The Mind Consumes You

So I had hoped to have a finalized sketch posted a couple days ago, as well as some colour work to show off that I've been poking at for the last couple of weeks.

It's been a bit of a struggle however.  I'm currently sick.

I try not to go into health things on here as that's not what this platform is supposed to be for, however, as this is impacting my work I thought I should shed light on at least generally what is going on with me.

I've had a severe relapse of my GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder).  It's a doozy to be honest and it's one of those things that kind of takes over your life in so many ways.  It's hard to explain what it's like to most people, but it's akin to: Imagine you were convinced you were dying.  All hours of the day.  You can't fall asleep because you think your about to pass away, you don't feel like eating because of the physical symptoms, of which there are a few, but one of which is a hit of nausea when you get an adrenaline spike.

And indeed, then there's the surges.  The adrenaline surges that can either just be random, or can be triggered by the craziest things.  I had one when I simply saw myself in the mirror yesterday.  I had another one when one of my cats meowed at me cutely and the subconscious suddenly wondered what would happen to them if I were gone.  They suck.

This started last week, while I was watching some gameplay video while on break, petting my other cat, Smokey, who was curled up in my lap.  I hadn't been sleeping well, only getting 4 hours that night, and suddenly on screen there was a 'jump scare' in this person's game.

My heart did a 'pause'.  Or  a flutter.  It's hard to explain it.  Sometimes I get them when I'm exhausted.  

I didn't think anything of it because it's happened before, but then it happened again, and I stopped the video.

..And so it began.  I started to feel my extremities go freezing cold, and I started to shake and feel nauseous.  Because of this, my anxiety grabbed ahold of this physical reaction and went. to. fucking. town on it.

It came with a side-effect I won't go into here, but a secondary was a spike in blood pressure, and some weakness.  My body stared doing the same shivers you get when you have a flu and can't seem to warm yourself up.

I consciously knew exactly what this was.  This was the same breakdown I had years ago just before COVID, as well as when my father's health was tumbling and I was overwhelmed.  This was an anxiety storm.

While the initial reaction did eventually pass into a more numbed and constant thrum of anxious fears, the moments of worry stayed at the same level until I had to take a medication just to sleep that night.

While those meds are fantastic at curbing the bullshit that comes along with GAD, they are also a controlled substance as the doctor put it, and they tend to not use them as long term solutions since they're habit forming.  I hadn't needed to take one of these tiny pills in over 8 months, and only had four of them left.  I'm down to two now, and likely one by tomorrow.  I have to ration what days I can sleep, and what ones I don't until I head to the doctor's next week.

There are natural ways of dealing with this of course.  Breathing exercises, going out for walks and practicing awareness, etc.  When it's this bad, however, that doesn't work terribly well.  It's hard to focus on 'self breathing' while your body is surging adrenaline through you randomly making you want to run off into the woods like a deer with an arrow in it's neck.

I have tricks to mollify my anxiety.  Often it likes to tell me I'm dying by: My blood sugar is too high/low.  So I check it, and it's pristine.  Then it tells me: Fine, but your heart is giving out!  So I ride for 30 min. on a stationary bike, get my BPM up to 120, and I'm fine.  Still, the little gremlin is unconvinced, and the one thing I can't fix becomes it's focus: My blood pressure.

This is already rambly enough I realize.  But I wanted to let patrons know that I'm slow for a reason.  I haven't forgotten to post here.. I'm raring to work and post here.  Up until last week I was excited to work each day to do cool arty stuff to show off.  But until I can get to the doctor's next week, my work will be spotty.  I'm going to be working on a sketch today, but I can't know what tomorrow will be like.  Some days are worse than others.

I hate this.  And I hate being here.  I hate even more that there's no reason for this nonsense outside of chemical imbalance.  I'm doing okay in life.  I love my new home.  I love the neighborhood.  I even like the neighbors.  My cats are doing okay, and health-wise, I was doing just fine up until last Wednesday.

I'm hoping a run of blood tests and a refill of the prescriptions can get this thing to shut up finally.  That's exactly what got it to stop the last couple of times (Well, one resulted in me going in an ambulance to the hospital, but still).  I had a blood test in December and heard nothing back, which they told me is good, because it meant they had nothing significant to go over with me.  Here's hoping this time it's the same news.

I don't even care if it's 'new meds' time, switch me to anything, I just want to get back to a day without brain/body freakouts.

My apologies to all of you.  I'll have some sketch-work done if I can maintain enough ability to do so.  Today is a moderate day, so I can get a bit of work done and hopefully posted.

-T.J.