Anxiety

I've talked about my anxiety before. The anxiety, the depression, and how those things make me feel. But I've never really discussed how my anxiety effects me, how I react to it, or what the results of an attack are. Everyone experiences their anxiety in different ways. If someone is prone to anxiety attacks, their attacks will effect them differently and they'll react differently from someone else. This is an important topic and something that is very close to me and effects me as a person. 

Besides my anxiety, I have pretty bad anger management issues. From my experience, my anxiety tends to exasperate my anger. I get upset about something messing up, not going my way, or something I just can't wrap my head around, and my anger gets the best of me. Depending on how much it effects me, I will tend to have bouts of screaming, I've scratched myself, pulled my hair, thrown things and slapped myself and other objects in my rage. And while all of that anger is happening, I'm also hyperventilating, crying, and my brain is going a millions miles a minute. My anxiety can get so out of control it triggers the anger in order to gain some kind of control. If I'm angry, I should be in control, right? 

On Saturday, halfway through my regular shift, I began to panic. It was over something really stupid, a misunderstanding between Jon and me. As I became more anxious I started to get angry. The first panic attack ended because I dug my nails into my arm until I could breathe. The second one I wasn't able to end, even though I left red scratch marks on my neck and pulled my hair. The pain can usually snap me out of things, force me to calm down and breathe. I don't condone self harm as a viable method for calming yourself down. But it wasn't until something funny happened in the store that allowed me to laugh and forget what I was so upset about. 

I decided to share about my anxiety because it's a huge part of who I am. Even if it's not something I love or would even like to live with, it's a part of me and I must deal every day with it. It's important for people to know there are others out there who struggle like they do. I struggle every day to keep myself calm, and I wish I had someone I could talk to openly about my anxiety and anger, but I just don't have time to see a counselor now.

I've gotten the suggestion of pills, someone even specifically asked me to talk to my doctor, but I don't want to. I don't want to rely on a pill to make me feel better, to keep me from panicking and getting angry. That control should come from me. Even if it's really hard. 

I hope there are people out there who can relate to this and will find some comfort that they're not alone. If anyone has questions or just wants to talk, feel free to message me through Google+. 

Thanks guys,

Kaylee

PS- I am going to start the process of setting up a blog email for questions and things of that nature. I don't want to use my google email for blog business.