Stress Archives - According to Denise

PYHO: I Get Nervous

31 Oct By Denise

It came on Tuesday night. I felt a little grumpy. Didn’t want to deal with people. I wasn’t sure what was wrong until I thought a little about it.

Friday I get on a plane to Chicago for the weekend. I am going to Bloggy Boot Camp.

And I am nervous. And it gets under my skin and makes me uncomfortable. So I get grumpy and withdraw.

When I went to Bloggy Boot Camp in Philadelphia in May, I was also nervous. But I had a secret weapon. My SIL Diane from One LoCo Mommy was with me so, in my mind, if I started to freak out I could simply clam up and she could do all the talking. I would still be social but by proxy. It was a genius plan.

I ended up being able to communicate fine on my own and walked away from the experience with new friends.

So why am I nervous now?

I guess because I don’t have that safety net even though I didn’t really need it before. It’s been a very long time since I hopped on a plane to a far off place all by myself.

My head knows that I will be fine. I am looking forward to the people I will meet there.

But I’m still nervous.

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: Anxiety, Blogging, On my mind, Stress

14 Comments

PYHO: Sometimes you have to up your meds

10 Oct By Denise

There has been a lot of struggle, tragedy and sadness lately. Some close and some far. I have a heavy heart for so many people lately.

For myself, I have been struggling as my anxiety and depression creeps back in. Who knows which came first, the sadness I’ve been seeing or the sadness I’ve been feeling. It doesn’t matter really.

I know that I have to step back and look at how I’m coping. Sometimes I can handle a little extra stress and sometimes I just can’t.

Honestly I hate taking medications. You would find that funny if you could see the pharmacy of crap I take for various things and my history of trying pretty much everything under the sun for my chronic migraines. I seem to be über sensitive to the side effects of most things. And, just for kicks, my body can come up with new and doctor stumping side effects. Like when an ADHD medication caused frightening suicidal thoughts and my doctor had never heard of that happening before but once I stopped the medication, they were gone.

So I try to avoid changes in medication or supplements as much as possible.

But after crying in two different neurologist appointments, I had to admit that, sometimes, you just have to up your meds.

So at my next psyche appointment we talked about options and decided a small increase would be good. It’s been about a week and a half and I can feel that it is taking the edge off a bit more that it was before.

I am still having nightmares though and trouble sleeping. I feel like there is still a cloud that I can’t shake yet.

But we’ll see how it goes. I have gotten pretty good a paying attention to my body and mind. Writing out my thoughts and feeling in this space has helped me to understand myself better.

It’s a journey, this life thing. Ups, downs, loops. What a ride.

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: ADHD, Anxiety, Chronic pain, Depression, Getting personal, Headache, Meme posts, Migraine, Stress, Working on myself

14 Comments

What Is It With 39?

8 Aug By Denise

When a friend of mine turned 39, she wasn’t taking it well. She was grumpy and just not herself. She fully admitted that her feelings about turning 39 weren’t rational. I recall thinking to myself, “what’s the big deal, it’s just another year.”

Well as we hit August and my 39th birthday is looming, I now know EXACTLY how she felt.

I am feeling grumpy about it. Angry, even. And sad. Very, very sad.

Because I am pretty sure I am part Vulcan, I have to try to think through and find some rational and logical reason for these feelings. So I started to think about what turning 39 means to me. How is it different than other years?

And I promptly had 2 panic attacks a few days apart. So it would appear that this birthday coming up is pretty damn important.

When I turned 30, I was pregnant with T and we welcomed him a few months later. Our blended family was expanding. We welcomed A when I was 31. The beginning of this decade of my life was going well.

Then things changed.

After A weaned, my hormones went insane affecting all sorts of things. Then my grandfather died and I was depressed for months. I got hit with anxiety which brought along with it bouts of lightheadedness and vertigo. And, of course, my chronic daily headaches got immensely worse.

So although my 30s started off well and full of hope, by 33 I was descending into a huge hole that I would spend the next 6 years trying to climb out of.

And I am still trying.

So I think the big problem I am having with turning 39 is that I am entering the last year of this decade of my life and the decade has pretty much sucked.

Not to say that there haven’t been good and happy times but there are always storm clouds looming overhead.

A migraine or depressive episode or panic attack can rain on any fun parade at any moment.

And realizing how hopeless that makes me feel, of course, brought on the panic attacks.

So I am trying to find a positive spin on turning 39.

Every day is a new opportunity to make better choices, to improve my life, to try to fix what is broken.

I can keep working to improve my well being in this last year of my 30s and make my 40s a better decade.

I am not hopeless. I can be hopeful.

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: Anxiety, Depression, Mental Health, Migraine, Stress, Working on myself

18 Comments

Calm My Crazy: Meditation

3 Aug By Denise

Well this week has pretty much sucked. My migraines decided to up the ante and make me miserable. So I can tell you it was difficult to find a little happy and calm for this week.

