Stuff My Shrink Says

Technically, I don't think she's a shrink since she's a LCSW, right?  Don't you have to look and sound like Freud to be called that?  Either way, it sounds funnier to call her my shrink, so there it is.

We had a great talk about what exactly anxiety and depression are.  I thought I knew but during the course of the conversation I got confused so I asked her to explain it to me.  Basically, depression is feeling loss of motivation, not enjoying things that I used to enjoy and just being down.  Anxiety is more like racing thoughts and the inability to calm my mind.  She had me put numbers on my anxiety, 0 being none and 10 being like panic attack level.  She then asked me when I first notice that I am having anxiety.  Usually I get pissed off.  Like if my house is messy and it gets too much for me to handle, I get mad at everyone (i.e. crazy bitch.)  We labeled this point as a 5.  She asked if I ever get to a 10, which I have had panic attacks before, but very rarely thank god.  So we rephrased a 10 as the point where I'm so anxious that I basically have to shut myself down.  This usually resorts in me ordering my husband to take over and then I retreat to my room and watch tv by myself.  I have to do that to shut my mind off and to avoid the messes and stresses of my house.  This usually triggers a day or two of depression.

So basically, if I'm operating between 0-5, I can handle the daily stresses and anxiety.  When I get to a 5, I get mad, somewhat irrational and basically not very pleasant.  She asked me to pay attention to the thoughts that come and go when I get to a 5 because anxiety is pretty much feeling uncomfortable, having irrational thoughts about it and then acting on those thoughts.  So mine go something like this...

"My house is a disaster."  (Messy maybe, disaster?  No.  Anxiety ensues.)
"Nobody in this house appreciates what I do."  (Sometimes true but not always.)
"I have to do everything myself.  Nobody will help me."  (Not true, and usually I haven't even asked for help.)
"If someone comes over right now, I will be so embarrassed."  (At this point she asks me why that concerns me.  If I think people will think I'm lazy or dirty.  Yes.  She says, "Well are you lazy and dirty?"  No.)

So my job is to start asking myself whether all these thoughts are true or not.  And finally to ask "what's the worst that could happen?"  If my neighbor shows up and the sink is full of dishes, is the embarrassment really going to do anything other than make me uncomfortable for a few minutes?  Probably not.

The only problem I see with this is that sometimes I have racing thoughts about bad, bad things.  Like people dying or bad things happening.  So I have to ask myself if it's realistic, which usually it isn't.  The issue arises when I ask myself what is the worst thing that could happen.  Because let me just tell you, I am one creative bastard and I can think of a gazillion worst things.  So my job here is to pay attention to what triggers these insane thoughts and figure out how to interrupt that trigger.  (Still working on that one.)

So to summarize, my goal is to operate at a 0-5.  If I get to a 5, pay attention to my thoughts and figure out which are true or not true.  Talk myself back to below a 5.  And repeat.

After my last post about anxiety and depression, I got a lot of concerned e-mails from you ladies.  I appreciate them SO much, but just want to reiterate that this isn't my life every second of every day.  It comes and goes and 90% of the time, I am so, so happy!  It's just therapeutic to blog about it, and it seems that many of you relate, so I just put it out there.  I promise I'm not a risk to myself or others.  :)