864 Emails (or how I never met a self help newsletter I didn't like)

Share a link to an online quiz that will help me discover my inner goddess archetype I’ll happily offer up my email to see the result. 

Maybe you can tell me what inner block is holding me back from being my best self – just send me a link for your free webinar on the five things that hold all women back and I’ll sign up in a flash.  

Better yet, send me an offer for an online meditation/self-compassion/embodiment/learn-how-to-love-yourself conference where I can get access to 96 free webinars ALL WEEK LONG.  I’ll take that, here’s my email address.  Thank you very much. 

Send me something that tells me how you can make me a better, more whole, more happy human being and I’ll hand over my email address without a second thought.  Some might even call me a sucker.  

I, like most of us, am just looking for some answers.  I want to find out why I’m not happy.  Why I’m not the success I want to be.  Why I’m not so many other things that I believe I should be.  And if you want to send me a little hope in my inbox, I’ll take it. 

Even though on some level, I know that hope is not the ultimate goal here.  The goal is to get me to sign up for a workshop, or an online course, or for a women’s spirituality group, or whatever variation of the happiness promise you have to offer.  For only $90-$500 a month I can take your course, connect with others just like me, learn to love myself, manifest my dreams, and, yes, yes (if I buy the bonus package) – I get to be a part of your exclusive Facebook group.  But I sign up anyway because hope is a thing I want to grab on to.  

Which is why this morning I found myself staring at a notification of 864 unread emails.  As I scrolled through my inbox I saw the same addresses over and over again.  Many were some variation of spirit this or that, with subject lines that included everything from astrology to women’s circles to inner peace; keywords – goals, manifest, Yes!, now, and you too can... 

I decided I’d had enough.  

It took me an hour and a half to review my inbox. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing any personal emails buried amongst the self-help hurricane my inbox had become.  I also wanted to keep the few I was actually interested in.   In the end I unsubscribed from 65 email newsletters, most of which I’d never bothered to open let alone read, and I stayed subscribed to 8 that I actually read on a regular basis. 

I know there is no easy solution for depression, anxiety, or self-loathing.  There is no shortcut to processing trauma, reprogramming my brain towards healthier coping patterns, or self-acceptance.  It is all process…process…process…stumble…process…process.  

For me it is also a lot of hard work…but it is work I need to be doing if I want to do more than just exist.  

The fewer distractions, the better. 

Peace.

If you'd like to support my work and my healing journey, please considering joining my Patreon Page:  Joie Grandbois-Creatrix  --  Thank you.

My Catastrophic Thinking...

Content warning:  This post includes discussion of extreme anxiety and some of the less than healthy ways I have dealt with in the past.  It does reference self harm and substance abuse. 

In the world of "You are not alone..." today I'm pondering my habit of catastrophizing. There was a meme that went around social media not too long ago:

Anxiety Girl - able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound!

 
Catastrophic thinking is like that, except I don't just go to one worst conclusion, my brain likes to supply me with a range of catastrophic options - four, five...hey let's go all out! Here are ten horrible scenarios for you to play around with for the next eight hours. Sleep? You think you might sleep? Muahahahahaha, you foolish woman!! Here, have two more horror stories to obsess over.

It is exacerbated by the belief that whatever the catastrophe is must also be my fault...somehow. Even if it is quirk of being born - "this terrible thing would not happen if I didn't exist." Yes, I recognize this is 100% irrational as my birth is something I really had zero control over, but the thought, however irrational it may be, is still there. And there is this belief that I am inherently flawed and thus I am always one moment, one step away, from causing something awful to happen.

I don't find the concept difficult to explain, I think everyone at least once in their life has experienced their thoughts going from zero to disaster in a moment. What is difficult to share is how paralyzing, all consuming, and debilitating it can be when it is happening. Once the thoughts appear they rise to a mental volume that does not allow for other voices to be heard. I find myself unable to focus on other things - important things like, eating, work, school, class planning, writing, painting, etc.  It takes over.

It is also difficult for some to understand just how irrational it can be.  An extreme, but true, example... 

I'm in a car.  I hear a thump in the back. My mind goes right to, "Oh you hit a dog...a cat...a small child...that thump was surely something alive."   

I stop the car. I see nothing.  I do get on my knees in the mud to look beneath it  I walk a quarter mile along the road the way I came. Nothing. 

