Bad day, bad bad bad bad day.

I am sooo itchy!  My hands and forearms itch like crazy the past couple days.  Last night it took forever to relax and get to sleep because I was either scratching (thank goodness for acrylic nails) or trying not to scratch.  Auuuugh!   I didn’t see anything on my skin until this morning so I’m guess it’s just hives.  Possibly from all this anxiety? I dunno, but very unusual…and annoying!  I am going straight home for that anti-histamine creme I have in a drawer somewhere.

I’ve always been a worrier, something I know I picked up from my mother. Yet all these years I’ve never really had any issues with anxiety. I’d get nervous over a pending situation, sometime antsy, but never serious enough to be classified as anxious.

Last week, one night I was beyond anxious; I was afraid, paranoid. I was so jumpy, the ice settling in my glass startled me. There was a moment when I felt I should call the cops as the urgency and thought of someone in my home seemed so real. The only reason I didn’t was because I would then have to leave the safety of my room to answer the door. So, that didn’t happen.

I am used to the mania, the rage, the energy, depression, sadness, hopelessness, the deep pit of nothing, but this was beyond anything else I’d experienced. For years I’ve read of those suffering through panic or anxiety attacks and it was so hard for me to relate, to really understand. Now, I understand, but I wish I didn’t.

My request for coffee with a friend after gym probably seemed minor but I didn’t want to go home. I’m afraid to go home now, not because I’m scared of being alone, but because I’m afraid of how I’ll feel once I’m here. The gradually increasing thoughts that someone else is in the house, downstairs, behind my door, in my room. My tight chest, sudden burst of heat within, unable to breath and I’m dizzy, and eventually crashing onto the bed just sooo tired and exhausted from it all.

The most difficult aspect of this is how I know my fears are based on nothing but an empty house. I know rationally, the thoughts running inside me are wrong, and not possible, but I still react. Why is this happening now? So many years when my stress has been much greater, and yet this panic seems to be taking over. I am not ok with this, and hopefully will get some help soon. It’s one thing to have my mood swings, but this is so unfamiliar it’s freaky.