Working on analyzing my behavior

Symptoms I notice when my OCD starts to get bad:

- thoughts I can’t seem to get out of my head

- general feeling of uneasiness

-urges to go overboard with texting people

Bad habits I have when I try to relieve my anxiety:

- scrolling on instagram and procrastinating being productive

- picking at skin

- going on bumble

Good habits I can develop:

- avoiding mirrors

- getting out of the house or even just being in the living room instead of my phone, this is probably a good first step!

- staying off my phone or being more mindful of how long I spend on it

- analyzing the thought/doubt I’m having and saying “maybe” once and that being it, not continuing to analyze it

Being self-critical

I have been working my butt off for the past few weeks. I finally found a nice part-time job that challenges me but isn’t making me feel overwhelmed. It’s nice to have some structure back in my life, and I also start a new internship this week! I’m hoping I can get really into it and see where my reative interests lie. But even with a day off, I can’t help but still get into a depression as soon as I get home. I’m so self-critical of my self. After coming home on a friday night, all I can do is lay in bed and watch people on my snapchat go out and have fun. And my brain is yelling at me, “see these people having fun with their lives while you waste yours. It’s pathetic your still living at home. You have no friends. You should be having fun but you’re not because your too incapable of living on your own. It’s your own fault your own in this situation and you could be doing better.” I think that’s the main thought that keeps bothering me. “You can do better.” I’m never satisfied with where I am. I always have something to pick at, always have to find something to make me miserable. I can see the positive changes I’ve made and all that I’ve succeeded at, but it doesn’t affect me or get to my core like all of my negative thoughts do. Even with my internship, all I can think is “this better lead you to a great job and you can live in the city and have this totally unrealistic lifestyle everybody portrays online.” I think it’s ironic -- or maybe a coincidence? -- that I’m going to be working at a non profit that talks about how digital media affects the youth’s mental health when it’s obvious my own mental health has been severely negatively affected by my own social media. Maybe I need to practice what I preach and avoid my phone on weekend nights, and take a deep breath and be a little kinder to myself. I’m just doing the best I can, and that’s good enough.

A lil DBT

Situation: Yesterday, I went to my friend’s for a birthday party. I knew that it would be a far trip and that it would most likely make me anxious, because 1. long trips usually just me anxious (getting far from home always does), 2. I had already had a bad experience last week getting on the train by myself. So, even as we’re driving to the train I’m getting anxious. I keep thinking “What if i pass out on the train? What if I get vertigo?” I get on the train and I don’t really feel better which worries me. Then I get to Penn and it’s super hot and I feel my anxiety get worse, and I realize were going to have to get on the subway. I see my friend and we have to immediately get on the subway and it’s super hot, and then we have to walk to the restaurant so the physical extertion plus having vertigo last week starts to freak me out. We get to the restaurant and at this point im just like detached, I’m just worried about my vertigo and waiting for it to happen. Especially when I stand I’m not sure if it’s my actual vertigo/the heat or my anxiety, but I have to hold onto a pole. Once we get to her friends house, it’s fine! I have a good time. But when I get home, I start to beat myself up over everything I could have done right. Maybe I was being antisocial? I could have had a better time. I was being awkward, I didn’t drink enough (which I always think). I wake up the next morning and I still feel depressed. THEN I talk to this guy and he says something which made me upset and I had already had mixed feelings on him and now I feel even worse. I saw a snapchat of my friends at brunch too without me (which is fine) but it also makes me feel worse because I’m already insecure about being an outsider and I feel bad wanting to have my feelings reciprocated but I just feel like I never get the effort I put in put back. And it makes me really upset and sad. Don’t really know what DBT skills to use but all I can definitely say is I need to increase my medication, and that yea, my anxiety did happen, but at least I learned something out of it and I can choose how to react, and I’m going to decide to learn how to better manage my anxiety and also feelings of depression/insecurity to make this situation a little more positive. Also, on the positive side, I got my friends really nice gifts and they really loved them! And i saw alot of friends I haven’t in the past and met two of my friends friends who were super nice, so I’m really just focusing on the negative. I did something nice and I should focus on the positive instead of trying to be a perfectionist and look for a situation where nothing goes wrong that’s basically unattainabile/not realistic/is going to make every other situation bad in comparison, which is no way to live life. There’s going to be ups and downs in everything.

