Alarm Anxiety

Posted on by Astrid

I just came across an interesting concept when reading Pat’s Soapbox Thursday for today: alarm anxiety. Alarm anxiety is the fear of the alarm not going off or of not getting enough sleep before it does. When I read her description, immediately alarm bells (pun intended) went off in my head. This is what I dealt with throughout high school and into university.

When I was at secondary school, I’d compulsively check that my alarm was on. Since my alarm was at the other end of the room and I couldn’t visually check it due to being blind, I had to physically leave my bed to do so. And I’d do so at least thirty times a night. And worry that, by the time I’d finally fall asleep, if my alarm did go off, I’d still sleep through it because I hadn’t had enough sleep. This only happened once in my entire six years of secondary school.

I had other compulsions too, but these are too embarrassing to share here. In general, I’d spend hours engaging in my various rituals at night. I wouldn’t necessarily say I had OCD, as these obsessions and compulsions only affected me at night.

They got a lot worse when I lived independently and went to university. I had to check whether my front door was locked, all non-essential electronics unplugged, window open, heating off, alarm on and I’m pretty sure there’s something I’m forgetting right now. All of the things that needed to be checked, were for a reason, of course. For example, the heating needed to be off in case of a carbon monoxide leak (even though I didn’t have my own boiler) and the window needed to be open so that, if such a leak occurred, the chance of me getting poisoned would be lower.

I’d spend hours upon hours pacing through my apartment checking that these things were as I needed them to be. It was exhausting!

Thankfully, my compulsions left immediately when I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital. Either the fact that a staff member was on the ward at all times, comforted me, or the mere fact of my having been removed from my apartment and its specific triggers, caused me to be able to let go. And, of course, alarm anxiety was no longer a thing, as the staff would wake me. Besides, we weren’t required to be up by a certain time anyway.

Solo: Making the Most of My Alone Time

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for #JusJoJan is “solo”. It has many meanings, but the overarching one is “alone”. For this reason, I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to write about ways to make the most out of my alone time.

You see, I don’t really do well with alone time. It makes me anxious. At the same time, I need alone time. It helps me recharge. How can these two coexist, you might wonder. Honestly, I’m not quite sure.

However, the more important question is, how can I make sure the recharging effect gets the upper hand rather than my anxiety? The key to this is making the most out of my time alone.

In my old day schedule, I had random slots of alone time that could last anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, sometimes longer if I didn’t come out of my room to alert the staff. This caused intense anxiety, because I never knew when I’d have time alone and, when I did, how long it’d last. This meant I didn’t know what activities to do during my alone time.

Now though, I usually have time slots of 30 to occasionally 45 minutes alone. In all honesty, I think the 30-minute time slots could be lengthened to 45 minutes if they could be decreased in number and by extension my time slots of activity lengthened too. This isn’t likely possible at my current care home though.

During the time of my old day schedule, I used to feel stressed when alone and as a result use up the time by wandering around my apartment. Now I occasionally still do this, but I try to put each moment of alone time to good use. For example, Bible study and blogging are things I can’t do when a staff person is in the room. I do these when I have alone time, but sometimes I struggle to finish them off during my 30-minute solo time slots. At the same time, I struggle to find meaningful activities that I can do within my 60-minute time slots (which are usually cut short) of one-to-one support. Part of the reason is my need to get into a routine – for example, of gathering my polymer clay supplies. Part of it is the fact that some staff start out by proposing a certain activity, which makes it hard for me to switch to wanting something else. And part of it is probably my mindset too, in that I get overwhelmed with not knowing how long an activity will take and thinking I “only” have this amount of time. This applies to alone time too.

I often say that, in an ideal world, I’d have one-on-one all the time. This isn’t true. In an ideal world, I’d have good chunks of alone time with staff only popping in once every 45 minutes (because otherwise I’d lose track of time), so essentially no extra care then, during later evenings and part of the weekend. I’d also have good chunks of supported activity during the day. Oh wait, that’s pretty much how I had it in Raalte and I was going to let go of comparisons with old homes. No, wait again, my day schedule back there wasn’t ideal either. But it allowed for longer chunks of activity time during weekdays and that’s really what I dream of.

