boltnrun

I'm still a little bit mad at my brother for sitting on the stairs outside and then sitting down on my couch. Grrr. I'm trying to keep my home as my safe sanctuary and in just a few seconds he messed that up for me. He didn't mean to. And I know it's illogical, but knowing something is illogical doesn't mean it just goes away. I'm just sharing my thoughts here. It is SUCH a relief knowing I don't have to go to the laundromat anymore. I probably will still need to go twice a month to wash sheets and blankets since the kids have small stackable machines but that's not nearly as bad as the one to two times a week I've been going. My cousin and my friend have committed to checking in with me every couple of days. I think my friends and family didn't realize the extent of my anxiety and resulting depression, I think they just thought I was feeling a bit down. Now that they realize they have offered to step up and help. It's super nice of them to do that for me.

It's not as hot as had been predicted earlier in the week. High 70's, which is very nice. I got a "mask sunburn" from our walk yesterday lol. My forehead and the top of my nose turned a little bit pink.

You are 100% right. Believe it or not, I had less of a meltdown than I would have had in the past. I apologized to my brother and nephew for getting upset with them. My hope is with the therapy and medication I will stop being so obsessively fanatical about things like that and be less tiring to be around. I am not moving in with them for 2 months, so I will take those 2 months as an opportunity to get better. My son and his spouse actually invited me to move in with them. I declined because with the way I am now I fear I would destroy my relationship with them. Plus, their condo is pretty small and it would be difficult for them to have any private time with me there. My brother has 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms and two living areas so I could give them as much personal space as they need while having my own personal space. And I can help by cleaning and doing chores. AND, they have a backyard so I could garden!

My company does the same thing, I think for the same reason; to protect their liability rather than keep employees safe. Before they started doing the assessment one employee informed them he had tested positive. They asked him if he'd been having symptoms and he said yes. They then asked him why he continued to come to work knowing he was sick. He said he has a family to feed and if he took time off from work not only would he not get paid but he would have been let go for not showing up at work. Both things are true; the company has told us either you show up or you will be termed for job abandonment. The only excuse for not coming to work is a positive coronavirus test that your doctor sends to the company HR department. Otherwise, you either come in or you're fired. Poor guy...I can't imagine what he's going through. What a choice to have to make. And that particular location has had a huge outbreak of cases. No way to know if they stemmed from this one man (most likely not) but what a scary situation. I hope all of you remain safe and healthy.

Thank you! So we talked about a lot of things. First, my son and his spouse have offered to let me do my laundry at their home. So that is a big relief. Another thing is, I will be moving in with my brother and his son but he wants me to wait two months. That's longer than I was hoping for but at least I have that ahead of me. However, of course they are not nearly as paranoid about getting infected as I am. My brother sat down on the outside stairs to remove his shoes and then sat on my fabric couch. I yelled (it sort of slipped out) and he said he needed to sit to remove his shoes. Then he set down his water bottle and walking bag onto the ground outside and set them down on my furniture once we were inside. When they were leaving he put his shoes on outside but then stepped back into the living room onto the carpet with his shoes on. He also repeatedly set his (used) mask down on my couch. Sigh...I know these are all low risk things but they are things I absolutely never do. It's going to be a big adjustment moving into his house because I will have to get used to people who are not nearly as fanatical as I am. I will just have to learn to live with the way they do things if I am going to live there. I sprayed my couch with Lysol spray and disinfected my bathroom (which they both used), so I'm waiting for the spray to dry before I sit back down. We sat 6 feet apart and I kept my mask on although my brother and nephew removed theirs. I had windows open and a fan blowing toward them. They are both mostly working from home (my brother goes in about one day a week for a few hours) so they are not super high risk, but I thought it would be best to be safer since technically I broke the rules. We aren't supposed to have anyone over who does not reside in our own household. We went for about an hour and a half walk. It was nice to be outside and to see family members even if I couldn't hug them. Nice birthday gift.

My birthday today. My son, his spouse and my big brother are all meeting me downstairs for a socially distant, masked walk. My psychologist feels my isolation is impacting my anxiety exponentially. I have no one I interact with in person at all. That's not good. I am alone inside my own head and that doesn't help me get into a better head space. I'm hoping to be able to move in with my brother in about a month, once he gets his personal situation figured out and settled. If I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel a month away I feel that will give me something to look forward to. Also have some other changes in mind. More on that later.