It’s OK to quit your job

Maybe it was when I sat at my desk that I realized it, or in line at Pret and feeling the urge burning in my throat, clouding my mind, numbing my hands. 

“everyone cries -- I’m just an easy crier.” I wasn’t ashamed of crying, crying is in my blood, it’s the first way I usually come to express my (almost always) overwhelming emotions. So when I casually strolled into the bathroom at Pret, which I knew would soon become my safehaven, I immediately burst into tears as a way of relieving all the emotions building up. I wasn’t necessarily overwhelmingly sad, but I knew I could afford a little meltdown before I had to head back into my first day of work, and why not? It would give me relief and then I could pick myself back up and continue on my way. I think it’s funny how whenever I cry, I always look at myself in the mirror during the midst of my breakdown. I’m always surprised by how I look even though I’ve literally seen myself cry a million times. Just like, wow, your really deep in some emotions right now, huh. I was going to type, “this bitch really is ugly af when she cries” but I’m working on reducing my use of self-depricating humor. 

So going back to my breakdown, I’m in the mirror, crying, realizing my foundation is being wiped away with my tears, fuck I didn’t pack my foundation so I’ll just blot my face when I get back to the office and hope there aren’t obvious tear tracks on my face. I don’t exactly remember if I felt relief, maybe just relief that I had a moment to not pretend I was ok, but the sadness was still there. I had had a stressful morning, me and my dad had missed our train, fast-walked to my building, I was exhausted from not sleeping (stress and anxiety, ofc), I had barely ate (because not eating when I’m stressed is a great habit, ofc) and now I couldn’t stop the thoughts coming into my head.

The thoughts. Like I miss being at college, I miss my friends, I can’t believe I’m an adult now. The thing about having OCD is my mind tends to go to extremes, tends to believe in the worst case scenario, tends to make me, or at least try, the most miserable I can be. Thankfully it’s all kind of muted and hazy thanks to my antidepressant, my dear dear antidepressant Viibryd. And reading this now I am remembering I never took it today. 

OK back from that. So, yea, I missed being at college, I was exhausted, I could not believe that I would have to repeat this whole day again tomorrow. That drived me nuts too. I hate waking up early with a passion. Again, stems from staying up late because anxiety then it becomes a habit then it starts to interfere with my life, as do all self-destructive habits that come along with mental illnesses. And on top of that, starting a new job is just stressful in its itself! So I had all of these seemingly nice people welcoming me, I had a promising job, but I was miserable. I was silently crying at my desk, I was barely able to concentrate on my job, but I figured it’s pass, that I needed to give myself time to adjust and that I could push through it like I had everything else. 

And thennnnn the next day came. Let me preface this by interjecting that when I say I have an “anxiety disorder” (because OCD is usually met with a face that I can tell is thinking “well I have no idea what that it is but it sounds unpleasant”), they (anyone I tell), is usually thinking that I am anxious over the standard things. Like, oh, I’m anxious people won’t like me, or I’ll have a lot of work, which yea, I was. But also, OCD gives me alot of other stuff to worry about. So just going through about my usual day, I can list off the top of my head what I’d be worried about. Like, I get out of the car and say bye to my mom, and I think “What if this is the last time I see her,” which is not a fun thing to think. And then I wait for the train and I think “what if I passed out right now and then I fell on the tracks, or I tried to get on the train and I fall through the gap” or then I get on the train and think “what if the train gets stuck AND THEN i pass out on the train or I have an anxiety attack” AND THEN i get to penn and I think “what if i passed out in front of all these people or get an anxiety attack” AND THEN i walk to work and that’s when the vertigo starts, or the dissociation, or the clammy hands or dry mouth or all of the above and I’m thinking “all you have to do is walk in a straight line, just walk to work” and I can feel the fuzziness in my hands, I can feel it all over my fucking skin and I feel like it’s someone else looking through my eyes and I just can’t grasp if it’s me looking out or if it’s me thinking about thinking and if I’m really there and am I losing my mind or am I imagining my vision going slightly shifty, slightly hazy to make me nervous but not to put me in any danger, just uncomfortable enough to put some sweat on the back on my neck and twitch my hands in my pocket, picking at the same piece of skin next to my thumbnail over and over until it’s bleeding and I have to suffocate it. I have to suffocate the thoughts and I have to get to work on time but I’m so stressed I’m so. fucking. stressed.

