Em & Anxiety

Night Terror And Hyperventilating

I am currently up at 2:04 in the morning waiting until I can get up the courage and strength to go get a drink from donestaits unfortjnelg I don’t have anymore up here because I need to hit my weed pen like right now but I don’t trust my body to carry me all the way downstairs. I am shaking while I wrote this out and I am messing up hard but I just want to get this written down.

I still couldn’t move and I tried so hard to but I just couldn’t and then finally I was able to and I still felt half asleep and so I tried to close my eyes and just hope for the best but nope that didn’t work at all. I was hyperventilating after I woke up, I cried so hard and I was so close to waking up my boyfriend but we just went to bed about 45 min ago and he had trouble falling asleep because his neck is bothering him. He is currently snoring so loud but I honestly done care right now. I still feel very shaky, like I can’t breathe and extremely exhausted and scared. Like I don’t even know how to explain the feeling of just your whole body feeling terrified like shitting your pants terrified. I don’t know how I am going to fall back asleep after that one. I would rate this one a solid 4/5… not the worst one I have had but definitely a second. Now go get a drink and hit my pen because that’s the only way I have a chance of falling back asleep. Now it’s 2:15AM uggh

I had that real nightmare again. Like where it felt extremely real and the people were real and people that I have seen before/ work with and my bf and his family. I remember more things in the dream than what I will put on here because of info like where I work and stuff but pretty much I was at work and I was putting things away and then it skipped to me in my bfs room laying on the new bed (we are getting a new bed today from his grandparents since they are getting a new one) I am not excited at all. I hate change and expecially a bed and stuff and I will be at work so I won’t be here to see it and help. Anyways then his dad was there and mom and some guy that I knew at the time but I don’t remember now. My bf was laying with me and then he got up to go into the other room and then I never saw him again. His mom came in and tucked me in and covered me with two blankets and said she loved me and kissed me. I then slowly realized I was in a dream and woke up but I couldn’t move and my whole body was trying so hard to breathe and I realized I was hyperventilating, my whole body was shaking really bad and it wasn’t like a just the inside it was on the outside.

April Recap 2020

I might do these monthly recaps just to keep a little diary or something. I am always up for trying new things. Top Five Things:

I put my mental health first and quit a job that paid amazing but there were too many triggers
I started posting on my Instagram more and am connecting with other people who are dealing with similar things
I got an apple watch after wanting to get another one after I had to sell my old one years ago
One of my Betta fish died but I adopted another one that needed some help
Finally, man this is hard thinking about five of them… oh yes and made it through yet another month!

Not only has this covid-19 changed a bunch of things but we all have had to adapt and just make it through it one day at a time. I am also grateful for online doctors appointments because without that I wouldn’t be able to get in to see an ortho doctor for months. I can’t wait until my appointment on the 11th since maybe I will get some answers then. A little recap of how I hurt my ankle if you don’t already know. I fell down the stairs around the end of February. They took x-rays and I didn’t have any breaks or fractures and it was just a severe high ankle sprain. The ER sent me with an ankle brace and a follow up appointment with a family doctor. I went to that two days later and she put me in a walking boot until I went to the ortho appointment I scheduled for about two weeks later. Then all this Covid stuff happened and I canceled it because my ankle got a lot better. Then it started getting worse and worse and so I went to a walk in ortho clinic and they sent me away with wearing the boot and a follow up with ortho. Now this place is a smaller one and it isn’t my usual so it was worth a try but they were extremely rude and I don’t even want to get into it. The third guy I saw there was amazing and he said to just keep my appointment with who I usualy see because they can probably do more for me. So thats what the 11th is for. Anyways now I am wearing the boot while I work and the brace at home only if my ankle is hurting/ swollen.

This month hasn’t been the best but I have gotten through it and now we are going into May. Mothers day is coming up and then in June the farmers market opens up. As of right now they are still planning on doing it but with a bunch of precautions which I am more than fine with. Also every month done is one month less until Halloween! I love Halloween sooooo much!!!