I get back into the car and as I do I see the half empty bottle of windshield washer fluid against the back door.  Rationally I know the sound was this bottle rolling around the back of the car, but I still roll it into the door four or five times myeslf until I'm fully convinced that is what made the noise. 

Other times it is simpler...

My boss says she wants to talk to me.  My brain kicks into action and tells me that I am surely about to be fired.  How will I pay my rent?  How will I feed the cats?  In a few short seconds my mind takes me from happily employed to homeless and alone, and feeling the shame of my former friends seeing me dirty and begging on the street. 

It turns out she wanted to give me a raise...

It is like gas lighting myself. It is crazy making.  

I have not always dealt with this well.  I have self medicated with wine, bad television, and various sleep aids.  These are actually an improvement as many years ago I would cut myself for release.  I stopped that when I discovered that I could put an elastic around my wrist and flick it over and over until the pain of the sting was stronger than my horrible thinking. There have been times when I would have done just about anything to quiet the screaming going on in my head. 

Today, there are other things I do.  I try to remind myself that most of what happens in life is beyond my control and even if the worst thing does happen there is nothing I can do about it.  I breathe.  I reach out to the one or two trusted friends who I know won't dismiss my feelings.  I look back to other times and remind myself that the worst case almost never happens, and then tell my mental monster to shut up with it chimes in with, "But wait a minute...remember that ONE TIME..."

It comes and goes, and the past few weeks it has been back full force.  I have turned to wine more than once to quiet my mind.  I know it is likely to get worse before it gets better so I've made the decision to start therapy again just to deal with this particular issue.  I would encourage anyone who deals with this level of anxiety to seek help.  I know from past experience life does not need to feel like I am living in the midst of a never ending personal apocalypse. 

I believe it will get better. 

Panicking out of time...

Trigger Warning:  Panic Attacks

It begins with a tightening at the midpoint between my stomach and my heart.  The lower half of my lungs feel cut off; I cannot draw a full breath. 

My heart begins to pound. It feels as though my heart has quadrupled in size.  That my entire chest is filled with this hyper beating mass of my heart.  I imagine this is why I can't breathe, my heart is suffocating me. There is not enough room inside of me for it and air.

My palms go cold.  My fingers numb.  As my hands and legs begin to shake I can hear the pounding of my blood in my ears. 

I feel sick.  I clench my jaw to keep myself from vomiting.  

Everything is tight.  My neck, my spine, my belly.  Softness disappears from my body. 

I know just what is happening and I know that at this point there is nothing I can do to stop the panic attack that has overtaken my body.  What started with a word has become an unstoppable, physical thing. 

It could not have happened at a more inopportune time (these things never happen in an appropriate manner). In twenty minutes I am supposed to play music and dance before a crowd of 150 people.  I feel as though I can barely stand and yet somehow I'm supposed to be entertaining.

I make an excuse to go to the ladies room.  I put a cool wet towel to my neck.  I pace.  I count. I speak mantras to my mind. I do all of the things I know to do to calm myself but the shaking does not stop. 

A friend approaches.  Tries to comfort me; to tell me things will be okay.  Still it does not stop.  I ask to be left alone.  There is nothing to be done.

I go back to waiting.  My fists are clenched around my zils (finger cymbals), the edges dig into my palms. I feel cold sweat down my back.

I am telling myself that once I take the stage I will be okay.  Once I am there this will fall away. 

I hear the announcer call our name and I step out.  My zils begin to ring.  I'm playing too fast and I know it but I can't stop.  I'm waiting for the entertainer to come to life but nothing happens.  Inside I am frozen.

I'm depending entirely upon well drilled and memorized movements to get me through this.  I feel as though I am letting everyone down.  I cannot meet the eyes of the audience or my fellow performers.  Later, when I see photos of the performance my eyes are downcast in every one, looking only at the floor.

One act down.  I sit to play the drum.  I am trying to keep the rhythm but all I can hear is the pounding in my ears.  My racing heart and the music are out of sync.  Please, I think to myself, can't I at least panic in time?

One more to go.  We finish, the crowd cheers, we bow and I leave the stage as quickly as I can without running.  I need to get out, to get air. 

(Note: Despite the location of this occurrence, this was not a case of stage fright.)

