Chopin and Spider

So I’m sitting here on the couch, listening to some of Chopin’s Etudes, Nocturnes and Preludes and other beautiful, mellow piano music. My husband is on the other side of the couch, reading 60 pages of law homework for class tomorrow. I’ve decided to mentally challenge myself and play the game “Spider” on intermediate since I have the beginner level mastered. So far I’ve won 1 of 3 games. It will take some getting used to.

I have been in such a fog the past 6 months. Last February, I got sick. Really sick. Surprising I didn’t have the flu (I’ve never had the flu), but this felt a lot like I imagined it could be. I slept about 18 hours a day, went through 2 boxes of kleenex, and was off of work for an entire week on doctor’s orders. (I was so sick that, when I went to the doctor for some anti-nausea medication since I couldn’t eat, my resting heart rate was 120 bpm – and I couldn’t feel it at all.) Well, the next week I went back to work and worked 6 hours a day instead of 8 – I went to work an hour late and left an hour early, I was so exhausted. Well, that was too much. That week I had a panic attack at work. My co-worker rushed me to an urgent care center because we thought I was having a heart attack. Nope, just a sinus infection, fever, and panic attack induced by too much stress on a weakened system.

Then came the anti-anxiety meds. Boy, were those nice. One pill every 6 hours, and all feeling was gone. I could care about nothing, good or bad, positive or negative. But they also made me so tired that I couldn’t stay awake. I took naps in my car at work. After two months I weaned myself off those meds.

Then came the heart palpatations. And then I thought I was really dying or defective – and so more panic attacks. I had tests done, and my doctor’s office knew me by name. All the answers pointed to my head, not my heart, being “sick.”

So I started talking to my therapist (yes, I already had a therapist…) about my anxiety. Being constantly worried about every heart beat, every weird feeling, muscle twinge, head ache, heart palpatation is exhausting. So I spend a lot of that time convinced something was wrong with me. Surely I was dying, diseased. Certainly major surgery, cancer, or both were in my future. Or maybe sudden death, and the autopsy would reveal what I always suspected. I was so tired all the time, so worried and anxious over every thing.

There were days I didn’t think I would survive. No, something was going to go wrong.

My sister moved in with us. She needed a break from my parents, and I needed help. My husband was leaving for a study abroad program for three months – leaving me alone, except my sister. She was a true godsend. If I was ever so depressed, alone, and scared in my life, it was those months. She helped me laugh, distracted me, focused me. And what do you know, I survived it.

Now I’ve turned a corner. Anxiety is under control (not completely gone from my life – yet). I am so happy in life. I’ve started losing weight (YAY), something I’ve NEVER been able to do. I’ve started becoming the person I used to be, and the person I want to be.

I’ve read 4 books in the past month. That’s more in the past three years combined! My husband is an avid reader – he reads 1 – 2 books a week outside of school work. I love to read. So I’m reading all of Jane Austen’s works. I just finished Persuasion, and it was incredible.

And that brings me back to Chopin and Spider. Two things I’ve missed…