Anyways I don’t really know what else to write about so I will leave it at that. If anyone wants to follow me on Instagram its called em_and_anxiety

Pain and Suffering Mentally Because Of A Job

I wanted to touch base a little bit on being mentally okay while working. A little bit of a backstory on my work history- My first job was as a cashier at Walmart for about two years. That was an amazing first job just because I really had to jump out of my shell and customer service hard core. You betcha I did! I love a challenge and my anxiety/ panic attacks were under control then so I didn’t really have that to worry about. Then I worked at Five Guys for about a year. I found out that I prefer a more store feeling rather than a fast food/ food industry. I left Five Guys when I was going through all my teeth problems and anxiety/ panic attacks from that… long story short, I had a terrible experience at the dentist and so now I suffer from stuff because of that.

Finally I am working at a pet store. I don’t want to name it because it is a smaller locally owned business and not a chain. I love it there so much! I have been there for almost a year now. The only thing that sucks are the hours and the pay because they are a smaller one. That’s why I looked for another job while keeping the pet store job as well and thats how I started at the fast food restaurant (I don’t want to name it) but its a bigger chain. I started and it was kinda good. There were some triggers that I couldn’t control and I would dread going back there. The pay was amazing as well as the hours. I lasted about three weeks and then I started to call off/ make excuses up to go home because I didn’t want to have another panic attack in the bathroom. I had a terrible ptsd attack, flashbacks and all, I would be in the bathroom for like thirty minutes and I would feel terrible about it but I can’t control it. I had to really think about my mental health.

I asked myself these questions. Is the money really worth it for the stress it is putting on my body? Will the job put a strain on my personal life? Can I deal with this for an extended amount of time?

I also talked to a couple of people and explained the whole situation. They agreed with me that I shouldn’t feel like that if I didn’t have to. Yes that money would’ve been amazing but my mental health and well being is worth more than any of that. I have been going back and forth about it and today I finally did. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me and I just feel so much better. I work at the pet store tomorrow all the way through Saturday and I don’t feel anything bad about it. I am excited because I love all things related to animals/ animal products.

Thank you so much for reading my blog post, if you made it this far check out my Instagram because I will be having a giveaway on there fairly soon! I want to reach a certain about of followers on here and there but I am working on it right now. I enjoy giving things away! Nothing big but still its fun. Instagram is @em_and_anxiety

Update On Working At A New Job, PTSD Attacks And Random Updates

I don’t think I have really mentioned about me getting a new job and still keeping the one at the pet store. So I was working part time at a pet store for about seven months and I absolutely loved it! I just wished it paid more and I could get more hours. I understand that it wasn’t possible so I just started to look for a new job and I wasn’t really looking to keep that job but then the assistant said why not just work one day a week and so thats what I am doing, so I still keep the job and also the discount. The discount is amazing! I believe it was like three weeks ago I started the process of working at a fast food place. They are always extremely busy. I am the front end so I work with customers mainly. I thought with this whole virus thing being hired would be put on hold but nope, thats not the case. I worked two days the first week and this is the second week and I have about 30 hours so thats amazing! I already worked two days and I have two more to go. That will be my schedule until they change it for this virus thing. I have mainly worked the drive through window, stuffing the bag with sauces and stuff and I took orders once. I closed the two previous shifts but I did get out of there thirty minutes early both nights. Closing will be very different once the actual dining room opens back up. Right now its just carryout and drive thru.

To be honest with you the first and second day I had a terrible PTSD attack because of one of my triggers and I was so close to quitting but I stuck with it because the money is amazing. I did have one attack yesterday but the day before was okay. I was just done with it yesterday but I am glad I stuck with it. It will get better but I am just taking it a day at a time. That’s all I can do, just a day at a time. I have this job because I want to start saving up for a car and get my license (again another trigger of my anxiety and ptsd). I just have to stick with this until I can complete that plan. My plan is to also get an apple watch because I had one a while ago but due to money issues I had to sell it. I bought it myself for my 16th birthday because well birthdays usually suck but that was until my bf arrived a year ago. I still hate birthdays and I always cry and just feel blah if that makes sense. Anyways so yeah I got a new job and I have worked four shifts so far and 3 out of the 4 I had ptsd attacks. I can’t really control that but I did get my tincture again and am taking it once a day like I was. I will make a post about my marijuana card and the products I have tried so far soon.

Yeah so I hope that makes sense a little but my new job is going okay. I just wish I didn’t have ptsd attacks and anxiety but I can’t remove myself from the trigger so I just have to deal with it. If anyone has anything that has helped them and or made it less please let me know! I am always looking to try things that will potentially help.