----------

It was many years ago when I had my first panic attack.  They came upon me in the middle of the night.  I'd wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, fists clenched, feeling full of dread and convinced I was dying.  I'd get out of bed and sit in the living room with blankets piled upon me, sipping tea and watching the Home Shopping Network until it passed.  During the day I'd make excuses for finding a quiet space alone to sit until it passed.  For a long time they were sporadic, sometimes with years between them.  But about a decade ago, I began to have them so frequently I was afraid to go to sleep and leaving the house was cause for extreme anxiety. It was then that I sought help.

I tried medication for a time but it made me feel numb.  I began to work with a therapist and over time I learned what things triggered the attacks.  I learned to sense, sometimes days ahead of time, when the circumstances of my life and mental state made me more vulnerable to them.  I would up my level of self care, get extra rest, seek out peaceful places, move my body more - whatever it took to put myself at ease. After a year they stopped all together. Until a few weeks ago I'd not had a full blown panic attack in nearly nine years.  Now I've had two in the past three weeks.  The attack described above only happened a few days ago.  

I'm already seeing a therapist and you can pretty well guess what our topic of conversation will be at this next appointment.  I know that with her help, a lot mindfulness and self care I can again reach a state of relative equilibrium. I say relative because I've also lived with anxiety for most of my life.  Over the years I have learned to keep it from controlling me and my life.  But it is always there.  It is my white noise, humming along through every hour of my days. I live my life despite it.  My struggles with it have been a more than occasional topic of this blog.

I will get through this.  While I don't expect it to be easy, and I worry that there may be more of this in my future,  I have at least learned that as frightening as it can be a panic attack will not kill me, and though it is at a higher level than it has been in some time, neither will anxiety.

Day 14: Waking Up Part III

Yesterday I shared the results of tracking my morning mood for one week.  I'd hoped to find some sort of correlation between my mood in the morning and how the rest of my day turned out.  That did not seem to occur because while nearly every day began with feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed, with one exception my days turned out to actually be pretty good.

Now one thing that did surprise me was that each morning I awoke with some level of anxiety.  I had other feelings, anticipation, annoyance, resentfulness, excitement, even jealously on one day but always anxiety was there.  You see I've generally always thought of my anxiety as something that was triggered.  There would be one particular event, like an exam, approaching that I'd worry about or maybe it would be set off by something more specific like not hearing from a friend for several days when we usually chat regularly or an sudden health issue causes unanticipated expense.  I didn't realize just how much it was regularly present simmering just below the surface.

Of course maybe I don't notice it usually because apparently I've learned to live with it on some level because in looking back over how the rest of my days were, things went rather smoothly.  Whatever I might have been feeling when I awoke that morning it didn't stop me from accomplishing things I had to do like work or laundry.  It didn't stop me from doing things I love such as dance, write, or spend time with friends.  And as for that, no matter what mood I was in spending time in the company of people I like always raised my spirits regardless of how I was feeling. 

I don't feel I've found many answers.  I've definitely discovered things about myself that I want to explore further.  I would like to know what it is that, despite my mood, makes me push on through the day.  I'd also like to explore this simmering anxiety that is perpetually present in my life.  It seems to have become my white noise, my background hum.  It would be interesting to find out if this anxiety is somehow what motivates me to get things done.  Maybe it's tied to my feelings about death and how we've such limited time to achieve so much, so whatever you do don't waste time...

So far 2015 has sent me down a path of self exploration.  It could prove to be an interesting year...just someone promise me that if you find me hunched over staring at my belly button while seemingly lost in thought that you'll give me a bit of a shake to snap me out of it. 

Day 10: What do you feel right now?

Progress...

What do you feel right now?

Anticipation.  I'll be having dinner with a friend later this evening and I am very much looking forward to it.  We have good conversations this friend and I.  Conversations that, if we let them, could probably carry us from dinner all the way through to breakfast.  We don't of course, and this makes our conversations all the more cherished.

What do you feel right now?

Hungry.  I am sipping water but fighting the urge to gobble down a snack as I want to leave room in my belly for the tasty vittles soon to be placed before me.  Mixed with my anticipation it is a rather delicious feeling.

What do you feel right now?

Accomplished.  I went to the gym with another friend this afternoon.  We did an hour of cardio on the stair climber, the bike and the treadmill.  I've felt like a slug so far this winter.  It was wonderful to move and to sweat.  

What do you feel right now?

Anxious.  Tomorrow I have rehearsal with my troupe for a show we have coming up in March.  As always I feel the weight of all the planning, listing, doing and keeping track of things that is to come.  I love performing and when I do I feel illuminated on the inside, but all of the other stuff that goes along with producing a show...let's just say it's no longer something I enjoy as much as I used to.  I wish sometimes I was not so good at it.

