anxious about my anxiety.
I’ve completed my 3-week partial hospitalization program, where-in I learned DBT skills in a group setting.
The program provided me with tools to calm and cope, but my biggest take away was the structure. For 4 days a week, 6 hours a day, I had somewhere to go and the ability to check in with professionals as to how I was feeling.
The timing of this program was seemingly perfect, completing it right before an annual girls trip with my favorite broads in Omaha - a semi-annual pilgrimage to Mexico to soak up sun and eat all the seafood we could plunder.
The loss of Josie on my last week of program shocked me to my core. I still feel pangs of sadness and grief occasionally, especially upon arriving home. Her absence at the door cuts sharp and deep. Without her begging me for a walk or hike has noticeably affected my waistline.
I’m struggling tremendously with filling my day. I have my morning and nightly routines down pat: wake up around 7/8am and hop onto the yoga mat. At night I take olanzapine an hour before bedtime and it dulls the sharp edges of day and lets me drift off quickly after crawling under the sheets and turning off the lights.
The in-between time is still gray and unknown. I find myself being anxious about my anxiety. I look back at my time on Wellbutrin as being positive: giving me energy and spryness to romp around the woods and actively recreate to my hearts content. Now, it seems, I can barely muster the energy to go to the library and do my research, let alone finish the books I’ve taken out on loan.
I have paint by number and cross stitch kits, already collecting dust.
I don’t do well sitting still. And I feel my waistline growing and clothing not fitting as it did two weeks ago.
It’s so basic and vain to be so concerned with my looks at this time, but it haunts me and reminds me of my years being so self-conscious. My self-esteem was at such a high rate - when I was manic.
Docs and therapists don’t want me to return to Wellbutrin, as it may cause more anxiety and more mania. I plead, “but I drank while I was on it. And smoked a lot of pot! Surely now that I’m sober it will be different this time!” Time will tell, they say. Must find a baseline.
But what if my baseline is a deeper depression. What if I am bipolar. Would that be such a bad thing? Maybe I should start running towards those rushing waters rather than running away in shame.
