Getting around on my extra paws

Despondent. I admit that’s how I felt on Monday afternoon. I felt despondent.

I went to see my orthopedic doctor for a recheck of my broken foot. After looking at the new X-rays, he told me he saw “the beginnings of healing,” but I would have to stay on the crutches for at least three more weeks.

After the three weeks, he will check it again. If it’s still moving in a positive direction, if it’s no longer hurting when I put weight on it, and if the tenderness is gone, I’ll be able to just wear the orthopedic boot and walk on that, with no crutches.

If it doesn’t heal in three months, then he will do surgery on it.

He reminded me that a Jones fracture takes a long time to heal because it’s located in a part of the foot that doesn’t have a good blood supply, and tendons run over the fractured area.

And he cautioned me to stay on the crutches and not put weight on my foot except in the shower, where I could put weight on the heel.

OK, not horrible news. The bone is healing. I don’t need surgery now. I don’t have to do anything different at this point except be more vigilant about staying on the crutches.

So why the despondency? The doctor’s visit didn’t meet my expectations, and I came face to face with my nemesis, uncertainty.

I expected to be told Monday that the bone was almost healed. I had no proof that it was, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it did before, and I reasoned that it must be well on the way to complete union.

What I got was a reminder that this is going to be a long process. I’m going to have to be patient with it.

And I also expected to be told Monday whether or not I would need surgery. This was a misunderstanding on my part. Even the doctor is uncertain about the need for surgery.

But it still bothered me that I won’t know for a number of weeks whether or not, after all the travels on crutches and all the hours in the boot, I still might need surgery.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I don’t naturally do well with uncertainty.

Uncertainty feeds my OCD and generalized anxiety. Uncertainty leaves me open to unlimited anxiety about what the future brings.

So I felt despondent. But I soon pulled myself together. Larry reminded me that the foot is healing. And I remembered that times like this are good practice for living with uncertainty.

I’ve decided to make friends with The Monster Boot. It’s a support system. It allows me to move around even with a tender, broken bone.

As for the crutches, I have a new attitude there, too. Larry told our cats that my crutches were “Mama’s extra paws.” I like that: extra paws.

The Monster Boot and I will be getting around on the extra paws.

Do your expectations about the way things should be ever result in disappointment? How do you handle the disappointment?

Hopelessness

There’s nothing left of me

except

depression, OCD, GAD,

labels that sound like excuses.

There’s nothing left of me,

nothing to make me want

to reach out, to reach beyond

the labels that sound like excuses.

I’ve forgotten what I wanted

to ask for,

forgotten the words that made sense.

I’m left with labels

that sound like excuses.

I will write about what I’m doing to fight a general sense of hopelessness in a later post.

Have you ever felt hopeless?

Top 5 things that hurt my OCD

  On Monday I wrote about the top things that help my obsessive-compulsive disorder, so I thought I’d look at the opposite and discuss things that hurt my OCD.

Not getting treatment

I wasn’t diagnosed and treated for my OCD and depression until I was 26, after suffering from both for much of my life up until then. That was a lot of needless suffering because help was available.

Even after I became an adult and was responsible for my own health, I didn’t speak up and tell my doctors what was going on with me. I didn’t tell them about the strange thoughts and even stranger compulsions that were wreaking havoc with my life.

I was in talk therapy for about a year before I even mentioned my obsessions and compulsions to my therapist.

I was ashamed of my bizarre habits and thought I was the only person in the world who did such things.

Depending on medication alone

For more than 20 years, the only treatment I had for OCD was medication.

I am not discounting the tremendous help I have received from medication. It lifted me out of the worst of my OCD and depression and allowed me to live a better life.

But I ignored doctor’s suggestions that I get therapy specifically for OCD, like cognitive behavioral therapy. I didn’t want to take the time or spend the money, and I really didn’t think I needed it.

Now I recognize that medication can do only part of what I need to rid myself of the subtle ways OCD intrudes on my life. I need practical therapy, and I’ll be back to it soon.

Not taking GAD seriously

In addition to OCD and depression, I have generalized anxiety disorder. I tend to forget that and focus all my energies on fighting the “top two” disorders in my life.

But GAD has a very real effect on my OCD. The more anxious I am generally, the more I have to deal with the OCD. The generalized anxiety feeds the obsessions and makes it harder for me to fight the compulsions.

That tells me that I need to consciously take steps to lower my anxiety overall.

Giving in to compulsions

I know by now that giving in to compulsions just makes the cycle of OCD worse. The more I check, for example, the more I want to check, and the more I check.

I can’t let up. I can’t give myself a break from tolerating the anxiety until it goes away instead of performing the compulsion.

Not taking care of my health

If I get really tired, I find that I am more prone to anxious feelings and depressive thinking. Those just feed my OCD. So I have to get plenty of rest.