Dream Journal 3.29.2020

I am starting to keep a dream journal because I have been having more nightmares than usual. It won’t be every night because some nights I don’t have any or I just don’t remember them. Only the really vivid ones and the unfortunately scary ones I remember. I hope you enjoy the weirdness of my brain!

Part of a gang and we went to a hotel and were roller skating but I only had one leg and I did it for a second and then I fell and I started crying and they all left but one person came out and was helping me

In the room with my sister and the dog wasn’t allowed in the room so we put three crates stacked up on each other big on the bottom medium in the middle and the small one then we started doing work like counting cupcakes or something. We weren’t supposed to be up so when we heard noise we pretended to be asleep. The room looked like my boyfriends room, and when I tried to turn the light off I pulled the switch on the light and it was broken so it made the fan go faster so I had to redo the whole thing. Then I went to the bathroom and I guess my dad undid the whole sink under it because he thought it was leaking but it was just us making noise.

I was going on a bus with some girl for some event so she wasn’t alone and it was a long car ride and I didn’t know that and I had no drink and she did but she was drinking the Gatorade so fast and so I said I needed to get a drink oh and the bus driver was like I am sitting with her and some other girl and the two girls can watch something and share it. So we went to go get a drink and the girl turned into my boyfriend. I didn’t have enough cash and so I asked him if he had a dollar or if I could use his card cuz I don’t want to use mine and he said yeah but the boys in front of us said here I have a dollar and I declined and grabbed the dollar from my boyfriend. I got a Dr Pepper and I had some money leftover and so then it turned into an arcade and my bf won a stuffed animal from the claw machine game and then the arcade turned into giant eagle and we were buying stuff for the trip and his mom was there and I felt bad because I didn’t have money for anything but she asked if I needed shampoo and I said yes but just a travel size. Then I lost my Dr Pepper.

Gotta Love Insomnia and Anxiety Oh and BUGS!!

I am currently up at 8:44AM waiting for my weed to kick in. I do have a medical card just to get it out there. I woke up around 7:30 and just couldn’t calm down. So yesterday at work I had so many rude customers. The policies that the company put in place to help keep this whole virus thing contained made people yell at me! Like seriously just be glad we are open. We are a smaller pet store and so our store isn’t huge and we have the people wait at the front and we grab what they need, we are also holding on your returns and I had someone start yelling because of that. It of course has to happen when I am the only one there. I tend to always get the horrible people. So that wasn’t a great start to the day. I did get Longhorn after work and I still have my burger leftover. So my boyfriend and I wanted to clean the room a little and so when we were going through drawers of my bfs childhood stuff I took out a blanket and well you know the crunchy egg sack thing from beetle larvae or whatever.. yeah well they were in the drawer!

They fell on my lap and all over the carpet. My boyfriend put everything in a bag and tied that sucker up tight. The closer I looked in and around the drawer the more there were. Oh and to make it all so much better, some of them moved! There were some alive and wiggling. OH and to top it all off some beetles since some of them grew already. Last summer we had a terrible beetle problem in his room and we just thought they were coming through the window or something but we were terribly wrong. Then we got thinking what if they are in the whole dresser like in the wood and so we took out all the drawers and we were right. They weren’t in the other drawers but behind it and on the sides. Oh and the walls behind the dresser, the sides on the inside and underneath it had them! So I wouldn’t have a problem with them but the thing is I hate thinking that bugs can get into my ears, eyes, mouth and nose and like grow in there. I have a phobia of that happening. I had to make sure it was all gone before we were done cleaning. Now we don’t have a dresser because there was no way in hell that was staying in the room. We took it outside and we will be taking to the dump later today hopefully.

I still feel like they are everywhere in this room. I wish that I could’ve taken hours to clean but it was already past midnight. His parents probably would’ve said something if we kept cleaning. I just can’t wait until we can deep clean everything. I am going to clean a little bit more if I can’t fall back asleep. Anyway that made my anxiety skyrocket even more. Than to top it all off when I was finally falling asleep before my bf did, this was around 2:30, I was asleep for maybe 10 minutes and then I had that awake and not knowing and/ or seeing thing. When I woke up and was able to calm myself down I wrote what happened. I will include that here as well because in the moment its easier to write about it. Its just you know that feeling of being awake and actually being awake and having that feeling of just terror and panic. I couldn’t see anything besides blackness and I could hear my bf playing his game. Here’s what I wrote last night.