I saw a good quote today on some graffiti: "I'm not interested in competing with anyone. I hope we all make it." Got cranky with a former coworker. She keeps messaging me asking about a supply order. I left that location 4 months ago and explained to her that I don't have access to any of their supply orders. So she asked me again today. I got very short with her, which isn't nice but when I already answered something I don't expect to be asked the same question again. She needs to ask the person who replaced me! I feel like that cranky old lady on the greeting cards...that is totally me today.

Amazon delivered my packages to the wrong place. I have very, very clear instructions which the delivery drivers flat out refuse to follow with the exception of a very few. I almost always have to go running around the outside of my building looking for where they decided to toss my delivery today. They are sending me an additional order to compensate me for my inconvenience. People, it's not that hard! My building has FOUR apartments, find the right one!

Deadly? BS? Infantile? It's amazing how many full grown adults are throwing tantrums worthy of 3 year olds when being asked to wear a mask. I wonder if in Canada people are pulling out guns or physically attacking store employees when they are asked to comply with the mask mandate. Because they are here! I wonder what happened to the United States that pulled together after 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the Route 91 massacre. I'm proud of THAT United States. The current one? Not so much.

When am I going to learn to stop trying to do things on Fridays? Laundromat, some guy there kept grinning at me even though I look like hammered crap since I don't shower or fix my hair before going. Then I dropped my spray bottle of disinfectant on the floor so I had to throw it away. I broke the paper towel dispenser (although in my defense it's been broken several times before). Then when I got back to pick up my clothes that same guy had moved my laundry basket over so he could put his folded clothes on the same table even though the entire other half of the table was available and there were other unused tables. Just stood there grinning at me like he expected me to be happy he put his hands on my belongings. I just grabbed it, got my clothes and ran out of there. Now the pharmacy...I had to go inside. They wanted to see my ID because it's a controlled substance. She wants me to hand it to her. I refuse and just held it up to the plastic. She tries to scan it but in this state if you don't have an ID or license issued by this state it won't scan. So she asked me to hand it to her and again I refused, so she typed in the number. Then she asked for my phone number TWICE because apparently she typed it in wrong. Then their stupid credit card reader asked me like five questions before it would accept my payment, then it errored out so I had to do it all over again. I told them their system sucked and left. THEN, once I got home, folded my laundry and got into the shower, I was using the razor and reached behind me to rinse it off and sliced open my right thigh. Bleeding all over the place. I currently have four bandaids on it. I just feel like giving up. I can't seem to do anything right today. And then I remembered the past 4 Fridays were crap shows too. I didn't plan to do chores today but because of the bad reaction to that stupid medication my errands got pushed back two days. Wednesday was supposed to be laundry day but I had to grocery shop that day. I need to set an alert or something for each Friday reminding myself to just stay in bed or something because everything I try to do will go wrong. My birthday is tomorrow. Supposed to go for a walk with my son and his spouse but they haven't confirmed yet. Certainly don't feel like celebrating. I'm just really tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of trying so hard to protect myself and having so many things go wrong. Tired of feeling like I'm the only one who's afraid. Tired of being envious of all the people who are just going about their lives normally while I cower inside my apartment, scared of everything. Tired of having nothing to look forward to. Tired of disappointing all the people who want me to start hobbies or get interested in something because I have no interest in anything. And especially sad for all the people who are suffering either from the virus or from having loved ones who are sick and sad for those people who are feeling the way I do or worse, because I know I'm not the only one who's fearful, anxious and depressed. I honestly thought this virus would be well under control by now. Or at least there would be improvements in treatment and fewer people would be getting sick. I never thought back in March that it would be late July and everything would be so much worse. It's so unbelievable that people are prioritizing politics over health and safety and that so many people care so little for the well being of their neighbors. We've put way too much importance on individual "freedom" at the expense of caring about one another. Too many people just do not care about others. I'm not completely hopeless because I see a lot of good too. I see a lot of people helping others and I think that's great. It's uplifting. I see a lot of wonderful young people. I have to believe there are more of them than there are of the selfish ones. Sorry for the rant...

Long story short, regular doctor is putting me on Ativan on an as-needed basis and has referred me to a psychiatrist so I can be evaluated and placed on a more appropriate anti-depressant. We shall see. Now that the horrible medication is out of my system I was able to grocery shop yesterday and I went for a walk this morning. Tomorrow is laundromat day.

Thank you.