That’s not always easy, especially on days when I have to work late. On such days, I also tend to eat erratically and too much. Then I don’t feel like going to bed and stay up too late. Then I don’t sleep well. And the cycle continues.

I feel so much better when I get enough but not too much sleep, when I eat several small meals of healthy food, when I exercise. When I don’t take care of my health, it shows in my level of anxiety and thus, my OCD.

  What things make your OCD and/or other anxiety worse?

A way through anxiety: Accepting ourselves

Imagine you’re holding an ice cube in your hand.

You concentrate on the sensations doing that causes.

Eventually, you begin to have thoughts unrelated to the sensations, thoughts like, “This is really uncomfortable,” or “How much longer do I have to do this?”

When those thoughts come, you notice them, acknowledge that you have them, and then go back to concentrating on the sensations of holding an ice cube.

Acceptance

That is an illustration that my therapist used to explain acceptance in terms of generalized anxiety disorder or any anxiety.

On my last visit, I told him about the increased anxiety I’ve had lately. I’ve felt revved up and unable to settle down and concentrate.

So he talked to me about accepting my anxiety. He said it’s not the same thing as liking the anxiety.

And it’s different from actually making the anxiety worse by worrying about the bodily sensations of anxiety, worrying about worrying, “catastrophizing” the fact that we feel anxious.

We can practice acceptance by focusing on the bodily sensations that come from feeling anxious. When an unrelated thought comes along, we can acknowledge it but then return our attention to the sensations.

With this mindfulness, we can begin to accept that our body is expressing anxiety.

Acceptance is to acknowledge what we’re experiencing and then to go on to something else.

Ironically, that makes the anxiety easier to deal with, my therapist said.

Mindfulness

The ice cube example also helps to illustrate the importance of mindfulness. We can choose to focus on our anxious feelings, but I’ve learned that we can also choose to focus on something like the breath, or our senses.

Every time we realize we’re thinking of something other than the breath or what we’re hearing, for example, we can bring our attention back. Usually I have to do this again and again

That puts me in the moment. It takes me away from my worries. It takes me away from worrying about my worries.

And even a little while away from the worries provides me with relief. And a little more acceptance.

What about you? Does accepting the anxiety make sense to you?

Worry and tension: Generalized anxiety disorder

I feel the effects of the adrenaline, a hyper feeling. My heart beats faster. Sometimes my arms feel numb. I can’t settle down to do anything. I walk around the house a lot, watch TV for a couple of minutes, go into the kitchen and eat something, fast, then open up a book and try to read, then walk around some more.

If I’m at work, I get up and walk around, too. When at my desk, I swing around in my chair. I write in spurts before I have to stop again.

My jaw stays tight. Every now and then, I realize I have my lips pursed, held firmly, tightly.

I may have nausea. I may have diarrhea. I may get a headache. My hands may shake.

I feel exhausted much of the time. But my sleep is interrupted—I wake up numerous times during the night and sometimes have trouble going back to sleep.

I feel like something bad is going to happen. I don’t know what, but it will be bad, if I go by how I feel.

Sometimes I lie in bed at night and say over and over to myself, I’m afraid. Sometimes I whisper it aloud if Larry hasn’t come to bed yet.

I’m afraid and I don’t know why.

That is my generalized anxiety disorder. Most of the time, I don’t have all of these symptoms, but I’m a worrier and I’m tense most of the time, finding it hard to relax.

According to “Generalized Anxiety Disorder: When Worry Gets Out of Control,” a publication on the website of the National Institute of Mental Health, generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, is an anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to worry about things without a clear reason to:

“All of us worry about things like health, money, or family problems. But people with GAD are extremely worried about these and many other things, even when there is little or no reason to worry about them. They are very anxious about just getting through the day. They think things will always go badly. At times, worrying keeps people with GAD from doing everyday tasks.”

The publication goes on to list the symptoms of GAD:

*Worrying very much about everyday things

*Trouble controlling constant worries

*Knowing they worry much more than they should

*Not being able to relax

*Hard time concentrating

*Easily startled

*Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep

*Feeling tired all the time

*Headaches, muscle aches, stomachaches, unexplained pains

*Difficulty swallowing

*Trembling or twitching

*Irritability, sweating a lot, feeling light-headed or out of breath

*Having to go to the bathroom a lot

The booklet goes on to say that treatment for GAD is usually psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavior therapy, medication or both.

I take medication and I’m in therapy, both of which help my GAD. I’m finding that meditation, being mindful as often as possible and deep breathing also help. So does reading or doing some other enjoyable activity.

And I’m working on changing the way I think about things. For example, I try to catch myself when I’m in catastrophe mode and remind myself that I’m making the situation bigger than it is.

Still, I have those times of anxiety. Sometimes I don’t know what causes them. I go through all the things that could be worrying me—personal, work—but sometimes I can’t figure it out.

Do you ever have episodes of generalized anxiety? What are they like? How do you cope?