Revision

In an earlier post I shared my battle with Depression. The other half of the battle is severe anxiety. Now, I decided a long time ago that if I had a choice: Depression or anxiety, I’d take anxiety and be cured of depression. Over the years, neither has really been solved or that hard worked for. I just worked myself to death and ran on the treadmill til I couldn’t think anymore. Those were my solutions. Solutions that very often worked, though their effects were fleeting.

So now that I am locked in battle with Depression, some of the methods I am using are exacerbating my problems with panic and anxiety. It’s really frustrating. When I am like this — high anxiety — the bad dreams come. I have several recurring dreams in which I 1.) can’t find something (usually a classroom) 2.) find out I didn’t actually graduate from high school and have to go back (and then can’t find the classroom!) or 3.) that I am lost somewhere.

I hadn’t had these dreams in about a year and a half. Now they are back. I wake up every morning drenched in sweat, heart racing thinking I missed a big test or that I have to go back to high school. I’m left with a very unsettled feeling the entire morning.

But the battle must continue. I’ve read that one strategy is, when awake, to plan what you will do when you can’t find the classroom or have to go back to high school or whatever. Strategize the solution so when you dream it, you won’t panic or get anxious. You will know what to do. And, in theory, go on to have a mundane dream.

I am really rambling aren’t I?

People often ask me why I post these things here. It is more for me than anything. Admitting it. Getting out these fears and truths about myself is freeing. It’s part of my work toward accepting me for who I am. Instead of hiding the fact that I am battling with this, maybe my struggle will help someone else along the way. It can be a very lonely road.

Anyway, again I say, wish me bonne chance, because I need it. After all, I didn’t actually graduate from college! And I am lost somewhere in Italy, never to find my way home. Ha ha!