Why My Anxiety is just as valid as yours

I have anxiety attacks as well as stress attacks that make me lose my voice.

My fight-or-flight instinct is so strong that it nearly knocks me unconscious. Literally.

But my fight-or-flight instinct errs on the side of "fight”

My body prepares itself for every small potential disagreement as if it was an end of the earth argument.

My body and mind both tell me that this is a fight for my life, a fight for survival, that I might die if I don’t defend myself to the best of my ability.

And so, my body amps itself up for a fight.

In an anxiety attack, I will be (metaphorically) armed to the teeth and ready to defend myself to the death. My heart will be pounding so hard, blood rushing through my ears, that I can’t hear what I’m saying, let alone what you’re saying. I will be dizzy, I will have trouble standing upright, my arms will feel weightless or incredibly heavy. I will have to fold my arms or put my hands on my hips.

If I can’t hear what I’m saying, I might have to repeat myself – multiple times. Or I might start talking louder. Often, I don’t realise I’m doing this.

I become tongue tied, and the words in my head can’t make it out. The frustration for this causes me to curse and swear, because it’s like being trapped in your own head. I’m a genius but when I’m having an anxiety attach you wouldn’t know it.

If the anxiety attack is bad, and I start fidgeting my hands, this is because I actually feel like I need to rip my fingers off. Do you understand how it feels, to have your body tell you that to stop this anxiety attack and to make yourself be better understood you have to rip your own fingers off? If it’s mild I might want to rip my hair out, or bang my head against a wall. But if it’s bad, I want to rip my fingers off.

Do any of the things described sound like I’m physically attacking the other person? Because nowhere in the summary of events is any attack going to happen on anyone who isn’t me.

But people take yelling as intimidation – it’s because I’m effectively deaf.

But people take stance as a “power pose” – it’s because I’m propping myself up.

Why am I mentioning all this? Because I’m sick to death of people writing me off. You have anxiety attacks? So do I. Mine are bad, and they are real. They are no less valid because they’re different from yours.

Stop being a narcissist, stop using your power plays and your little threats. Stop assuming that you’re better than me because your anxiety attacks make you a victim while mine make me a weaponised attacker – because mine still make me a victim and you are still attacking me.

Sensitive Scents Of Smell - Allergies

Other than having a sensitive nose, I am also allergic to a certain type of fragrance.  It is merely one of up to {or over} a hundred components that make up the ingredient “fragrance” listed on products. But I am violently allergic to it. Headaches and nausea upon smelling fragranced products including this one ingredient at any more than a tiny dilution, discoid eczema upon contact. I can’t use toilet paper that states it has been fragranced because I learned the hard way; it includes the component I am allergic to. All of them. Basically, if fragrance or perfume is in the top three ingredients, and the company can’t provide me with a list of ingredients in their “fragrance” (and none of them will, as it is a secret) then I have to avoid the product.

Hoppy loves this, I can never complain about him being smelly because if he uses products it makes me sick. Alternatively, he loves this because if he doesn’t want me bugging him, all he has to do is spray some on {sob}.

Why am I bringing this up? I work in a place with 100+ other people. In close proximity (we get probably a metre and a half to ourselves, but scents don’t stay restricted to each person’s personal space). And someone nearby is wearing a disgusting amount of something that I can tell within five seconds that I am allergic to. I can’t open the window, because everyone freaks out about the cold (despite the fact that I and a small minority of women whom I assume are going through menopause are constantly too hot).

So what can I do? There’s no point in complaining, what’s done can’t be undone {especially considering it is just a smell}. Without windows to open we can’t air the place out and make it habitable for me. Do I just sit here in silence and suffer? {Well, silence apart from my blog rants.}

Guess so. Be like the pebble and all that. I suppose I could go and sit in the hallway for a while, but the fragrance would still be lingering when I got back.

I take anti-histamines for my hayfever {never got that before moving to Wellington, and now I’m practically allergic to animal hair, with year round hayfever} but that does nothing for the fragrance allergy. Not to mention I currently have to triple up on hayfever medication for it to do anything. I try going for patches without using any, just to reduce my chance of getting addicted, getting bleeding noses, and to increase my chance of it working better when I do take it.

Well, I’d better stop ranting and figure out something I can do about it. No ideas at current that would be of any help. {Sigh}

Typical Me

Great – Hoppy’s coming down on my first day of B*tch week L And this is the time I’ve chosen to not complain? No Fair!

Not to mention it's mere hours in, barely started, and it hurts so so much.

Oh well, at least I'm going to have to most painful days at home over the weekend rather than at work... If I last til the end of today!

Wednesday Post #2

 Time for a bit of a b*tch and a moan. Health issues.

Headache. I know this is most likely from dehydration, caused by being a mermaid (in other words, practically living in the sea on the weekend). But it could be the flu, or a cold. That’s going around at work. And the headache is creeping slowly into my sinus region.

And worse is the thudding/clicking/pulsing/I can’t describe it that I have in my ear. I had that before the diving, so it’s not some diving related injury, but it’s still so annoying.

I think its tinnitus. It’s not ringing or most of the sounds described on Wiki (I know, terrible of me to look it up on Wiki) but it is a side effect of Fibromyalgia, which I never knew.  And I do get it every now and then. And it is damn near enough to drive me insane! Melatonin (already taking that, as Tart Cherry Juice every night) and Zinc are suggested cures. I’m going to google zinc deficiency and maybe get some zinc pills after work.

I have to go to the supermarket anyway. I put off going yesterday, but I need food for (at the very least) lunch at work so I’m not spending insane amounts of money and eating unhealthy.

Merm pointed out to me, after she read the book Aspergirls by Rudy Simone, that its important to eat well. I mean, I already knew that, but apparently eating well/eating often is a possible way to ward off those meltdowns. And now that I know that I have meltdowns {hey, I knew I was having some sort of hissy fit, I just never knew that it was a Meltdown, an actual thing} and not only that, but they can be managed, I want to know everything I can about them.

After all, just because I now have a reason for why I’m acting like this doesn’t mean that I always want to be the person in the supermarket yelling at her partner because she doesn’t know the answer to his question (“Do you want chips or wedges for tea?” even something as simple as that) and is starting to fall apart inside her own head.

And I do, sometimes, feel like I’m falling apart in my own head. That is, when I’m not busy feeling like a half-baked loaf of bread. Does anyone else ever feel that way? Like, your personality isn’t fully formed – probably due on my part to the “chameleon-like nature” of the female aspergian, I’ve spent so long pretending to be who I’m not, to please people, that I don’t even know who I am… Except I’ve felt that way for years. Back when I met The Aspie Bestie, at 18, I was already questioning my personality and the feeling that I wasn’t quite finished becoming me.

Damnit, I’m getting introspective, and off track (slightly). This wouldn’t be a problem if I was at home, and had all the time to get depressed about things {and the “not fully baked personality” problem is one that I can and do get depressed about if I think about it too much} but I’m not. So quick! I have to start thinking about something else.