Moving Into the New Care Home

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m departing from the #31Days2022 prompts today, because the prompt for today, “other”, didn’t spark any creative muse in me yet. Instead, for today’s post, I am writing about my move into the new care home. It’s been quite the overloading day, to be honest.

I had set the alarm for 7:30AM, because the moving crew would be in Raalte at eight to collect my desk and chair. The rest of my belongings had been moved to the new home yesterday. Not surprisingly, I woke up before the alarm went off. Thankfully, there already was a staff available for me. When the moving crew had removed my furniture, I had breakfast at another table.

Thankfully, there still was time for a walk before it was time for me to collect the stuff that could go into the staff’s car and to drive off to the new home. This stuff included the soft toy I’d slept with, my clothes from the night before as well as the goodbye presents I’d gotten from the home and day center. One of the day center staff specifically came by to say goodbye to me on her day off.

As we got here to the new home, we were greeted by a man whom I’ve come to assume will be my assigned staff but of which I’m not sure. We were allowed to unpack, which took several hours. I had lunch after everyone else had already had theirs.

My staff from my old care home in Raalte left at around 2PM. From then on, several staff have come and gone into and out of my apartment. I did go for a walk around grounds at around 3:30PM. Several clients from other homes greeted me and my staff and started talking to us. I liked it, but it was a bit overwhelming at the same time.

At around 5PM, I got very irritable. The reason was the fact that my call button doesn’t work as of yet. It looks like it may’ve been set to be received at the night staff’s office in the main building, where during the day there’s no-one. I hope that’s true, as otherwise I won’t be able to reach anyone during the night.

I also found out there’s no handle to lock my room’s door from the inside without a key. I immediately drew the conclusion this means I can be locked into my room. Of course, the staff said they wouldn’t, but the mere fact that they can, causes me intense fear.

I am trying to stay as calm as possible as I write on my blog now that I’m alone. Thankfully, I can tell time – the staff verified this, which may seem stupid to those reading my blog but was actually validating to me. Now that they know I can tell time, they can tell me when they will be back. This does help me.

Mutism or Manipulation?

Posted on by Astrid

When I was a teen, I’d often go mute whenever certain personal topics of discussion came up. My mental health was such a topic. Much as I wanted to speak, my mouth wouldn’t form the words I wanted to tell my teachers or other people who intended to help me.

Even though I felt intensely anxious, my silence was commonly viewed as an act of rebellion. A way of manipulating those around me into, well, I honestly don’t know what.

When my parents and high school tutor had finally agreed that I needed professional counseling – or rather, my tutor had convinced my parents of the need, I assume -, my tutor informed me that the counselor had to meet certain very specific requirements. He or she needed to know blindness, because, well, I’m blind. The second requirement, I can’t remember, but the third was that he or she had to be exceptionally intelligent. The reason for that one was the fact that I, too, was supposedly extremely intelligent. If the counselor wasn’t smart enough, my tutor explained up front, I’d outsmart them with my manipulation. By this, he meant my so-called refusal to speak.

To this day, I am still unsure as to what made him think my silence was an act of willful defiance. Of course, everyone manipulates others at times, but I am pretty sure my mutism wasn’t – still isn’t – part of it.

This post was written for today’s Word of the Day Challenge, for which the prompt is “silence”, as well as E.M.’s RWP, which is “rebellion”.

Ways in Which My Life Has Improved Over the Past Few Months

Posted on by Astrid

Lately, as I’ve been recovering from COVID and as the news of the war in Ukraine has been intensely scaring me, I’ve focused more than I would like to on how my life has seemed to have spiraled out of control. Staff changes at my care home also contribute to my feeling of insecurity. This combined leads me to feel that I am worse off than I was a few months ago and getting worse by the day. For this reason, a prompt that I came across in one of my journal writing books, is particularly compelling to me right now. It asks me to describe in what ways my life has improved over the past couple of months. Here goes.

1. I sleep better. I am pretty sure this isn’t entirely due to the lingering effects of COVID, though they do play a role. I am pretty sure the new medication, pregabalin (Lyrica), also helps. I feel a lot more rested when waking up, have fewer nightmares, etc.

2. I am less anxious. Though I still experience night-time anxiety, it has significantly decreased particularly over the past couple of weeks. I am pretty sure this is thanks to the pregabalin too.

3. I have been able to be more creative. I have truly discovered my artsy side over the past couple of months. I do still stay somewhat in my comfort zone, but am exploring ways to step outside of it just a little bit too.