“Don’t remember falling asleep woke up but didn’t know I was waking up and everything was dark. Didn’t know where I was and what day/ time just remembered to call for my bf and it slowly came back to me. I couldn’t see anything just darkness and when I sat up I could finally open my eyes. I felt extremely scared and confused.”

I probably scared my bf because I screamed out and called for him. My heart was pounding and I could feel it in my whole body. It felt like I couldn’t breathe and it felt like I stopped breathing and was choking at the same time. After that I just couldn’t sleep soundly and everything woke me up. I slept for like two hours then my boyfriend came to bed. I then started to feel like I couldn’t take a deep breathe, it felt like I was forcing myself to breathe and when I did it felt extremely cold and numb almost. I don’t remember falling asleep and I probably should’ve hit my weed pen but I wasn’t thinking. Plus I need to go get more but I have to have my boyfriend drive me and its like a 20 min drive. I woke up many times during the night and then after this last time I just couldn’t fall back asleep. Now I will probably just play my game, eat something and continue watching Charmed (the original one not the stupid remake!). I feel very strongly about how they botched the remake of Charmed. I just hate feeling like this so much!

Coping With Anxiety About Covid-19

Let me just start off that I am considered an essential worker I work one day at a pet store and the rest of the week at a fast food place. I deal with people at both jobs but, it is limited and I try to just keep my distance. I am not so much worried about getting sick but its the puking part. I have emetophobia and this whole thing scares me. I get it that most people hate puking but I have a fear of it. I will avoid things that I think will make me sick. I won’t go on any roller-coasters, no boats because of the fear of being seasick. I also have zofran tablets I take in case I feel sick. I can’t go anywhere without it, I make sure I have at least two when I leave the house. I have certain foods I don’t eat because it either made me feel nauseous or I just think it will make me sick. Last night I had to force myself to eat the KFC we got because I was worried that the food would give me the virus and I would be sick.

Limit How Much You Read/ Watch About It

One way I try to calm myself down about all this is to limit how much I read about it. If people mention it or its mentioned on Tik Tik or something thats okay. I usually just scroll right past it or just limit how much I talk to that person about it. I don’t read everything that comes out about it and I sure as hell don’t watch the news. If I didn’t stop myself I would read everything about it and then my mind would make me think I was sick and would throw up. Yes almost everyday I get nauseous because of my anxiety but that I can manage most of the time. I usually just occupy my mind with something else and try to acknowledge I’m not going to throw up and it’s just my anxiety.

Keeping In Touch With Family

Another thing that gives me anxiety about all this, is worrying about my family and if they are going to get it. My grandparents are older and my grandmother has health concerns so it would be tough for her to get over it. My mother is also immunocompromised due to chemo and so that would be really tough on her. One way I have been coping with that is to talk to them daily and or throughout the day. I just ask them how they are doing or if they are feeling good. I am really bummed that I can’t see them right now but I know its for their good. I don’t even want to think about how I would feel if I thought I gave them something.

Precautions I Take That Make Me Feel Better

I know that you can only do so much but I try to do things that make me feel a little better. I just have been all panicky and anxious about this and I can’t wait for it to be over. I wash my hands a god amount, I don’t do it to the point where my hands are getting dry or anything. I am just being more aware of when I should. I am trying not to touch my face as much. Again just being more aware of not touching my face. I have hand sanitizer and my work has a big thing of it as well. I use it when I can’t get to the bathroom to wash my hands when I am dealing with customers. My work also provides gloves and so I use it when I am dealing with cash. I try to limit how much food I eat when its made in a fast food setting or restaurant. That has to do with the fact that I don’t want to throw up.

So yes, thats how I am doing right now. I am just trying to stay calm and not freak out completely. Yes I have had panic attacks so far about it but I’m still going to work and functioning. So that right there is a win for me. If you ever want to talk about anything you can message me on Instagram or leave a comment below.