What do you feel right now?

Anxious (Part II). The new semester begins on Monday.  As I've progressed through school each semester has been more intense and required more of me than the last.  I spend hours each night on homework.  It leaves little time for all of the other things that are important to me.  I manage to do as much as I do by very careful planning and allocation of my time but often, by mid semester, I am tired and my self care begins to slip. 

What do you feel right now?

Hopeful.  Though things have become more difficult and more demands are being made of me, at the same time I have developed better skills for managing those times.  I know when to take a break, when to say I've done enough and when to let go of things that are no longer working for me.  I am far more aware of my own limitations and I can see when I am coming close to the edge of them.

What do you feel right now?

Empty.  The year ahead has many new experiences waiting for me.  I feel ready to be filled up with them all.  The good, the bad, the tough, the easy, the sad, the happy, the eye-opening, the new, the old, the destruction and the creation.  I hope I am paying attention enough to savor as many of these experiences as possible and to bear with grace those that may be more trying.

What do YOU feel right now?
.

Part 3: Where am I going? (or "Breathe. Breathe. I'm not going to die.")

I have started this blog post multiple times.  Right now at 11:52 PM on a Tuesday night I am making attempt number four.  The thing is that I know what I want to say.  I know that I want to write about my plan for managing the stress and anxiety I've been dealing with for the past five months.  The problem is that everything I write comes out sounding...well, overly simplistic and weirdly cheerful.

What?  That's a bad thing?

Yes, because this isn't a happy moment. This isn't a moment of bliss or joy - instead it's me recognizing that this is going to be a lot of work.  I can break it down into a list of things I need to be doing:

1. Paying attention to how I feel.
2. Pausing to recenter when I feel stressed or anxious.
3. Making time everyday to relax.
4. Getting enough sleep.
5. Eating well.
6. Being physically active.

But while the list may seem simple (Hey! You too can achieve peace and life long serenity in these six easy steps!!!), the actions are not (oh, wait...).

Anxiety feels AWFUL especially at its overwhelming extreme and to get to the first item on the list means to acknowledge that it is exists.  And that, dear reader, can be a very uncomfortable place for those of us who prefer to just keep on moving in the hopes that the bad feelings go away or at least don't catch up.  Facing it, confronting it and dealing with it instead of shutting down or denying it is of course the only way one can learn to manage it but that does not mean it is easy.

And here is the other catch.  I don't believe for a moment that this is something that will go away.  I believe that one way or another I'll be dealing with anxiety issues for the rest of my life.  Whether through conditioning or genetics I think that I, like many others, am simply prone towards anxiety.  Add to that one or two traumatizing life experiences that, while long past and massaged into manageability by lots of therapy, still occasionally rear their beady eyed ugly little heads and it becomes pretty obvious that anxiety and I will likely be in a constant state of negotiation for some time to come.

I also know that the old adage of anything worth doing is worth doing well is true and doing something well often means a lot of hard work.  I took the easy route once, and at that time I needed to. While being temporarily on medication helped to ease the extreme anxiety I was having at that time, allowed me to sleep and to also take a look at why I was feeling what I did, it had side effects that I did not want in my life.**

In the years that followed I learned to manage my anxiety, spot an impending panic attack and prevent it from happening.  I learned what circumstances were likely to trigger it and how could I approach those circumstances differently. I learned that no matter how awful it might feel in the moment anxiety, and the vast majority of things that made me feel anxious, won't kill me.  "Breathe.  Breathe.  I'm not going to die," became my mantra.

Being alive is like running an emotional marathon where the training and practice begin at the same time that the starting gun is fired.  I might have run approximately half the statistical distance of my life but I've still  just as far to go ahead of me to go.    Living is definitely something worth doing well, and while being human is a lot of work, it's work that I am equipped for and willing to do.

**A word on medication and anxiety.  

Anxiety in its extreme can be crippling and medication for anxiety can be a life saving thing for many as it was for me.  For a variety of reasons it was not something that worked for me in the long term; for others it is something they need to get through the day.  There is nothing wrong with either choice. 

If you are dealing with extreme anxiety, particularly if it is to the point where it is disrupting basic life care activities like eating or sleeping, please seek help.  You are not alone.  

The Anxiety and Depression Association of America has many resources available.