Step One: Admit that you have a problem

I don't know how or why or when
I ended up in this position I'm in
I'm starting to feel distant again
So I decided just to pick this pen
Up and try to make an attempt to vent

I think I started this blog on Tuesday and I'm just finishing it now. My bad. I've been super busy lately. Not with anything exciting really, just with life. A month ago if you would have asked me, I would have said my life was in a good place. Now I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm in the same place I was two years ago.

I take medication for anxiety. I started taking it when I was 17. I got really bad anxiety attacks and got stressed out very easily. The pills help calm me down and I notice a huge difference in myself when I'm on them. A couple of years ago I stopped taking them--under my doctor's watchful eye. I thought my life was in a good place and I could be happy and "normal" without drugs. Turns out I couldn't. I was cranky, irritable, stressed out, and downright miserable for no apparent reason. I talked to my doctor and started taking the drugs again about six months later. I'm still not 100% happy with the fact that I need drugs to alter who I am... but I think if anything the drugs smooth out the creases and let the real me shine through. But lately I've felt like I did a couple of years ago when I wasn't taking them. I feel different, and I don't even know how to explain it. This worries me... so I'm glad I've got my annual appointment with my doctor in a couple of weeks. I don't want to go back to where I was two years ago, so if that means increasing my dosage then so be it. I just know I'm not happy with who I am right now.

I did some reading and found out that my over-analyzing may be linked to my anxiety. Makes sense now that I think about it. I feel like I'm getting bogged down underneath an over-active brain. It would also explain why I have the attention span of a goldfish, which has definitely gotten worse in the last year or so. Hopefully tweaking the drugs will help that. One of the things I read was actually quite interesting:

"If you've spent many years, especially formative, in an insane or confusing environment, it is likely that your mechanisms for surviving and feeling 'safe' are pretty hardwired at this point. Analyzing what we take in through our many senses and impossibly complex minds is something we do in order to feel that we have some control over what happens to us..."

HA!!..... !!!HA!!! Oh if they only knew! It made me feel better though... like there is a reason for this and I'm not insane. A lot of what I'm reading is also pointing towards obsessive-compulsive behaviors that stem from anxiety. This makes total sense. I'm not one of those people who has to wash my hands 10 times a day, but I do have a very strict routine--in the morning, for example--and if that gets disrupted it's not a good thing. My worst compulsion is the alarm clock. I'm constantly checking it every night before bed. I don't trust myself that it's on, or that it's set for the right time. The OCD is minor, but I can definitely see traces of it in myself.

The reading I've done this week is helping everything slowly come together and make sense. I feel like I can finally understand what's going on in my own head and why. As a result I feel a strange sense of peace. Everything's gonna be okay someday.

Lately I've been hard to reach
I've been too long on my own
Everybody has a private world
Where they can be alone
Are you calling me?
Are you trying to get through?
Are you reaching out for me
Like I'm reaching out for you?