Saturday, February 13, 2010

Anxiety

There's one thing that continuously brings fear and panic to my mind every time I think about it. It's the loss of sleep I will experience after the baby is born. As a chronic insomniac this is something I just can't imagine. You never ever get used to not sleeping. And all the home remedies and advice in the world does not help my insomnia. The most frustrating part about not sleeping are the people who think it's a simple fix. They tell you "oh you just need to stop stressing over it" or "you need some melatonin" or any other worthless piece of crap advice people give me. For most people, lack of sleep is just a rough period in their life and they get through it. But for some it's a severe chronic lifelong problem. For me I believe it is anxiety. And I'm not talking about general situations in my life that cause temporary anxiety. I'm not talking about life's worries and stresses. I'm talking about crippling panic attack, lifelong chronic severe anxiety. Most of my anxiety is internalized and I would say I go through life with people just assuming I over think things or that I think negatively about certain things. Some people are shocked to find out about it at all because I don't let people see my shaking and crying and throwing up that comes along with it. I hide it as best I can. The only thing that calms my nerves is my husband. Thank goodness for him in my life. My deepest scariest episodes are when I am without him therefore he nevers sees me in full panic because the moment I hear his voice or see him I am immediately calm. It's like night and day. Just him being in the same house as me calms me by about 90%. I don't know why that is. I know I can't continue life like this. I was seeing a therapist this summer but quit when I found out I was pregnant. I'm not sure she was helping. I am looking forward to my next doctors appt because the midwife said they're going to start working on preparing me for labor and delivery and post partum issues including pediatricians and depression. I will talk to them about my anxiety at that point and hopefully get myself on some kind of safe medication that I can take while breast feeding. Maybe they will even be able to prescribe something for me now. It's funny all these women talk about the pain of labor and it hasn't even crossed my mind. All I think about is spending the night in the hospital and the terror of not being able to be in my own bed to sleep. If you don't have a sleep problem, you can never understand this. And you can never expect your tip to be different from other useless tips to help me sleep because temperatures, essential oils, exercise, meditation, otc medication, baths, white noise, de-stressing, cutting caffeine blah blah blah.... doesn't work. I believe it does work for lots of people. But I know for a fact I have a mental issue and I know for a fact that believing/knowing I have a mental issue is not what's keeping me from sleeping like people try to tell me. Just the other day someone told me that my obsessive clock checking was causing my anxiety. Trust me when I say this is a 27 year old problem and the only 2 things that have ever helped me sleep have been ambien and pregnancy. But now that I'm in the middle of the second trimester I am starting to lose that glorious deep sleep that I've been enjoying since about week 8 or 10. I'm actually panicking right now as I write this as I think about losing sleep. I get so little sleep already and I never ever sleep in. My body won't let me. I feel this is a major concern for my doctor to be able to let me properly take care of a helpless newborn. I don't think people really understand the severity. They say instinct will save you. Well I'm not going to die. I get that. But I don't want to live this way either.




I'm terrified.



Jen

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