Monday, September 12, 2011

Taking Care of Me

I won't lie I do neglect myself and I'm learning the hard way (as usual) that my new body can't be neglected hence why my anxiety is an absolute mess today and I've not been able to really eat in the last 48 hours. This is a serious intervention moment and I had to make the turn to re-dedicate my selfishness in a good way to keep me healthy.

My anxiety is not new news...it is part of the fabric of my life and it is something that has been significantly easier to deal with since WLS, but it is something that has been rearing its ugly head. Since my WLS anxiety effects me completely differently. Until yesterday I hadn't really had attacks in over 9 months and yet in a moments notice I'm brought back to the old reality - when anxiety wins it wins hard. So I stopped fighting it and used my "tool box" to get back on track. Since WLS my anxiety is still there, but it hides. It rears its head not in anxiety attack format, but in little "mentions" like my neck being tight, small tension headaches, oh and the biggest battle of them all - my stomach tenses up. Yes, my little pouch tenses and nothing goes down but extremely soft foods (sometimes) and liquids. When the pouch tenses all I want is food that I'm not supposed to have and eating is painful. This is NOT A GOOD THING!

Yesterday my pouch tensed the worse ever since post surgery and introducing new food - which 9 months ago was normal. This NOT normal. So here I am at dinner last night with the hubs and my stomach tenses, food is in my esophagus and it doesn't want to go down. I'm in the middle of the subway at school pleading for food to go down and I don't want to be here at this moment again. I know why my stomach is doing it and I know after my therapy session on friday that my self care has been not so good. I need to fix this and get back on track and take care of me.

Last night I come home and I attempt to sleep. My sleep is interrupted by cycling anxiety attacks which I haven't had in over a year. This is a cause for an alarm and a immediate need for urgent self care. I know what I have to do and so I begin...medicine for anxiety control - check. Taking the day off to deal with the massive medication moments - check. Reorganizing my schedule this week to delegate, re-focus, and not work 60 hours - check. Here is my wake up call that I need to take care of me. I called my doc and asked her how to alter my meds and she agreed I was doing the right thing and that altering my meds to assist in me re-grouping is a good idea. It is not ideal but just for the week. It is time to re-draw my work life balance and to work at my best and to play at my best. Line will be re-drawn and I'm going to go back and being me...just the better version that I am.

It is hard to right this knowing that I allowed my anxiety to rear its head, but it is also refreshing to know that I know what to do. What I need to learn is to manage it so it doesn't effect my tummy. My pouch doesn't need it and I don't need to stress over the food going to my pouch. Though it is hard for me to admit it - I can't be a work-a-holic anymore. I can only do so much and to balance my life I have to be able to do it all in a good way...in a healthy way. So exercise, work, homework, time with the hubs - all of this is important. Time to regroup. Though I don't want to regroup how I had to do it today - I'm going to prevent it from getting here like it is today.

Learning moment - CHECK!

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