I Had a Bad Day :-\ ...then I Stomped on It!

Wouldn't it be nice if this is what OCD really stood for?

The one crazy thing about my anxiety and OCD is that it can be unpredictable. A lot of my anxiety is biological; I can just have an anxiety-filled day at random times, no triggers or reasons needed. Sometimes my body plays tricks on me and just screams, "You are going to be anxious today!!!" Those days are some of the hardest to control for me. There is nothing for me to focus on to calm myself down. My body is fighting against me while trying to calm myself down. And it can trigger my OCD. It just plain old stinks!

The day before my birthday, Bjorn, Rachie, and I planned our annual Jungle Jim's trip to pick up some fun snacks for the night. That morning I knew something felt "off;" that's usually how these anxiety days start. Bjorn and I got off to kind of a late start. I had to take a pill in the morning to help me with my nausea from a migraine I had the night before. They make me so sleepy. Needless to say, I couldn't get myself to wake up! I'm usually an early morning person, but this day, I couldn't get myself out of bed until 12:00.

Once I woke up, I felt shaky and nervous. My heart was racing. I thought that I might need to eat (I get that way sometimes), so I took a shower and ate breakfast. No luck. I felt worse. Since my anxiety was at such a high level, I knew my mental strategies were not going to work; I needed to move (physical motion) or get my mind focused on something else. 

I tried cleaning; no luck there. I couldn't focus on it, and it wasn't physical enough. I ran up and down the stairs to our loft a few times. That also was to no avail. Nothing was working. I decided that we were just going to leave. I needed something to do!!

Once I got ready to leave, I couldn't get a hold of Rachael, who wanted to go with us. Bjorn and I figured we'd just go over to her place and pick her up. I text her to let her know we were on our way.

I love this picture of my sissy.

On the way, I stopped to pick up Pink Champagne cupcakes for my birthday from Cupcake Crazy and get a decaf coffee (no caffeine for me--thanks migraines!). I also don't think my heart at this moment in time could have handled any full caffeine-strength coffee. That might have sent me into some kind of crazy palpitations! You never know!

At our first stop, I felt my heart start to race even faster like it was speeding down a racetrack. I knew it wasn't a good sign. I kept thinking, what did I eat that made me feel so weird? I should know better. It's my anxiety. As the day went on, it only got worse.

Once we got to Rachael's, I knocked on her door, rang the doorbell, and knocked some more. I even walked around back to her sliding door where she watches TV thinking she may have fallen asleep on the couch. 

Of course, in my mind, there had to be some logical  explanation as to why she couldn't hear my knocks and the doorbell. For example, she most likely took a nap.

Now, my OCD brain would have thought, If she were sleeping, my noise had to wake her (it was so loud), so something had to be wrong (because she wasn't answering the door). She couldn't just be sleeping. Maybe she got sick and and is passed out and can't wake up. Maybe she fell and hit her head and is bleeding. Maybe she had a bad reaction to some new medication she's taking.

For a split second, my mind went there, but I knew she was most likely sleeping. So I shut it up fast! No loop for me that day! I really wanted to go to Jungle Jim's and get this anxiety to move on! I knew Rachael really wanted to go with us, so I didn't want to leave her. This was my solution: I found some pine cones on the ground and decided to throw them at her bedroom window to see if I could get her to wake up.

Some pine cones I found.

Rachael's window.

Yeah...I threw the pine cone at her window. I seriously was laughing at myself every time I threw the pine cone at her window. It was ridiculous. She said it sounded like someone was hammering the shutters down outside. But, she woke up. 

She was sleeping---just sleeping. "So you're having a bad day?" was her first question. I just nodded. I wanted to go to Jungle Jim's and have fun! But my anxiety was getting in the way!

Rachael got dressed, and we were on our way. I told her what a hard time I was having and how I couldn't get myself to calm down. I even quickly ran back and forth through the parking lot (physical movement again) while trying to wake Rachael up. No luck again, but I wasn't about to give up!

Once at Jungle Jim's, we decided to go to lunch and ate at Cici's pizza :( not my favorite, but it works. My OCD kept trying to start looping and I was trying to stop it. I did a good job. I got a thought, but I wouldn't let it continue. Here is what happened:

I used to work in food service at Miami University. I refilled the salad bar. That is NOT how you do it! I was a salad bar expert! I know they quickly turn over the food on the salad bar at Cici's, but come on! Don't we have to live up to some kind of food standards!

And that is my rant. Now I am done. At least I didn't let the girl working at the salad bar continue to irk me. Her actions annoyed me. Then I thought, Who cares? I'm over it! And I wanted to leave and be done.

And by the way, I didn't think Rachael was dead. I didn't go there that day!

Yeah...I had a super bad day because of how I woke up feeling. Once we got to Jungle Jim's and started walking around and perusing the super fun stuff that they have there, my anxiety started to melt away. Rachael and I started looking at cool stuff. And then we did this:

We had some lovely 25 cent beer samples in the beer and wine section (we also had two 25 cent champagne samples!). And we found out that Jungle Jim's is having a Barrel Aged Beer Bash at the end of January! Fun! 

The trip was fun and it made me feel better. The only thing I could do that day to combat my anxiety was get a different focus. That's hard for me when I'm at home and don't have a schedule or plan. Getting out of the house and going somewhere and doing something really helped.

I am so proud of myself for getting so angry at my anxiety and giving it a good stomp in the face! It took a long time, but I have become an expert at it!

Sometimes these kinds of days are the hardest for me and my anxiety. My body is fighting against me and it is really hard to bring my anxiety down: my heart races, I feel light headed, and all that just feeds into my anxiety and OCD more so. 

But after all that, I ended up having a great rest of the afternoon with Rachael and Bjorn, but boy, was I tired when I got home! I made it through it once I got my mind occupied on something else.

I am so thankful for understanding sisters and husbands, fun to be had at Jungle Jim's, and my husband's awesome biscuits and gravy (he made it for dinner)!! Love you both!

C'est la vie! I am stronger than I think :)

Love and happiness <3 Holly