Anxiety

[DMDarcs]

I'm fighting my way through it. I don't know how I'm doing, but my guess is not as well as I'd like to think I am, or how I try to portray myself to others. I'm not talking about social anxiety, which I do have to some degree, but overall is very easy to deal with as long as I keep along with a few simple guidelines. No, this is another anxiety, which causes me to fall into a weird state at home. At work, the anxiety doesn't manifest itself. I am there to do a job, I throw myself into it, from moment of arrival until it's time for me to leave and pick up the kids. While I do not often get to talk to my colleagues, and indeed there are days where I may not even talk to another adult except for a casual "Hey there" while passing in the halls, I feel fine. I feel productive. I'm doing something. I'm of value. I am in CONTROL of what is happening. I feel that I'm generally pretty good at what I do. There are others better than me, and that's fine. None of that takes away from what I contribute. But then, at home, is when the anxiety starts. Which bills am I behind on now. What's going to break next. What are we going to do for dinner. I've got to read this thing. I have to run this errand. Got to take care of the kids. Why are they fighting now? Where did all this stuff come from? I thought I just cleaned that up. I need to do something to get mind off of everything else that's pressuring me - here's something pointless I can do. Shit, two hours went by while I did this pointless thing. But that's good, now I've quieted some of those thoughts down. Here's some stuff I can do for work that will help me get ahead - let's plow into this! Alright, my wife's home now. Things are better. No, now things are worse - the entrance of the maternal figure has excited the children, and they want to share their day with her. I want to share my day with her. But I don't want to talk about my day. I don't want to talk about the stress. My stress becomes her stress, and she's carrying enough stress on a daily basis to begin with. She's taking care of dinner, she's getting the kids to bed. I'm... not doing anything. I'm going to go lay down on the couch while she finishes things up. Why is my son still up? She's taking care of it. Crap, I fell asleep on the couch. She's gone to bed. I'll go up to bed too. Shit, now I remember all of those things that I forgot to take care of while I was zoning out, playing a video game or reading comics or reading the Wikipedia pages for every leader in Civilization games. Maybe I should have a drink - alcohol is supposed to calm you down, and that should help me sleep, right? But I really don't want to drink alcohol right now. There's not much I have the taste for, and it's a kind of expensive way to fall asleep in the long term, I would imagine. Snapple would be way better. But I'm in my jams, I don't want to change, go out, and spend the $2.25 for 32 ounces of temporary pleasure. I'm probably just tired, right? Yes, sleep will fix everything. Remember - you've got things GOOD. You have a house, you have a happy marriage, you have great kids. There's really not anything that could make your job any better than it actually is. Well, getting paid more would be awesome, but it's not like you're getting underpaid by any stretch of the imagination. And you know people who have tighter or tougher financial situations than you, and they're doing GREAT. So get over it - things aren't as bad as you think they are. Get some sleep, you'll be fine in the morning. I know that these problems will still be there, but I'll be in a different frame of mind to tackle this once I've become well rested. Maybe you do need to see a therapist. But they're expensive, right? Plus, there's not really any easy way for me to get to one anyway. Any time off I'd need to take from work ultimately results in twice as much work for me - coming up with something a sub could handle, and then playing catch up on that day my students take off from playing - ugh. And transportation is a whole separate issue - I'd have to change my wife work's schedule, which mean disrupting the morning routine for my kids, and I'm not even sure if that would do anything. I don't know that just talking things through will fix things. Besides which - I don't have things really going wrong in my life! Sure, there's setbacks, but they've been tackled, and I'm REALLY not in a bad position. Oh man, what if so-and-so knew I thought this? I mean, right now, I have these advantages over them, and I know they've had a difficult time dealing with X. My issues compared to those are small! And I know you're not supposed to sell your own worries and troubles short - they are your own worries after all. But I'm trying not to be the center of my universe. Man, that's hard. Everyone has to be the center of their universe to some extent. No one's reality is the same as anyone else's. Everyone perceives things in slightly different ways, and everyone has different backgrounds, so even the same stimulus received at the same time is going to be shaded by the entirety of their previous existence...but that's not what I'm really worried about, right? It's that damn alignment test you took in college. You answered everything honestly, you took the 20 minutes to work through it, and you ended up neutral evil. Neutral evil! You're the bad guy. And looking back on things, you were in some ways a better person then. I mean, there were awful things you did then, but that was more because you were young and didn't think things through. I mean, there's no way current you would make up and spread a rumor about how that weird guy you went to school with masturbates with peanut butter, only to find out seven years after starting this as a joke that your wife told you this about the person after she met him for the first time, even though you had never talked about this person before in your life and didn't share any kind of mutual shared background with this person. Oh man. Was a dick to that person when we met again seven years later? I tried not to be, but there were so many times I really felt he was taking advantage of my attempts at generosity. Like that time he wanted me to paint all those space marines. I don't want to do that. How could he even have spent that much money on miniatures? I've seen those things in the store - they're expensive! And it's time consuming! How do people have the time for all the time investment? Well, I guess some of them don't have jobs that require the time input mine does, and they do spend less on other things. And some of those guys aren't involved in families right now. Pull the wife closer. Wait, that's my son. WHY IS HE IN OUR BED AGAIN?? I'd go sleep in his bed, but it's too small. And wicked uncomfortable. And the wife would then think I'm mad at her. She always thinks I'm mad at her, or judging her. And I haven't been able to fix that issue yet either. I've said horrible shit, and I never mean any of it, but this anxiety turns into anger and just spews everywhere, and it's not supposed to do that, especially because I'm not even angry! At least the outbursts are much less frequent. And they don't show up at work. Maybe I need to get on medication again. But this is all self diagnosis. Maybe I should see someone. But then - wait. I've already gone down this path once tonight. I know where this circles back to, right back to here. I'm not going that way again. Family Guy is on. Concentrate on Family Guy. You know these jokes, you've seen this episode a ton. I don't know what episode it is. I don't remember the plot but I know the jokes. Close your eyes. Focus on the words. Imagine the words being typed out on a screen, one-by-one. Not just any screen. It's the computer screen from the first computer your family owned. The Windows 3.whatever. But you're not in Windows. You're opening a text file from MS-DOS. Blue background, white letters, monospaced text. How many characters fit on a line? I don't know. Imagine those words one-by-one. When does the line break? Focus on the words. There's the alarm. I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have. I don't remember the episode, the sleep timer turned the TV off. The clock is at the time it's supposed to go off. I think had some dreams. Time to go to work. I've got stuff to do.