4. I have started on a healthier food plan. This is hard, but it is more doable than I initially expected it’d be. Though I let things go a little when I had COVID, I only gained like 0.2kg from before I got sick. Overall, I’m not disappointed.

5. I have developed some more trust in some of my staff. This is still fragile and it is even more so with the staff changes. For this reason, we have let go of the word “trust” for the most part when referring to my relation to the staff and called it “acceptance”. I feel proud of myself for admitting that I am beginning to trust a couple of staff members rather than just accept them.

Though some of these things seem to be outside of my control, they really aren’t. I mean, I have to thank the pregabalin for my decreased anxiety, but I also do practise relatively good self-care by sleeping with my music pillow when stressed, for instance. I think, by the way, that it helps to hold the view that, though my life isn’t in my hands, my choices are within my control.

How has your life improved over the past couple of months?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 6, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this rainy, windy Sunday afternoon. I’m really regretting having started the landing page for #Write28Days rather than just having linked up some archive of the tag or something, as today I’m already a day behind and it looks weird to add posts to my landing page again now. Okay, maybe that’s just my autistic brain acting up. Anyway, this afternoon I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. If I feel so inclined, I’m going to add another post on my #Write28Days topic tonight, but again I won’t promise I will.

I’ve just had my afternoon coffee. I’m supposed to have a serving of fruit with that. Since the supermarket delivered 5kg of pears yesterday, the staff badly wanted me to eat a pear. Thing is, I’m not a fan. Besides, it’s not my problem either the supermarket got the order wrong or my staff mistyped it in the system. They should have been five pears, not 5kg. Anyway, I chose a banana, but if you all would like a pear (or two) with your coffee, tea or soft drink, we’ve got loads! Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share some more details than I did yesterday about my psychiatrist’s appointment on Tuesday. First, we decided to decrease my topiramate (Topamax) dose again to 25mg morning and 25mg evening, because the other 25mg I was taking in the evening was only giving me side effects and no positive effects. We also discussed my fear of letting go of my sense of control particularly in the evening and at night when getting ready for sleep. This means that traditional anti-anxiety medications or sleeping pills are pretty much out of the question for me, since they’d cause me to get drowsy and hence by definition lose a bit of control. Then, I’d fight the effect of those pills and get even more anxious. The psychiatrist instead prescribed me pregabalin (Lyrica). This, like topiramate, is originally an anticonvulsant, but it also works for anxiety. I would be starting with one 75mg tablet on Saturday early evening (around 5PM, when we have dinner here).

The psychiatrist also recommended that my nurse practitioner talk to the mental health agency’s psychologist to see if she can offer me ideas for coping with the anxiety. My nurse practitioner is also going to discuss this with my care facility’s behavior specialist.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, indeed, I started on my decreased topiramate dosage on Tuesday right away. I slept great my first night and originally thought maybe this was the solution after all. It wasn’t to be though, as the next day I was right back to being sleepless and anxious.

Then yesterday I was anxiously awaiting starting my pregabalin at 5PM only to find out first that the staff thought it was put in the med system for 8PM. Then, once they took a closer look, they found out the pharmacy had put it in there for 8AM and the morning staff had indeed given it to me. I’d apparently taken it without noticing. No side effects so far, but this really is quite stupid, as there’s a reason I should be taking it early in the evening. I E-mailed my nurse practitioner, who will hopefully get back to me tomorrow. By the way, I also noticed I got a capsule rather than a tablet. The dosage is right, thankfully.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, yesterday, I decided to order soft pastels to use with my polymer clay. They should be getting here any moment, as thanks to my Select membership with Bol.com, I can have stuff delivered for free any day of the week.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I asked about sealing my polymer clay creations if I’d used acrylic paint or soft pastels on them. I particularly commented that I don’t want to use resin for this, as it’s rather risky with the UV or fumes of the two-component epoxy. Thankfully, I was reassured that sealing isn’t really necessary and, if it is, I can use other products than resin, such as floorboard protector or liquid clay.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that, due to the high winds, my husband didn’t visit today. He didn’t want to risk driving on the highway in his small Daihatsu Cuore, particularly near Lobith, where they’d issued a weather warning. Better luck next week!

