I get unpredictable bouts of rage and irritability. Ask my mother. Unfortunately, my mom has gotten this symptom aimed at her more times than I can count. I theorize that it's because I have always turned to her when my stress and anxiety are highest. My mom knows me extraordinarily well. She knows that I never mean to insult her, I'm not snapping at her, and she knows how to make me feel better (most of the time). She also knows when to tell me that I am being a bitch and I need to calm the fuck down.
Nit-pickiness is a weird one for me. I am a natural nester and messy. I have a nasty habit of getting organized and then not keeping up with said organization. I am also very picky about weird things: toilet paper, organizing dishes before starting them, folding, food, etc. There are a lot of things that people do for me and then I go back and "fix" them. Usually with a pathetic, "I'm sorry, but this will drive me nuts if I don't "fix" it." It makes me very uncomfortable when people change things on me. For example, someone used to use my decorative pint glasses (fully functional but on display) rather than find a cup in the cupboard. I got so mad about that, yet it is inconsequential.
Anyone who knows me knows I tend to talk fast and stumble over my words, usually in the form of "losing a vocabulary word" as I call it, almost every day. A great example is the word giraffe. It's not a word you would think anyone would use very often or forget, yet I can think of 3 instances where I have had to explain the giraffe because I could not put the word to the picture. If you've ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you would have a clue as to how I speak sometimes. I will often make up words by combining others, I'll use sounds and gestures to help others understand, and quite often, monologues end with, "You know what I mean?" Fortunately, people tend to write this off as one of my idiosyncrasies, but it's often a huge embarrassment for me. It's also probably why I'm so nit-picky about spelling and grammar. (Did you see what I did there? I thought it was funny.)
The last two tend to be symptoms tend to be "coping mechanisms." Yeah, I know they are bad. One thing my family knows is when I'm not talking, I'm really tired, around strange new people, or someone in the general vicinity has pissed me off. That's usually when they start questioning my health as well. My brother noticed that he gets "zoned" whenever he tries to give me a lecture that I deem none of his damned business. He HATES it, and he knows the second my eyes gloss over, nothing gets through that wall. These are also the times I am most likely to think my more destructive thoughts or I'm mulling over the events leading up to the problem at hand.
There are other symptoms, of course, like insomnia, overthinking, GERT, fearfulness in crowds, etc. Obviously, I cannot speak for everyone because I am still getting to know myself in context of this illness. It's a very difficult process for a lot of different reasons.
Reason #1: How do I know if the things I experience are real or twisted by my mind? I still don't know completely what my all symptoms are or how much they dramatize my true feelings. There are the obvious times, of course, like when someone has done nothing wrong and I snap on them or when I feel numb all day. But there are other times when I get irritated because another damned pedestrian just walked right in front of my bike without looking or a "biker" flies through a stop sign with other vehicles at the intersection. These are understandable irritants, but I question the intensity of the feeling and even whether I really have a reason to be irritated.
Reason #2: When did the symptoms start, and what historical events in my life are a result of or directly affected by my illness? This ties right back in with the first question. I can think things I did as a child/non-adult: exploding on people, zoning out in classes, etc. When I was in sixth grade, I slammed my pencil into a boy's hand for messing with my book. Did I over-react because I was young and crazy-irritated, or did I do that because the chemicals in my brain made me more angry and I focused that anger into violence? (He's fine! He just has a pencil mark on the back of his hand forever. At least he'll never fuck with someone's book again.) Even though I was officially diagnosed with GAD in 2014, I know I had clusters of anxiety attacks when I was about 21 (so 2004 ish?). I also know that I was suffering from depression and anxiety when I worked at Walmart and throughout college. How far does it go back? Did I have anxiety throughout grade school and no one noticed? Or was I just a very smart Irish-German girl? With a spotty symptom list, there is no way to piece together much. I feel like I'm putting together a puzzle but I'm only allowed to see a few of the pieces and some of the pieces have faded with time.
Reason #3: When am I coddling myself, when am I helping myself, and when am I being too hard on myself? You know when you break or twister your leg, they usually give you crutches. They are generally accompanied by a strict warning to use them only as long as you need them because you have to build the strength back up in the injured leg. Anxiety does this too. If you make excuses, for your behavior, it can make you think it's okay, and you do it again. If you punish yourself, though, you end up damaging your psyche with more guilt and stress, which makes the anxiety worse. I need the nice, happy medium, but that's difficult to measure. The only tried and true method I know of to validate my feelings and actions is to ask others. Unfortunately, comparing yourself to others can also lead to increased stress and anxiety. Oh, and my friends like to tell me this. Usually, my reaction is a big, fat, "Fuck you." I mean, seriously? How am I supposed to correct my thoughts and focus on the correct feelings when I can't figure out what they are? Which leads to:
Out of all of the problems that anxiety is, the most frustrating part is all of the Catch 22s of anxiety. For example, if I don't get enough sleep, my anxiety flares up. If my anxiety flares up, the insomnia flares up, which again flares the anxiety. Another example, if I'm having a bad day and my friend invites me over, I generally cancel, which I always feel guilty about, again amplifying the anxiety, making me not want to do more social things. Often times, powering through a symptom can make it worse later, but then again, nursing the symptom can make it worse as well. Catch 22s all over the place, and my hand/eye coordination ain't what it used to be.
They ain't no doubt about it: Anxiety is a bitch trying to make you its bitch. Truthfully, any illness is, mental or otherwise. The trick is to try to stay positive and take care of yourself, no matter how painful it is. That being said, please comment below if you have other symptoms from your anxiety, if you've developed a good coping mechanism for any of these symptoms, or even if you just need someone to talk to who understands a little bit.
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