sessions with him have been really helpful as he identified that I don't have a human outlet in my life right now because of some of the traumas I've had to go through. 

I was prescribed Ativan in January. Although I knew something was "wrong" with me, I didn't "believe" in medication. It was almost just as depressing to confirm that I WAS sick enough to need medication - at least before I could fool myself into thinking maybe I was okay. Before I was prescribed Ativan, I was smoking very large quantities of weed to combat feeling "wrong". I don't really believe the weed helped or made it worse - I don't think it did much of anything for what I was feeling nd the fact it wasn't "working" may have added to the anxiety; not the effects of weed itself. 

The doctor was well aware of what I had been doing to cope and prescribed Ativan along with an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication. He explained a majority of what I was feeling was like a state of constant panic. That I had been stressed so far my automatic response was to fear everything to it's extreme. I took the medication for a brief period of time and the Ativan did work to some degree - I was able to clearly acknowledge the physical side effects "anxiety" was having on me and how that was fogging my everyday judgement of things. 

Although I've never actually "recovered", I've gotten slightly "better" in the past year but I am still struggling. I feel now I am struggling with the idea of why anxiety is existing in myself the way it does. For example, the past few months I've been mostly "okay"; no big breakdowns or huge stresses or contemplation of serious suicide. However, my living situation was not ideal and I had ended up there through a prolonged stress/trauma of the outcome of leaving an abusive relationship. I really wanted to change my living situation and move back to the area I felt most comfortable in with the most amount of friends and general opportunities for me. I actually managed to find a place - which was kind of amazing and I felt very proud and the place was/is very nice right in the center of everything I like to do. 

When it came to physically moving (for the second time in one year) it had the usual stresses of moving that most people encounter - not enough boxes, too many boxes for the vehicle, stairs, not enough people to move etc. I even know that moving is considered one of the top five stresses for human beings next to death and public speaking but this move was mentally stressful on both me and my partner, whom I otherwise have a fairly healthy relationship with (barring our own personal mental demons). I don't believe either of us truly understood why we were so mentally stressed out from this - it wasn't what was occuring that was creating anxiety but our individuals thoughts which created tension between us and escalated to serious arguments and moderately hurtful words exchanged. 

We got over this and completed the move but I still felt so incredibly drained I did not know how to proceed. I didn't even want to sleep in my new place, I didn't want to unpack, I didn't want to eat or shower - everything was too overwhelming. It took me probably two days to recover and feel okay about living in this new space, despite there being no problems at all with the new arrangement. Within a week, I lost my wallet with all of my ID - I honestly think I accidentally threw it out. The bank won't even help me replace my cards without my ID and some of the IDs cannot be replaced without already existing ID. It's a whole process; but losing my health card (I'm Canadian) definitely adds to some of the "anxiety" as I no longer have access to my doctor until it can be replaced. I was already considering a visit to talk about the moving anxieties but now I have no choice but to deal with it on my own; along with replacing all of my ID.

Today I lost my keys. Well, I thought I lost my keys. I had arranged a ride (after two failed attempts) to get a piece of paper tht might help speed up the process of replacing my IDs and was headed out when I couldn't find them. I live in a single room basically and had only spent a few hours in it - it turned out to be under a container I happened to move before taking a nap but I wasted an hour and my ride was fairly annoyed and couldn't understand why I was beginning to freak out so hard about losing a set of keys I could easily replace.

And although it's "easy" it meant spending money I don't really have, going to more public spaces and just dealing with this whole new set of things and I don't understand why it's all such a problem for me? Sometimes it's not. Sometimes, on really good days, I can accomplish more than the average person. But then it's four days of "nope, absolutely not" when I consider anything that takes me more than ten minutes from the room I know I have a right to be in - I paid for it. I am absolutely clueless to how anxiety is running my life and yet I can still identify that it's absolutely running my life. I cannot do anything without it feeling like the end of the world but then sometimes I can. You know, today stepping on to a bus to get this paper felt like literally climbing a mountain and I live less than one minute from a bus stop. But I don't want to be on a bus, I don't want strangers to sit beside me or touch me or maybe talk to me or maybe today is the day the weird homeless guy is taking the bus and he wants to talk to me because I'm timid and can't say no. Or what if some guy hits on me and I'm stuck on the whole bus ride with him and even if I tell him no what if he continues and what if it's a scene? It's happened before, more than once. 

But tomorrow? Maybe it would be totally fine. I'd wake up with the purpose of riding the bus, I'd make that one minute walk to the bus stop and get on the bus and maybe have a friendly conversation with the weird homeless guy and it would be okay but why is it okay tomorrow and not today? What do I not see that's happening inside of myself that makes today "too much" but tomorrow an average day? Do I have an illness? A disorder? Can I recover? I have anxiety about my anxiety and people tell me "not to think", just "meditate on it" - and that's fine. I "get it". Clear my brain of these what ifs and questions I have until the moment it happens again and it's this endless cycle of pushing it away and pushing it away.