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 30, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m extremely late joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare this week. I already had all my coffee for the weekend, in fact, so the title of my blog post is rather off, but oh well. The linky’s still open for another nine hours, so I’m going to take advantage of it and participate. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start by sharing that the weather is slightly better than it was last week. It’s warmed up a bit, at least. That being said, we’re supposed to get rain all of next week, so I’m probably still not going out much.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that today is my father-in-law’s 65th birthday. Retirement age is now 67 here I believe, so it’s not significant in that sense. At least, my father-in-law is keeping his dentistry practice until he’s 67. My husband did buy him a beer and I sent him a text, but that’s as far as birthday celebrations go, I think.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been creating some quite interesting polymer clay things lately. One is a flower fairy, another a kawaii pig pendant and another a daisy. That daisy didn’t turn out as good as I’d like, but my husband did say he liked the fairy. I haven’t baked any of the things yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d use the rest of my post to whine about how my anxiety is still through the roof. I hardly slept at all Friday night. Then yesterday, I had an okay day until in the evening a fellow client started screeching. I tried to get the staff’s attention but they wouldn’t react until I grabbed the other client by the arm, then only told me that said client, who is non-speaking, couldn’t help her behavior. I’ve been feeling extremely unsettled and unsafe in my current care home ever since. I am all the more triggered because staff keep repeating that I’ll likely feel unsafe in any other place. They probably say it to mean every other place has its drawbacks too, but I take it to mean that my anxiety is my problem and I’m the one who needs to change so I just need to suck it up and stop complaining.

I’ve also been thinking about how I had fewer crises when living with my husband than now that I live in the care facility. Isn’t this telling? I mean, doesn’t this mean that I should get a kick in the butt and go back to living semi-independently? Granted, I had far fewer moments of joy too, but I’m not sure that matters if I was less dependent back then. Isn’t the goal independence, after all? Eek, that scares me, and that in turn should be quite telling, right? I’m probably just one giant mess of a dependent, manipulative, attention-seeking monster.

Okay, if we were having coffee, I’d end on a positive note and say I had a delicious tuna wrap today when going to the Subway drive-through for lunch with my husband. I also had one half of a Bueno candy bar, as my husband had bought it at the supermarket. I originally wanted to refuse as it isn’t on my food plan, but the dietitian had said exceptions are okay.

How have you been?

Share Four Somethings (January 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Can you believe it’s almost the end of January already? I can’t wait for this month to be over with, honestly. February can be depressing too, but not as depressing as January. At least then the weather may start to warm up a little. Let’s hope! Anyway, today I’m joining Share Four Somethings. I think I joined this link-up once before, but am hoping to make it a regular habit now that it’s a new format. Here goes.

Something Loved

Essential oils. Yay, my three new oils arrived today! Though I haven’t tried them out yet, I will certainly be doing so soon. One, lemon, isn’t really new, but I’d had to throw out the old bottle because it’d gone past its shelf life. This really should be a motivator to use my essential oils more often. The other two, spearmint and sweet marjoram, I haven’t used before.

Something Gleaned

Honestly, I had to Google the definition of “glean”, so I could say I gleaned the meaning of the word. I guess my English isn’t as good as I’d like to say it is.

Seriously though, I have been reading the Bible everyday since January 1. While 24 days isn’t my longest streak ever by far, I do find that the more I study God’s Word, the more I learn. My most recent realization came from the story about the Bible passage I mentioned yesterday. The pastor sharing the story about the passage said that “favor” in Psalms 30:5 could also be translated as “grace”. This, until then, I’d always seen as a decidedly New Testamental term. Then again, I now am beginning to see that the Bible isn’t really strictly divided between OT and NT, but it’s all one story leading to Jesus. To those of my readers who’ve been believers for longer than I have been, this may seem obvious. To me, it’s a big eye-opener.

Something Braved

Well, as regular readers of my blog will know, this month was quite hard. I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety and PTSD symptoms. Even though one of my medications, topiramate, which specifically works to combat trauma-related symptoms, was upped earlier this month, I’m not yet noticing the change. On the contrary, in fact, it looks like I’m doing a little worse. That is, I might be noticing a slight positive change over the past few days, but it’s so early on that it’s hard to know for sure and I’m not sure whether the change is positive compared to how I did on my old dosage too. I thankfully will have an extra appointment with my nurse practitioner on Thursday to discuss how things are going.