The Celexa caused very frightening suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, uncontrolled crying, and heightened anxiety. I could not continue to feel that way. When you're actually planning the details of your suicide it's time to stop the med. And I live alone so I have no one to lean on, plus I have to do my own groceryshopping and have to go to the laundromat. And delivery doesn't work when the first available time is a week away. I too hope some other type of med will help without those scary side effects.

Does he take medication (if you don't mind disclosing)? I feel like the antidepressant was too much or not the right chemicals. Hopefully an anti anxiety med will work better.

I have a telehealth appointment with the other doctor in the practice since my regular doctor is out of the office. I think it's either his son or his brother since they have the same last name. The appointment is right after my psychologist appointment tomorrow. I'm going to ask to be put on an anti-anxiety med rather than an antidepressant. My diagnosis is "Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Severe" so I would like to try an antihistamine based anti-anxiety med such as Vistaril since I take antihistamines frequently due to seasonal allergies and I tolerate them well. I wasn't really sure why he put me on an antidepressant since any depression I experience seems to me to be due to the anxiety and not the other way around. I forced myself out of the apartment today to go to the grocery store. My hands were shaking but I had to get some things. The store was crowded as usual but I think I was in and out in about 20 minutes. I need to go to the laundromat but I can do it either tomorrow before my appointments or Friday morning. Summertime laundry is always easier since it's capri leggings and shorts and t-shirts rather than sweat pants, jeans, sweaters and sweatshirts. My medical leave was officially approved today. I am to report back to work on August 16th. Hopefully in a month I will feel strong enough to return. And it would be wonderful if the virus was more under control by then too. Too many sick people, too many deaths, it's tragic.

Regressing now. That medication really did a number on me. Up until I started taking it I was able to do household chores, run errands, eat at least something, find interest in at least some things. Now I struggle to do anything other than sit on the couch. I'm crying, I NEVER cried before. I really hate what that medication did to me. It was a huge mistake. I called the doctor and am waiting for him to call me back. I need to go food shopping and I can't even get myself to do that. I got dressed and brushed my teeth but that's as far as I've been able to get. I envy those people who are able to just live their lives without crippling fear and anxiety. I so badly want to be like them.

I read online that antihistamines help with anxiety. I've taken Z-Quil before for insomnia. So I took an antihistamine pill last night and I was able to sleep. Woke up feeling sad and anxious but no dark thoughts and I'm not lying on the couch crying, so that is progress. I will call the doctor a bit later. Also need to grocery shop but I'm building up to that. This afternoon probably. Thank you for asking :)

Can you have them visit in your garden or something? Practice social distancing?

I had to stop taking the medication. It was causing some very concerning, dark thoughts as well as preventing me from sleeping and eating. I was at least able to function pre-medication such as going to the grocery store and the laundromat. Now I can't even fathom getting up the nerve to go anywhere. It was a major deal for me to just take the trash out today. I will call the doctor AGAIN tomorrow and find out if there are options.

Doctor told me to double my dose of medication. It's been somewhat effective, I'm no longer lying on the couch crying and I feel a bit less like I'm going to jump out of my skin. I do have a medium size headache but I'll take it over that crippling anxiety.

Thank you. I know you are very busy so your offer is very generous. I don't have a WhatsApp account. I had disabled private messaging on this forum but if I add you as a friend I think that would work.

Kept me on hold for 15 minutes. Now waiting for a call back from the doctor. I'm trying to do different things like avoiding news programs altogether. I wasn't watching a whole lot but I wanted to at least stay informed. My city changed the restrictions and I didn't know for 2 days, so I felt like I should at least check. But it turns into more than a few minutes and that's not good. I'm also going to try to force myself to eat more. I told my brother yesterday via text that I am really struggling. He didn't reply back but he's going through his own difficult time so he probably can't be "on call" for me. I've been reaching out to other friends for support but I don't want to be a pest.

I'm sorry. My mental health issues are obviously getting worse and it's spilling onto this thread. I'll stick to my journal from now on.

Thanks for asking. Honestly? Anxiety is through the roof. I don’t know how to get through the day feeling like this. I'm not sure if it's the medication but I feel more anxious than I did before starting it. Couldn't sleep. This isn't good. Guess I need to call my doctor but I don't want to.

I'm sorry...I do think the hotels have to comply with some pretty vigorous disinfecting standards. Here I think they even have to let a room sit for a full day between guests.