Ignoring anxiety symptoms

[HannaD]

I've been doing pretty good. Living life and
making every meal for a few weeks now (except for one cheat meal). I'm not surprised by the anxiety that's been creeping on. Not really annoyed. I'm just kinda glad that I'm on the other side of the big wave, watching it travel further away and losing it's pull on me.
The last few days (maybe longer?) there has been moments of chest heaviness. I opted to ignore it because, I already know my heart is fine and hate the dismissive reaction I get from my doctors when they realize it's anxiety. I don't want prescriptions so, it's like banging your head against the wall with them. ? No blame on them. I'm the one who has the problem and am very picky about treatment.
This morning it hit hard. My chest felt alot of pressure and I told my dear husband. Then back pain, sweaty palms and a lightheadedness. I said that I'm not planning lunch or dinner tonight because I needed to take something off my plate. I might not go shopping either. .... Well, he just surprised me with a grocery run! I'm very grateful to my supporters.
Anyway, when I was telling him my need to care for myself before I become overwhelmed. Admitting that made me suddenly want to cry. From shame and disappointment in myself. That's when it clicked in my head and I knew it wasn't a heart attack.
So, I slowed down and rode the final wave observing as my symptoms slowly subsided and I was able to update feeling better. Now smaller post anxiety waves are hitting but, no where near the intensity of before.
I guess ignoring anxiety isn't always a good coping strategy. It still comes and can knock us over despite our efforts to live life. Atleast I didn't end up in the hospital or doctor's office this time. It was very reminiscent of before. Ignoring my anxiety may not have worked but, experience with it helped me to recognize and assess symptoms properly. Little steps, good job, great progress starts with little steps.

 

[Warrior Chicken]

Was really great to read this! Thanks for your openness and for sharing. And most importantly, well done on asking for what you need! Not easy!

 

[Friday]

I guess ignoring anxiety isn't always a good coping strategy.

Yep yep.

It’s part of how I manage, but not wholly how I manage.

When my anxiety starts ticking up, it becomes a dual process of ignore it to accomplish what I’ve set myself to, but changing the layout of what I’ve set myself to, to account for extra time (spaces between tasks to ground out, blow off steam, etc.; to bring myself back to baseline).

Sometimes it means striking some things from the list in order to create that extra time (like if I have 5 things to do, only ending up with 3 or 4) other times it means I can actually do 8 or 10 things, just because I hadn’t reallzed how much not taking breaks was slowing me down. Either way, however, it saves me from the crash/meltdown of my anxiety ticking up and ticking up, running hot, kaboom. Stress limit? Reached. And then needing to take far far more time to recover from the crash, than if I’d paced myself earlier on, when I first noticed things kicking up.

I’m a sprinter by nature, not a long distance runner... so it took me awhile to learn how to pace myself for long distance running. I COULD tackle it like sprinting -giving every last bit of my all- but I wouldn’t make it very far. Far better to either sprint/rest/sprint/rest/sprint/rest... or... just go sloooooooooooow the whole durn time. Either way gets me to the end, in great shape. But just ignoring the limits of my body? Will leave me an injured wreck on the side of the road, only a fraction into the distance. Same durn thing with stress/anxiety. There are a number of ways I can change my pace, or I can do either extreme (nothing or too much) and end up face planted.