Something Achieved

Two somethings here, is that okay? First, I have been writing more frequently and more widely than I did before. I am really proud of myself for this, as it is actually one of only a few ways in which I’m still staying active lately. Due to my anxiety, after all, I’m struggling to try new things such as crafting or even to go for a walk. However, I do try out new writing techniques and that’s something at least.

The other achievement is my diet. I started on a healthier eating plan with the help of a dietitian early in the month. Not with the aim of losing weight, although it would be great if I could lose the 1.5kg I need to lose to no longer be obese. My main goal is to experience less inner conflict about eating, as I have a history of eating disorder symptoms. So far, I’m sticking to it pretty well. More importantly, the one day when I couldn’t fully stick to the plan, because we had Chinese takeout, I didn’t resort to eating disorder behaviors. That’s quite an accomplishment!

Poem: Locked Up Inside

Posted on by Astrid

In my bubble
I sit
Staring out
At the world
Outside

From around me
I hear
People talking
To me
But I can’t respond

Through the invisible wall
I try
To reach out
To someone
But I can’t

A tight grip
Of panic
envelops me
Because I know
I’m locked up inside

I have had the concept of being “locked up inside” in my head for a few days now. I first came across the phrase in an E-mail support group for parents of children with selective mutism, a disorder in which a child is unable to speak in certain situations due to intense social anxiety. I have never had this diagnosis, but as a teen and young adult, did experience periods of mutism due to anxiety and dissociative freeze responses. I use the term “locked up inside” for a feeling of intense anxiety which causes a freeze response that leads to an inability to speak and sometimes move. The feeling of being “locked up inside” is particularly frequent and intense lately.

I am linking this poem to dVerse’s Open Link Night.

Most Relaxed When I Am Slightly Distressed?

Posted on by Astrid

I had a meeting with my nurse practitioner today to discuss my topiramate. Like I mentioned last Sunday, the increased dosage isn’t doing what it should. I was experiencing slight tingling in my hands and feet and, more annoyingly, increased drowsiness. Moreover, the medication wasn’t working for my hypervigilance; if anything, it was making it worse. The slight tingling in my hands and feet has decreased to the point of almost disappearing over the past few days. The drowsiness has not. Neither has the hypervigilance.

A theory I came up with recently, in a conversation with the care facility’s behavior specialist, is that my ideal level of alertness is really slight distress. In terms of the care facility’s signaling plan, phase 1 rather than 0 is really when I’m most relaxed. The reason, in fact, is that relaxation scares the crap out of me because it includes a sense of loss of control.

I am reminded in this respect of my last surgery as a child, when I was eight-years-old. I clearly remember going under the anesthesia – I had refused a tranquilizer to calm me beforehand – and I also vividly remember keeping on talking, even when my speech became slurred, up till the moment the anesthetic knocked me out. I was deathly afraid of letting go of my control.

I am also reminded of my fear of going to sleep, which goes back to early childhood. It may in part be related to my trauma-related symptoms, because of course my traumas started as early as infancy. However, I wonder whether this is also somehow related to the fear of losing control.

I once heard that benzodiazepine tranquilizers are no good for people with borderline personality disorder, precisely because the anti-anxiety effect causes aggression in them. I am not sure whether my current diagnosis includes BPD or not, but something similar might be going on with me. I don’t generally become aggressive when I’m under the influence of tranquilizers. However, as my nurse practitioner said, this thing does show that alertness and distress are not some linear thing on a scale from -2 to 3 (on my care facility’s signaling plan) in real life.

The bottom line is that we don’t yet know what to do about my topiramate. We’ve so far decided to wait another week or two to see if, since the drowsiness should decrease with time, this will cause the positive effects to start becoming noticeable. If not, we may go back to my old dosage, but I’m not yet sure what to do about my PRN quetiapine then. After all, we upped my topiramate in hopes that I could do without quetiapine then. Right now, I’ve felt like I would’ve needed a PRN medication quite regularly, but I’m trying to suck it up for now. That’s pretty hard. I’ve had a few almost-sleepless nights over the past week and am pretty anxious most evenings. But yeah, I’m muddling through. Thankfully, my nurse practitioner did give me an extra appointment next week to check in on the meds.