Sunday, July 27, 2008

My old friend anxiety

It's funny because the hardest part about blogging for me is coming up with a post title. Do I go for pithy? Should I avoid pathos? My mind is foggy right now, so nothing is leaping to mind. Maybe a title will come to me after I write.

So, vacation is over. And unfortunately, it was just "ok." We had only 1 good day at the beach before Tropical Storm Cristobal came through. We were already leaving on Monday, so we ended up coming home on Sunday, a day early. It sucked because the tropical storm wasn't bad, but it was bad enough to make the ocean dangerous and cause it to rain all day, so we decided to head home instead of stay in our room. The food was just ok as well, and unfortunately, the bookstore wasn't open when we left. So it kinda sucked all around.

We had a good couple of days at home, though. We went to see The Dark Knight on Monday afternoon, and it was as good as everyone says it was. There is something very decadent about eating a large over-buttered popcorn at 2pm on a Monday when everyone else is at work :-) We've decided that our less-than-stellar beach trip means that we are going to try to plan another weekend in late September while it is still warm. I was able to read 8 books in the last week, though, so that was quite heavenly.

I was not thrilled to return to work. There is so much drama there. I've discovered that I think my real problem is anxiety more than depression, and I REALLY miss my medication. There are situations at work that are really stressing me out and making me anxious, and I'm having a hard time dealing with it. Intellectually, I know and I have been told by caring co-workers that the situations making me anxious are not worth it and don't matter in the scheme of things, but I can't turn off the worry and anxiety. I seem to go through a bad phase like this about 6 months. Last August/September was bad. Last January was bad and now here I am again. It's difficult for me because this drama and the situations play on my insecurities perfectly. My chief insecurity is that I am a fraud and have no idea how to do my job, am a screw up and that I'm going to be found out and humiliated. I've been dealing with this insecurity for a long time. Does everyone feel that way to some extent? Does it go along with being a perfectionist? I just wish I didn't care so much about everything. If anyone has any tips for quietening an over-active, anxious mind, I'm all ears.

In cycling news, AF arrived only 4 days after finishing progesterone. That is a record for me. I started BCPs on Friday. If everything goes as planned (ha ha ha), it's possible I could get the go-ahead to start stimming around August 19. That would be lovely, but I'm not going to count on it.

The clinic is being frustrating. The financial person we had worked with quit and the new one is not up to speed yet. Supposedly, the cycling calendars will be created and mailed to me and our surro next week, at which point we will be able to order meds. And my aspiration is Thursday and no one could tell Husband with confidence where the pre-op visit on Tuesday is. We were supposed to get a call from the hospital last week but didn't. Thankfully, Husband is on top of it. He lives for this sort of thing. Oh, we weren't able to get the aspiration rescheduled, so my next task will be to try to get them to agree to a light meal very early on Thursday morning. If not, I'll just have to suck it up and deal with it. I'm good at that by now, I think ;-)

And, now, to end this post on a more positive note, here are some pics:

Approach of TS Cristobal


Book, drink, beach


My front flower garden


Roses from my rose garden

5 comments:

niobe said...

Sorry about the vacation suckage. Were any of the 8 books something you'd recommend?

I have to say that I'm generally a pretty anxious person myself. What sometimes (though not always) works for me is to tell myself that I'm going to postpone my worrying for, say, three hours. Then, when my scheduled anxiety time comes around, I often feel so much better that I don't actually need to spend it worrying.

Nadine said...

Nice garden.
I get anxious (well on lupron mostly or when things are cr*p in my life). So here are my sure fire ways to kill worry and anxiety:
1. Forced worrying (whatever it is that I'm obsessed about I have to think about it for 5 mins/hour). Every hour, set an alarm, eventually I run out of things to think about and the worry goes away... you can only worry though during your worry time, and if a thought pops into your mind during a non-worry time you have to push it out to your specific worry time. it sounds like it won't work, but IT DOES.
2. Worrying to conclussion (ie: what is the worst thing that could possibly happen and how would I deal with it). For example - worst thing that can happen, I get fired, but that's okay I will get another job, because I have always found jobs in the past, therefore it makes sense that I will always find work in the future.
3. Yoga and meditation, I would never have gotten through an IVF cycle without it...
Can't wait to hear all about your up coming cycle!

Samantha said...

Nothing like being at the beach during a hurricane, eh?

FWIW, I think that stopping anti-depressants can also lead to a surge in anxiety independent of anything else that might be going on in your life. So maybe with a little more time, you'll feel more settled with your emotions.

My therapist has also recommended both ideas that the previous commenters espouse to help with worry!

sara said...

Sorry that the vacation didn't quite go as planned. I hope you are feeling better soon and I'm glad you at least got to catch a good movie. The popcorn sounds good. ((hugs))

Sanda said...

Loving your flowers :)
I think it's hard to have a completely good vacation if you're dealing with all this stuff regardless of the weather, but that most certainly doesn't help things.
I am wishing you the best on your surrogacy journey and I will be reading along! Hopefully we'll both have success stories next year!