I am taking an abnormal psych class at CBC this quarter, and my teacher warned us on the first day of class not to start diagnosing ourselves and those around us just because they have the symptoms of a particular mental disorder. However, I have a hard time not doing that, and I've already found myself making very educated guesses as to certain people's mental health, including my own. What can I say? When the statistics show that 50% (which by the way is half of everyone I know) of the human population will have a mental disorder in their lifetime, how can I not exercise my precise knowledge paired with my womanly intuition? It's foolproof.
Anyways, today in class we learned about Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Let me rephrase that: Today in class, we learned about me :) Let me give you a little back story.
The past several months, I have struggled constantly with anxiety. It's like a feeling that just stays with me and never fully goes away. My brain has felt extremely overloaded, especially with school starting and some family problems happening at my house. I've had trouble sleeping since the beginning of the year, and heaven forbid I drink caffeine or I'll be up all night. The past few weeks its gotten significantly worse as I've felt overwhelmed with everything. And overwhelmed with nothing. Like a constant cloud of anxiety that just looms over my head all the time, tiring me out and never giving me a moment's rest.
The past week, it got so bad that I have had ZERO motivation to do anything. Not even anything social (which is HUGE, if you know me). So I talked to my doctor about it and asked for a blood test (which is also HUGE if you know me. I hate needles and blood and rubber bands. Blech).
After a traumatizing experience getting my blood taken, the results were sent into the doctor. I will find out tomorrow afternoon what's going on. As for now, I have my own speculations after our discussion in class today.
As I was listening to my teacher describe this disorder, I was checking off my mental checklist. Restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance? Yep, that pretty much sounds slightly and/or a lot like me. Constant stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system while lacking the inhibitory input? Yes. Pick me. Lack of appetite followed by a ravenous one? Absolutely. I feel either not hungry at all, or starving. There is no in between.
Often the anxiety is caused by stressful situations or beliefs that worry somehow is valuable to one's well-being. Whatever the cause, I told my psych buddies Katherine and Eric my new diagnosis for myself, and Eric reminded me that she told us we would think we're sick.:) While that is true, I do think there something serious going on here. The past few days have been an emotional roller coaster, with my blood test (which = numb arm for the rest of the day) and missing my class this morning because I was crying the the car for an hour after hitting the bumper of a parked car while I was pulling into school this morning. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be fully enlightened as to my physical and psychological condition. And I will soon enlighten you also.
To be continued.... :) :) :)
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