And then I get to work. And it doesn’t stop. And mind you, this is my second day! And of course, the second day I cried again, silently weeping at my desk. Of course this job involved the two things I hated, public speaking and flying. it was almost laughable. I actually did laugh, me and my therapist later on. My whole job was giving presentations to clients (middle-aged, stoic faced, insurance or investment clients), and FLYING to different states to give these presentations. Maybe by myself, maybe with a coworker. And I knew 100% I couldn’t do that. So why would I stay? Quitting right before I was supposed to give a huge presentation was obviously not a good idea. But to even think about the work I was doing right now, at that moment, at my desk bored as fuck and feeling so inferior to everyone around me working on computer science and business, which is probably not an accurate but yes how I did feel thought, and then to be stressed, to just want to catch my breath. I knew I had to quit. I knew I was pushing myself too hard. My mom knew it, we had looked at each other before I had gotten out of the car and I had known that fuck, this was going to be hard wasn’t it. So on top of all this stress was my good old friend vertigo popping back into my life, and I’m sitting at my bosses desk and were listening in on a meeting and I feel the floor shift. I had felt it before too when I had gone to the bathroom and that sometimes happens when I sit for too long (and meanwhile as I’m peeing my coworker is brushing her teeth because she had forgot to this morning, if anyone wants an idea of what adult life really is like), and anyways, I’m at her desk and I feel the floor shift. Up, down, tilting side to side like I’m on a boat and I start to feel a little uneasy. And I cannot wait for this fucking meeting to be over. For this client to just shut up already the software is fine, do you really need to understand that part Kathy can I please just leave already, so I’m essentially just staring at the desk at this point and then my boss asks me if I have any questions and I :) of course do not have any, I’m great, awesome, thanks! And I get back to my desk and S.S. Anxiety is fast away on its course, taking me up and down and downnnnn and up and I am freaking the fuck out, naturally. This happened to me before, so it’s not a new feeling, it’s probably my birth control (which is another long story) so I of course then begin to realize -- how am I walking back to Penn. And that fills me with dread. A lot of dread. And after about 20 minutes of deliberation I meekly walk into the girl’s office next to mine, HR, because I guess that’s where you ask to leave early? Who knows. And i ask her if i can leave early and I can feel the tears wanting to surface, I’m embarassed and she tells me I have to ask my boss and I do noooot want to do that. So I sit back at my desk and I’m trying to do some deep breaths, trying to calm down and it eventually it passes! Thank god it passes. And thank god it finally becomes 6 and I start walk to back to penn and I get in the first cab i see because i have had a long day and I deserve this thank you very much. And the cab driver is super nice, telling me how to get to penn because he can tell i have no idea where I’m going, poor girl. And i get to penn and I get on a 6:20 train and i close my eyes and almost miss my stop. But it’s ok because I’m finally home. 

Fast forward the next 2 days, I’m home sick with vertigo, I go to a primary doctor and then an ENT and get prescribed medication that helps. I think my boss is mad at me but I’ve got other fish to fry. I go in monday, I try my hardest, and it’s too much. And that’s what I want to get at. Life is not linear. Just because your “supposed” to do something doesn’t mean you have to. I took a year off of college, even though I wasn’t “supposed” to, and I will never regret it, I am so fucking thankful and grateful I did. And when I sent my resignation letter in later that day, I knew I would be grateful I did.

It’s OK to not follow the line people try to paint you. To take a break, to take care of yourself. My happiness and health comes first. I will be OK not having this job, with finding something else, what other job, I do not know as of right now. But for now, I am going to commit to working on things I have wanted to for a whileeeee, like working out! and continuing to improve how I manage my emotions, because that will always be an up and down situation I can work on. I ranted alot to my friends about this, but I also googled “quitting job bc of anxiety” and reading the 3 other blog posts I found made me feel a little less alone, and I’m a huge advocate of speaking out about mental health, so hopefully someone else out there reads this and knows they aren’t alone too. You’ll be ok. Trust me.