Anxiety

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

I heard a term on a t.v. show that I looked up yesterday: Rape Trauma Syndrome.I read something that struck me immediately: "pronounced internal tremor."

I was knocked aback. I have described this before as feeling as if "my bones were shaking" - it was relieving to see there's a name for it, and an apt one, at that.

My anxiety has gone through the roof and has made me, at times, completely dysfunctional. The only option for me, for medications, is to go to the emergency room....which causes me huge anxiety. How ironic.

My therapist says the reason I don't find benzos (benzodiazapines) addictive, is because of the level of my anxiety. Rather than "getting high" from them -as I know some do - it brings my anxiety level to a manageable point so I don't feel any affects, other than that, which is why I am able to take them PRN.

I have always been an opponent of medications and, even therapy.

But my anxiety levels have gotten so bad that I have spent days at a time holed up and terrified. Now, I cannot tolerate touch - I can't even tolerate the touch of a door frame if I walk through a door. I have to be careful not to touch it. Every touch, it feels as if my all my cells are screaming, "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

The anxiety manifests itself in other, more troubling physical ways but I won't go into it because it is embarrassing and I don't understand it. It is frightening.

I have been listening to a guided meditation nightly  for about two or three weeks (I believe). I have to wonder if - because of this meditation - my mind is opening to levels of memory and awareness as I sleep. I like this particular one because - even though it claims to be for abundance - it is really about awareness and moving forward. I like this.

But I wonder if it hasn't opened some windows and doors in my mind because the symptoms I am experiencing have really intensified over the past couple weeks. It's hard to say because it collaborates with the timing of extreme stress and having no anti-anxiety medications.

So perhaps it is a combination. Who knows.

Regardless the cause, the memories and anxiety, sleeplessness and  nightmares, are debilitating.

The meditation works well to help me sleep, although it doesn't help me stay asleep.

Today I awoke (again), feeling as wound as a guitar string. It is difficult to function because such high anxiety causes physical exhaustion, but my mind won't stop spinning or slow down so I can't sleep. Everything is amplified. I am so damn tired.

I have to go out today - it's laundry day. I wish I had a dryer. Then I could do the laundry here. Ugh.

My anxiety shoots up on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's not the typical "oh brother, it's Monday again," kind of thing. It's a dread that I can't even describe. It's a fear; it's a hope that I can make it through another four days of high-anxiety and high-stress. When Thursdays come, I relax more, but it is still very difficult.

I will be glad when I am through this.