Good evening, dear reader(s), I come to you later in a day filled with a lot of fear—what’s been happening for a stretch of days is I wake up extremely fearful that I am not OK in my present situation here in my cluttered home, and I spend the morning and afternoon not doing anything to bring more order to my environment, rather spending hours ruminating about how awful things are. Now this couldn’t be further from the truth, I have a loving husband, family and friends; I am mentally stable (besides the breakthrough anxiety); I have Dr. Levy and therapist Dick Fetter, AA sponsor Shawn and many AA friends. I am not homeless living under a bridge.
Maybe the problem is Fetter has been on vacation for two weeks, so we haven’t had the last two therapy sessions. Plus Shawn has been on vacation in Thailand during the exact same stretch of time. So two key components of my support network haven’t been in place. I’m pretty sure that’s the issue here, so I just have to keep telling myself everything is gonna be OK and these people will be back seeing me regularly next week.
I’m sitting here shaking my head because 6 months ago I wasn’t contending with anxiety, I was out in manic La La Land, it’s so confusing and maddening to me how everything can completely flip and change course. I’m not saying I want to be back in manic psychosis, absolutely not, I just think I’d be handling things better right now if I didn’t have to contend with this fear issue every day. But there was a bright spot today, I had water aerobics this afternoon and the exercise completely eliminated the anxiety I was feeling. So I think I need to be doing a lot more of this!
My sleep has been very good, knock on wood, and that’s a great relief. My eating is good and very healthy. Basically my overall health is very, very good, nothing to worry about there. I’m trying to bathe more and Michael always reminds me to brush my teeth. My clothes are clean, so when it comes to hygiene I’m in good shape. Things are definitely not dire, I just need to tackle my living space, which has been an issue for years. I asked Michael to help me, he said he would, so soon I will start on the guest bedroom. Small steps, I can do it.
I completed my writing assignment for this week’s group, on travel, so I’m looking forward to a discussion on that on Saturday. Tomorrow we are going to see the movie “Oppenheimer” with mom then out to dinner afterwards. Should be fun. I guess I need to treasure these times when the anxiety is at bay, right now I’m feeling relaxed, actually. I don’t know if this is because I took my bipolar meds 2 hours ago, they are fresh in my system, or maybe it’s night time and I’m winding down? It’s just fingers crossed that tomorrow morning I’m not fearful again, I wonder if I can somehow train myself to stay focused on the good things going right for me?
It may be time for a Gratitude List again, perhaps I log one here tomorrow. OK, that’s it for now, I’m gonna browse through some old entries to get some insight into my “manic mind” with hopes that I can become less afraid of what might happen should I get sick again. Sleep tight tonight, Melissa, take it easy on yourself. Stay in today, dammit.
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