What's On My Mind

“So, what’s on your mind today?”

“I don’t know. My brain is a mixture of thoughts, feelings, and worries that constantly tries to cripple me. My mind is filled with anxiety and it doesn’t go away. Distraction only works for a short while. Otherwise, I am plagued with intrusive thoughts and feelings every single day. My brain takes advantage of my emetophobia and makes me nauseous every time I try to do something it doesn’t want me to do. I hate feeling that way and I get scared when that happens. It forces me to retreat and wait for the feeling to leave. I can’t function while I feel bad.”

“I’ve always been emetophobic, but it’s never been this much of a problem. Lately I can’t go on simple car rides around my neighborhood without feeling icky. My brain doesn’t even find my neighborhood safe. I can’t go to therapy appointments; I had a bad experience my first time in my office’s new building and now I’m scarred. I can only do online appointments. Once I managed to do one in my mom’s car in the parking lot of the building, but I was very nervous. Every time I’ve tried to go since has been a failure.”

“I can’t do simple things that I used to be able to do anymore. I can’t go get bubble tea, I can’t visit my friends, I can’t go to the grocery store. I can’t watch shows or movies that have any suspense because that triggers an, “oh, you should be anxious about this,” thought. I cry so much easier these days too. I was never a crier. I used to pride myself on how little I cried, but then this happened. Now I bounce back and forth between sharing everything and not wanting to talk about it. There is no in between.”

“I’ve tried so many things. I have small sticks with a wick of essential oils inside each one; I have one for anxiety and one for nausea. I find myself using the nausea one most since that’s how I feel when I’m anxious. I tried multiple as-needed meds which didn’t work at all. I tried one longer-term medication but it didn’t work either. If anything it made the intrusive thoughts worse and gave me depression for a short while. Then I moved to a different medication, which hasn’t worked in the three weeks I’ve been taking it. I just increased my dosage in hopes of it starting to do something.”

“Besides my body resisting anxiety meds, my brain resists mental therapy. I’m a generally smart person and my brain doesn’t believe that any of the things I’m taught to do will work. I’ve done both regular and EMDR therapy and my brain resists that as well. At this point it’s hard to sit in front of a computer screen and talk with my therapist. My mind believes that she’s a threat and will make me anxious whenever I have to talk to her. It’s completely ridiculous, but no matter what I do, nothing makes me feel better.”

“My focus has been on trying to fix this major problem. I’ve been going out driving every day with one of my parents, whether it be going to my therapy office or simply around the neighborhood. The goal is to expose me to the anxious feeling so that I can get used to it and make myself see that there’s no harm outside. However, that doesn’t feel like it’s working. Maybe I can be positive about it in my more optimistic moments, but right now it feels like nothing is getting any better.”

“The other night I had a very bad anxiety attack. I’m not even completely sure that anxiety was the whole reason behind it. I had been stuck at a boss in a video game and I wanted to try and defeat it, but it made me so anxious that I had to abandon the controller. I went upstairs to my room, but moved into my bathroom when the nauseous feelings got worse. I didn’t get sick, but I think I would have if I hadn’t forced myself not to. I don’t even know if anxiety was the entirety of it, since it lasted for hours. I felt the worst I had in a long time, and spent the day after recovering. My stomach needed time to settle. I stuck with eating foods you’re supposed to eat after getting sick just to make sure I would be okay. Still, I’m absolutely paranoid.”

“It’s the day after my recovery day. I’ve eaten fine all day but for some reason I’m feeling anxious before dinner. My family is eating without me because for some reason I am afraid. I don’t know why I feel anxious, but I’ve been thinking about what happened the other night. I’m so afraid that it’s going to happen again. I’m so afraid that from now on all of my anxiety attacks will be like that. Logically, I know that has to be false, since I’ve had multiple moments yesterday and today where I’ve felt anxious and they were nowhere near as bad as the other night. Still, I’m so scared.”

“I don’t want to be anxious anymore. I just want to live my life without having to worry about when it will strike me. I don’t want to worry about going places, whether it be the ride there or the stay. I want to enjoy my life without feeling terrible every day, and I don’t want to be paranoid anymore. I just don’t know how to get rid of this. I’ve been trying so hard for almost five months now, going out on short drives and making steps. Now I’m afraid all that was for nothing. I’m so unbelievably sad and I feel hopeless. I just want all of this to be over.”

“You have a lot of stress placed on you. I want you to know that you can’t blame yourself for anything. It is not your fault that you feel this way and you have to try and stay positive. Please continue to try and work through this. Continue trying to show your anxiety who’s boss. You can do it. I believe in you. Your family believes in you. Your friends believe in you. Everyone you know believes in you. What you are going through is not easy. Keep practicing and keep breathing. Take time to focus on healing yourself. I know you can do it.”

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I shed a few tears writing this. Things have been so hard recently and I needed to let it all out. Hopefully things will get better soon. I’ll keep trying. To whoever needs to hear this: you are not alone. You have a village of people who love you.