Over the course of 2 days, I think I may have had 2 panic attacks. Wednesday, I was waiting in a long line at Buffalo Exchange, a thrift shop that buys back clothes, seeing if I could get any money for the clothes I was taking to a clothes swap that evening. As I sat awaiting my turn, my body was acting out because I wasn't in motion. I was standing, stretching, crossing my legs one over the other, opening my book to read it only to close it seconds later, every 10 seconds exploring a new range of motion. I thought I was going stir-crazy.
Waiting to see the doctor yesterday was even more prickly. I arrived thirty minutes early, and instantly the anxiety permeated my chest cavity and bottled my breathing. Literally every breath I took was a meditated deep exercise, not only laborious, but also extremely obvious to the other patients in the room. Twenty painful minutes later I skirted to the restroom, staring at myself in the mirror as my chest heaved and tears sprouted from my tired eyes, the palpitations of anxiety I can only imagine to be what waves of contraction pains feel like, forcing myself to say I wasn't going crazy. Stephanie, you're not crazy. This is going to pass. You're going to beat this fucking disease. I wish you were here, Mathias. I need your strength.
My doctor is magic: objective, sensible, yet compassionate. She assuaged my beliefs that my symptoms are common. HA! Apparently feeling like you're losing your mind means you're going through recovery. Who knew? I described to her my discomforts with my anxiety medication and my inability to sleep for the past 5 (almost 6) weeks. So now I'm taking the highest dosage of Ambien available on the market for sleep and something similar to Xanex for anxiety. She inquired how you and I are doing, "Well," I said. She asked if I was having suicidal thoughts, "No," I responded. I'm not sad and/or depressed. I don't know if the Prozac is working or if I'm just proud of myself for not bingeing and purging. I'm going to stick with 40 mg daily of the Prozac for now to see what the effects look like for me.
She told me to call her today if I couldn't sleep. I wonder if she is already at the office. It's, what, 1:40?
1 comment:
Don't fear calling your doctor. When she says to call if you are unable to sleep, she means it. It's her job to look out for you and to make sure that the medication she gives you is working out. You can do this stephanie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Love you!
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