My PTSD 3/26/2020

Last night around 11 until like 12:30 was a rough one for me. I don’t think I have had a bad one like that in over five/ six months. Usually my ptsd episodes are manageable and just less, but last night was terrible. I felt exhausted afterwards and just done with all this. I will try and explain how I felt and what I felt before. Every time is kind of different in a sense. I feel the same thing most of the time during but it is different. I will be making a post about my triggers and everything later on but I want to write this before I have to go to work at the pet store (the one that doesn’t have any triggers most of the time). I wish I could write down everything right after but it takes me a hot second to be able to do and process anything.

I was having anxiety that started a couple hours before I had my attack. I almost always get anxiety at night, I can’t remember the last night I didn’t have some kind of anxiety. I tried to just do other things to kind of take my mind off of it. I have the animal crossing pocket something game on my phone that I use as kind of a distraction. I also watch a ton of Tik Toks, like a ton! Then I smelled something like burning silver. I had no clue what that was and it freaked me out and made me more anxious and panicky. I smelled it again a second time as well. I now know thinking about it the day after that was just me smelling it but not smelling it if that makes sense. My mind tricked me into thinking I was smelling that. That smell was similar to the smell when I got into a car crash (which is one of my ptsd things). I didn’t even think that was what it was. Then I started to get shaky. Oh, and I do have to mention that sometimes things that happened are a bit fuzzy to me. My hands shake and my body does as well. I have chills kind of but I’m not cold, at least I don’t think so. I had terrible flashbacks last night about the crash. My mind just kept replaying the whole thing. I smelled everything, felt everything and just was there. It felt like it was happening again and I was stuck there and couldn’t move.

It feels so real and I can’t hear or see anything else. My boyfriend was there with me the whole time and I feel so guilty for making him go through that. I feel like a failure for making him help me even though when I am having that bad of one you just have to be there with me. He grabbed my weed pen (I will make a post about that later on), sometime during it. I don’t remember him asking me if I wanted it. I really needed it, I should’ve used it before it got bad but I’m so stubborn. I feel like a failure when I use it, and I should just get over it. I also feel very paranoid that people will smell it in the house. Most of the time I use it and blow it out the window but when I am having my attack I feel like I can’t move and so getting to the window is tough. When the flashbacks were done I calmed down and I still said no to the pen. I then started to feel it coming on again not necessarily the flashbacks but just the panicky feeling. I used it and it didn’t kick in fast enough. I probably used more of it than I ever had but the thing is last night was a tough one.

Then if it wasn’t bad enough, the show my boyfriend was watching had an explosion and well the ringing made me freak out. One of my things is the ringing noise like when the airbags go off in a car. I started to cry and then it finally kicked in. I was okay after that and I just watched some Tik Toks. I fell asleep before my boyfriend and when he was done watching stuff he came to bed. That was pretty much it but last night was a tough one. I hope that made sense to people and if you have any questions feel free to comment below. I am just glad that I don’t work at the fast food place today because I don’t really know if I could handle that today.

Welcome!

I just wanted to make my first post, well not my first-first post since this is my third time starting this blog up again after deleting all my blog posts. Gotta love my anxiety making me second guess myself and freak out that people are going to be rude and discouraging. My goal for this year is to take care of myself, not only physically but also mentally. Yes, I will have a bunch of bumps and hard times but we learn from that and move on. It is super easy to say these things but the hard part is going through with it. It is almost April and I feel like I haven’t done anything to better myself. I always feel like a failure and then that spirals into a panic attack. I will be talking more about how I feel daily and what helps and doesn’t help.

My goal having this blog is to connect with other people that are going through a similar thing as me. I do have an Instagram where I occasionally post, but I am hoping to post more often…. maybe daily, we shall see. My Instagram handle is @em_and_anxiety For anyone that followed me prior to me giving up on this blog, nothing much has changed. I still don’t have my license or a car, I am working at the pet store still but now I am working at a fast food place. I just started there two days ago but the thing is there is a trigger there that causes me to have ptsd.. That happened both days I was there. I applied to a grocery store as a cashier and as of right now I have a phone interview tomorrow. I am probably not going to continue at that fast food place. Again, I feel like a failure but I need to remember that things aren’t always going to work out. That’s pretty much it.. I am still the same old same old.

If anyone has any topics and or questions you want me to answer and cover in a post leave it in the comments or you can contact me on Instagram. I am always excited to hear from anyone! I don’t go out and do anything besides work, visiting family and spending all my time with my boyfriend. My boyfriend is my rock and I am so grateful for him. I can’t wait to grow this blog and meet new people.