Anxiety

I have been an anxious person my entire life. Most people never realized that, including, I think my family. I come by it honestly; my grandmother is anxious and has serious sleep issues, along with vertigo and high blood pressure. I have everything but the high blood pressure. My first memory of anxiety was me crouching under a seat at a Washington Bullets game at a young age (five? seven?), crying as the crowd roared around me.

After Sicily was born, things got out of control. Anxiety attacks came without warning and resulted in fainting and puking, more often than not in public places. Best time ever was when I almost fainted driving on the freeway in DC, trying to get to an airport, with Sicily in the car. We managed to pull over somewhere, on a completely deserted and dark highway, where I proceeded to black out outside of the car while Sicily's anxious little face peered out at me through the backseat window. She was six.

After that incident, I went to the doc. He was a moron. To keep this short, I eventually diagnosed myself with anxiety and told him what to prescribe me.

The best part of my doc is that he will give me whatever I want. #Priceless

So now I deal with it as best I can. Dane produced a lot of anxiety for me (those who know him understand why), but the world in general just makes me anxious. I have to monitor my news consumption. I have to watch what I eat. I have to have some sort of routine.

And when I travel, especially in airports, I have to medicate myself. So I popped my first pill about an hour ago, as I can feel it rising already.

And I HATE IT.

The medicine is pretty benign. I take it, and 30 minutes later I sort of forget I am anxious. It doesn't knock me out; it just allows the worrying part of my brain to shut off. So it's pretty perfect, fairly low dose, and very effective.

However.

I hate having to rely on this medicine to do things people take for granted. Like go to a mall. Or a sporting event. Or a concert. It is this cloud that hangs over me, and everywhere I go I take this bottle of pills. It works, it's easy, and I manage it pretty well (a huge change from Sicily's fifth birthday where I spent three hours on the floor on the bathroom in the Georgia Aquarium. Not one single person asked if I was okay. Not one. And there was little Sicily, standing so patiently in the stall while I repeatedly passed out and threw up and passed out and threw up. #Awesome), but still. It doesn't leave me as sharp and interested as I would like to be, and I feel like I miss things.

This goes back to being able to just let go. Nearly impossible.

Working on it. Just letting go. Letting whatever happens, happen. Being unfazed.

Those of you that know me are chuckling. Not my MO. But I am trying.