[Phoebe]

And here is a second person who needs to repeat his affirmations of how awesome he is! Seriously, it is excellent that you are letting all of this out and that you know you want to take action. These times of small children are just heavvvvvy in terms of exhaustion and stress and struggle on the parents. I personally have found seeking therapy to be excellent, but it was most helpful when I planned to address a specific problem, and get a result, with a specific person who had the right expertise. This may sound weird but I cannot say enough good about self hypnosis for anxiety issues. If there is a legit person who does hypnosis there and can train you, it is marvelous. I just went to my guy in the evening hours, so very convenient for work. He is like a magician in terms of technique and results, but absolutely nothing like a magician in the sense that his hypnosis is entirely a scientifically grounded practice, that has nothing to do with the nonsense normally going under the title hypnosis.

But whatever, if you're having a struggle it is always worth seeking help just like you would for anything else, be it influenza or a broken toilet. You are too important to let it slide. Some kinds of therapy are all about letting you learn to live comfortably with anxiety, and those are good - like cognitive behavioral approaches. And other kinds, like the hypnosis or medication or other practices, help to chop out the anxiety at the root. I am rooting for you and for your whole family! Everyone here thinks y'all are totally awesome!!!

[Stan]

I'm sorry. I wish I had something helpful to say. Other than that you're better than most of us. So don't be so hard on yourself. And don't be afraid of meds if they're helpful.

And peanut butter? Would that really be such a bad thing? Well, except I bet the oil in it would stain things. Everywhere. Maybe you'd have to throw out your sheets and spend the money you were going to spend on the new Civ game to buy new sheets. Wait, you're not talking about chunky, are you? That's really weird.

[Tahlvin]

A typical terminal window can fit 80 mono-spaced characters on a line.

I'm sorry you are going through this. The biggest advice I can offer is to take care of yourself. You can't take care of your wife and kids if you are falling apart, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc.

And don't be afraid to share with your wife. She's your partner in all of this. You share your thoughts and stress with her, and she shares hers with you, and it can actually help you both.

Therapy, hypnosis, medication: use whatever tools you can that work.

And we're here for you if you need to talk, or for whatever. If I were closer, I'd love to babysit for a weekend so you and the wife can get away and reset/recharge.

Finally, peanut butter?! That's an interesting one!

[Mike]

I'm really bad at this... which is to say, I overthink and worry if I'm being too trite. Or am I stating the obvious? Is it even my business? Am I going to step over some line and offend? I don't want to make anyone mad. Worse yet--if I try to relate I know that no one ever truly knows what someone else is going through--we're all individuals and even though I've been through stuff similar to this it's never necessarily been of this exact quality or intensity and I don't want to look like a raving egomaniac who makes everyone else's troubles all about themselves.

I think everyone reading this can see themselves in pieces of what you've said. You're human and you're normal. I'm just sorry you have to be going through it and at this intensity. You sound miserable.

You said it already but it bears repeating: Don't compare your troubles to anyone else's. Even the most depressed and tragedy-beset people I have known have made comments that they have no right to complain, because they know others who have it worse. It's bullshit. It's part of our natural depression and anxiety that everything is shitty and somehow we're supposed to feel guilty because we aren't allowed to feel shitty about shitty things. You deserve better than that. You have enough to sort out without adding meta-levels of anxiety.

You're my friend. I love you. I care about you and yours. I like you. You're a great man and an even better DM. I wish you could see you as others see you. (Spoiler -- people like you.)

[Tahlvin]

I was worried about how my response might come across, and now Mike has me even more worried. Because it is a very individual thing; I have no idea what DMDarcs is really going through.

But the important thing I want DMDarcs (or anyone on this board struggling with emotional issues of a similar sort) to take away is that there are people that love and care about you, and want you to be happy, and are here to help in any way they can (from a distance). Like Mike said, I wish you could see yourself as we see you, even if only for a brief instant.

[akiva]