by lynne66 » Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:32 pm
After one year and nearly a couple of months free, I am starting to have some serious anxiety issues. I can't blame PAWS for all of that however, but I do wonder.
As I kept mentioning, I was mostly depressed and irritable with Seasonal Affective disorder for most of my year free. I was put on a low dose of medication for that and a mood stablizer. Well, as soon as it started to brighten up around here more and more, I found I didn't need the medication and suddenly I am hit with severe anxiety some days. I don't really believe this is due to the medication withdrawal because I was on so little and tapered myself off.
It's like the kind of thing where you would think ok, no big deal - just channel it into something productive, but it's the kind of anxiety that is so ungrounding that you can't calm down enough to focus it and everything feels like a cluster f**k trying to get done. And the day passes by very quickly and before I know it, I have not done what I thought I'd get done by then. I have felt at times like my heart was pounding out of my chest - like today. Everything seems unreal.
I don't think I have had this level of anxiety in my life since my early twenties and late teens. I used to have full on panic attacks where I had to leave wherever I was and get somewhere I felt safe. I wasn't a big chronic weed smoker back then and the times the worst of these happened, I was off anything for a year.
I am now seeing that I definitely self-medicated with weed. And I thought that even though the anxiety was an issue while smoking weed, it seemed to be more of a controlled anxiety in that at least you know exactly what it was and that it would wear off in an hour. This other anxiety seems to hit whenever and last all day - sometimes 2-3 days.
Anyway, I have been paying a lot of attention to my dreams and writing them down. This causes me to remember them more and reflect if there is anything in there for me as I study Carl Jung and Marion Woodman.
I honestly have been feeling like relapsing lately because I am so miserable at times due to all the stress I've been under and not feeling like I can get my life where I want it, let alone enjoy it. I feel like I've been mostly just surviving. I'm either really tired or too anxious to settle down to anything. And then all this anger came up and still bothers me all this time after quitting.
But this one dream was interesting because someone said to me in it, "Well, with not being involved in your addiction, it's like you get to sit up straight for everything now."
I do feel like I have been doing that this whole time, but sometimes I just feel completely overwhelmed and like I am sick of taking it and not having other things work well enough that used to help me more in the past - yoga, meditation.
And again, I can't blame all of this on anyone thing because I also see that I am putting a lot of stress on myself too, whereas before I was involved in somewhat hiding out from stress.