NOT an addict, just stressed out.

 After wrting that ADDICT entry I took another imipramine and tried calming down. I told dan he has to pick me or his eating disorder because i just can’t deal with it anymore! I have my own shit to deal with. This is major shit I told him this is fucking life or death, sanity or insanity for me! It really is. I am on these pills to help my anxiety and I need people around me who are supportive and help me get better. I need to live somewhere safe that makes me feel comfortable. I found the place and now all I need is the supportive people and the real reason I have been getting so angry lately is because all the time he is depressed and all the time he isn’t eating enough and inside it really makes me sad. My therapist tells me I can’t help anyone but myself or else I will fall so I try to ignore his problems but when you are with someone all the time it’s hard to just ignore these things, they just build up inside its like trying to ignore my moms drinking. Watching the one you love hurt themselves over and over again when you’ve told them many times before to stop. It makes me so angry inside and anger is what causes my anxiety to spike. My therapist says I need to let out my anger but sometimes I think that isn’t enough, I cant be angry all the time, I can’t be around people who make me angry all the time or else I will never get better. In a couple of months I will have to get off these pills and when I get off these pills I want to be in a better situation, while I am on them I want to get better I don’t want to be stressed out all the time! So I told dan this, that I can’t be around him if he is going to be like this! I have been telling him since we started dating to go to therapy and he hasn’t. I can’t sit there while he is sad and be his therapist I have to worry about myself and keeping myself happy so I can battle my own anxiety! Or else when I get off these pills i will be worse than I was when I got on them and there will have been no point. I can’t put myself in stressful situations or relationships anymore. I can’t try to help other people with their problems only tell them to get there own therapist. Anyways Dan finally agreed to eat normal and I don’t know if he really is going to put he went to the store and bought a lot of foods that arent fat free or low calorie and he ate them, I told him this cant be just a binge. I need it to be a long term thing. I hope he follows through. Anyways I also talked to my mom and she calmed me down she explained a lot to me and told me i’m not addicted that I have been going through a lot more stress lately than normal so that is probably why I feel like I need to take more pills to relieve the anxiety. We talked for an hour and she basically told me all the things like you cant worry about anyone but yourself, you cant put yourself in stressfull situations etc. She made me feel a lot better because i know she has been through similar situations and she has taken benzo’s for years before, xanax and klonopin. These days she only takes a half when she needs it and only gets 15 a month in her prescription but she says i am just going through a lot more right now and I am just learning to deal with my problems from her past drinking. Me being in therapy and her being sober in treatment it just brings up all these past things you know from my childhood its weird but sometimes therapy can be stressful but in the end its for the better.

So I figured out that these are the things I have to do for now on:

• Not try to be therapist to anyone else. I do this a lot. I need to worry about myself only. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about others. I will just be able to help them more if I am healthy and right now I am very mentally unhealthy. I can’t make sabrina happy, I can’t try to talk sense into bethann, I can’t try to be dans dietitian, I can’t help lisa through her anxiety just because i know how bad it is doesn’t mean its my job to save her, Its not my job to try to keep my mom sober by being her conselour, I cant even help my little sister with all her boy problems, I cant worry about my dad constantly. I just have to remember I CANT SAVE ANYONE, it is their job to seek therapy.

• Surround myself with stable people that will make me happy rather than stress me out. This week with sabrina was probably not a good idea and my mom and dan told me maybe I shouldn’t bring her to sonshine. I want to bring her to sonshine because I just wanna go with a friend. I told dan can she come with if we are only just friends and she promises not to be all depressed and crap over bethann. If she becomes depressed she can go sleep with bethann because bethann said she is going to sonshine too and I don’t want to deal with her depression. I’m not trying to be insensitive, and I really wish I could help but the thing is I can’t help you when I can’t even help myself its a true statement. It is obvious that I made it worse for her this week and that is cause I tried to help instead of worry about myself. Other people I can hang out with are basically Dan if he seeks therapy and help & my mom, my mom is the number one person right now. My dad sometimes but a lot of the time he stresses me out with his yelling. My sister sometimes to but same thing sometimes she stresses me out. I don’t think I should be around the people at my dads house like tom or mary, or be around lisa because she has anxiety and thats all she ever wants to talk about with me and basically it stresses me out.

• Do activities that will make me happy rather than stress me out. If I want to stay home and read a book, then stay home. Do distracting calming things like painting, drawing, watching movies, reading, etc. Don’t do anything just because someone else wants me to. Learn to just say no if I don’t want to do something. I don’t always have to be out and about, it is good to just stay at home sometimes and be calm. However, it is not good to stay at home all the time either. Balance it out. Make me alone time, and also make time for outside fun activities with friends or dan.

• Spend nights only at home. It is where I feel the most safe and comfortable.

• Do activities that HELP me get better, don’t just rely on the pills. Read the anxiety book from my therapist. Do his assignments, plan for the future with school and other activities I like to do. Go to therapy weekly, go to church weekly, read my bible, maybe start going back to acupuncture. Take this seriously. I want to get over my anxiety not rely on pills. These pills are not a cure, they are just a helper so that I at least have the stability in my mind to try to work on my anxiety because before them I just couldn’t. Working on changing anxiety is HARD WORK. Because sometimes it feels just physical energy, but like my therapist said there are deep down reason why it comes in the first place. Maybe it is hard once it comes but my job right now is to figure out why it comes and try to prevent it from coming in the first place.

• Stop being/thinking negative. When I get a negative thought call my mom or try to turn it around in my head, write a positive journal entry instead of a freak out one.

• Only involve mysel

f in one relationship at this time. I am not saying polyamory is a bad idea I am just saying that it is to stressful for me at this time when I am trying to get better. I figured out that no one should be in a polyamorous relationship unless they are completely emotionally stable because it is hard work. More relationships mean more time I need to spend with more people, more stuff I need to figure out, just more stress. So only one for now and that is Dan because obviously he is my primary.
 

More to come when I think of it.