From Anxiety to Stupor: My Daily Routine

Posted on April 18, 2011 in Activity Anxiety Routine

Lately I have been waking to alarms and excursions of horror. My therapist suggests that these anxieties preclude any explanation for them, but I am not convinced of this. The news starts in my head before I have even read it. My future looks grim. I turn over, hoping to obliterate some of the empty time through more slumber. When I do arise — either out of resignation or at the end of a nap — I head for the kitchen where I take five meds, then eat some fruit and maybe a bit of cottage cheese for my breakfast. As I eat it, I read the latest fears on Twitter and move some of the more electric links to my Facebook page. If I see bad news, I call Lynn to tell her that the world is ending.

Before I do anything else, I stop to take a picture for DailyBooth.

Then I break from this. If I have an appointment, I go to it, bearing my Kindle and my day planner. If it is Thursday, I pack up my laptop and head for the Foothill Ranch Library to lead my English conversation group. On other days, I put on my hiking boots, fill my [[Camelbak]], and dress the dog for a hike up in the hills if it is not too hot. If it is, I head to the gym instead where I tread for about thirty five minutes to an hour, hoping that I will not hear abusive talk in the locker room. Men like that kind of thing, alas, and they feel most excited by it when they are naked and dripping from a shower. I get out of there and spend a few more hours on the computer or nap. ((I am always worried about getting enough sleep and prefer too much to too little because the latter might segue me into a mania.)) If I haven’t walked the dog, I take him out to the park where he can play with his friends and bark at their owners.

On weekends, my activities include Lynn. We shop at Trader Joe’s on Saturdays and take Drake for a long walk on most Sundays.

During these hours, I sneak in various foods to still my anxiety. Nibbles of crackers, cheese, and other snacks quell my shaking, but these can inevitably lead me to a place where I feel sick to my stomach. Somehow I keep my blood sugars in line, but my [[triglycerides]] have been abominable lately.

Lynn comes home, we either go out to dinner or stay home. If it is a Monday, we go to the bipolar support group that we run. On other nights, we may go out and run a few errands like picking up my meds at the pharmacy. Then we come home to watch a dvd. ((Lately we have been wending our way through [[In Treatment]] and the first season of [[Babylon 5]].)) I either get on the computer for more intellectual torture or upload my recent photos to my flickr account. Then during the last hours of consciousness, I take my night meds ((This is the hour I ingest my various mood stabilizers and my antipsychotics as well as some meds for my diabetes and my blood pressure.)) and read The New Yorker or The Nation on my [[Kindle]]. I brush my teeth, rinse with Peroxyl and Phosphlur, then lie down. I pass out swiftly thanks to the potentiation of sleep meds I have just ingested and some good sleep hygiene. There is little or no sign of the anxiety that broke me into consciousness. I dream intensely, but do not always choose to remember my night hallucinations.

This post is in response to Day 18 of the Health Activist Writers Challenge: “Your Daily Schedule”.