Although I didn’t read the post from my friend Ilene over at The Fierce Diva Guide To Life at that moment, when I saw the title, I knew exactly what she would be writing about. And just like she was tuned into what I needed when I needed it, I decided to try some meditation (again). (BTW, I did finally read the post and it, of course, spoke right to me. She seems to see into my soul like that.)

I have some meditation books and I’ve meditated in the past. One of the many things in my life that I know helps, but I never seem to make time for.

So I got the kids off to camp, came home and set myself up for a 10 minute meditation. Although the dogs decided that was the best time for them to lick and nuzzle my hands to try to get attention, I still managed to relax, focus and let go.

The next day I added some ocean sounds to remind me of the calm and beauty of the beach. It worked quite nicely.

I was able to quiet my mind (mostly) and let go of a little stress.

I plan to continue fitting in that 10 minutes as often as I can. I’m trying for everyday. And I plan to get back into yoga to help with quieting my overactive brain.

It is really good to sit quietly and let all the spinning in your head wind down. It’s easy to get numb to all the thoughts going round and round and round. I also have a nasty negative self talk habit in my head so it is good to turn that off, if only for a little while.

So take a few minutes to still your mind each day. I know I will keep trying to.

Check out this post to find out more about the Calm My Crazy meme. This weekly post is for me and for you. A place to share our moment of calm. Something that brings us a little peace and happiness in a world of crazy.

Filed Under: Calm My Crazy Tagged With: Meditation, Stress

10 Comments

Stress is no fun

21 Mar By Denise

Do people still use pressure cookers? I am not much of a cook, obviously, but I remember my mom tossing in the potatoes and roast beef and then putting on the lid and little wobbly knob on top.

As dinner would cook the knob would wobble and steam would escape.

It’s quite brilliant actually

Where can I get one of those knobs for me?

I have been referred to affectionately as a “stress monkey” by my peers.

I have difficulty letting go and letting stressful things roll off me.

I wonder if I was like that as a child? I honestly can’t recall.

But as an adult, I feel like a magnet for stress and I am incapable of letting that go and releasing the pressure.

I have searched for ways to destress and I am honestly trying various things. But I still find that I simmer and simmer and simmer until the stress explodes out and I feel completely broken by it.

I’m looking for my knob.

How do you release some of the pressure?

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: Meme posts, Mental Health, Stress, Working on myself

6 Comments

I Feel Broken

26 Oct By Denise

“I feel broken and I don’t know how to fix it”

I utter these words to my husband through tears.

I have been fighting the abyss for so long.

I have no energy to make change.

I have no more fight in me.

I feel betrayed by my body and my mind.

Honestly I haven’t made any real progress or real change in a long time.

I move through my days trying not to let myself crack open, not to let myself drown in the waves of stress and sadness.

But I just can’t change it.

I’ve been feeling the stress building.

I’ve been losing my battle with the waves and when I go under I wonder if I’ll come back up.

And then I broke.

It is all crashing down.

I’m buried by debris.

Forced under the waves with no fight, no energy to surface.

I look around and all I see is broken pieces.

Sadness.

Hopelessness.

The mess of my existence is completely overwhelming.

“I feel broken and I don’t know how to fix it”

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Note to my caring and wonderful readers: This is how I felt a few weeks ago. I was able to make some changes since then and I actually feel a lot better. I will post more about that later. I wanted to share these feelings but I waited until I was able to. Smooches.

Filed Under: Health and Wellness Tagged With: Depression, Getting personal, Meme posts, Stress

22 Comments

Sometimes I Cry

6 Sep By Denise

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It has been stressful lately. Between stress at home and stress at work, it sometimes feels like there is no place where I can truly relax, truly just be without the feelings of worry and sadness and urgency of life. I must admit that I have turned to the one place that some feel is most impersonal in order to find a bit of myself.

I started blogging because I wanted a way to share the day to day with friends and family by more than just short status updates on Facebook. I realized that I really love to write about our lives and my thoughts. I don’t always have folks commenting on my posts but I feel like there are people out there who read and get me. Some know me in real life and some don’t.

I’ve been connecting on other blogs more now than before. And I am finding that there are many people out there who have some of the same thoughts, feelings, and struggles I do. I haven’t written much about my darker, deeper struggles but I’m finding that when I’m ready, there will be people out there who understand and can connect with what I am writing.

I was inspired by I post I read on Sluiter Nation to admit something dark and personal.

Sometimes I cry. Actually, sometimes I cry a lot. Because I struggle with depression.

Am I always sad? No, not always. But there are hills and valleys with my emotions. I can be happy and fine and then I dip into sad and not fine. It’s something I have to deal with while still being a wife, mother, employee, etc, etc.

And it is hard.

I guess looking at it objectively, you could say that I’m pretty strong to be able to keep going when the depression hits. But I can tell you it doesn’t feel that way.

Read Katie’s post. That’s how it feels.