ajayrnair-blog

[ajayrnair-blog]

Somedays are okay!

Today was a relatively okay day. I felt “hunger” today. After a really really long 4 weeks, I felt hungry in the evening after I left work. And that brings me some happiness. I continue to drop weight in the 4th week and its now 6.5 kgs down.

I tried focusing on work. And got to very average success. But thats a good start. I am keeping the ball rolling. At facebook, not moving forward will be difficult to manage. And I constantly remind myself - that I can’t mess this up.

I continue to avoid the conversation about my relation with my mom. That is something I cannot handle now. That and ensuring her daily life is sailing well. I have asked my brother to help out with that.

I met a colleague “Rachel” today who has started a “Divorce Club”. And we had a good chat. Like me, she too does not know why her 10 year old marriage ended. But she also told me that sometimes “people just end relations”. I wish I could understand that. 

I continue to not bitch about my relation with any one to make me feel better or “righteous”. I will continue to focus on my sleep, food & work for now. When I have more “okay” days, I want to try and take a weekend trip by myself.  By the way, my anxiety has not gone anywhere. I am definitely having better days. But my friend, anxiety, does show up and screws up my mind.

[ajayrnair-blog]

Coping with the effect, letting go of the cause

My anxiety is an effect and the cause of it is the recent relationship failure. It is always easy to think that if I can fix the cause then I do not have to deal with the effect. But can you fix all the “causes” that can disrupt a smooth and happy life? 

I have come to terms that I need to face the effect and learn to cope with it. The cause is not entirely in my control. And there are several other people who have the same power to disrupt my life. I cannot live in the fear of them wielding it on  me knowingly or unknowingly. 

So how do I feel today? My heart is still heavy. I still wish the last month of my life never occurred. Because I was extremely happy before that. My thoughts are mostly to try and find a “reason” why this failed. In the hope that the reason will help me find closure. But again, I am not sure if I can find closure in all circumstances.

[ajayrnair-blog]

It affects health too

No surprises there I believe. My anxiety has disrupted my sleep patterns, my eating and they in turn come with their own consequences.

In the last 2.5 weeks:

- I have had no appetite. I can’t eat more than a few morsels. And I have lost over 6 kgs (yes kilograms).

- I did not sleep for the first 1.5 weeks - literally. It has gotten better I want to believe. I now sleep for around 5-6 hours. But they are disturbed sleep and I am tired by afternoon.

- My immunity has been compromised. What started as a sore throat, ended up in me being taken to emergency by para medics and kept under observation for over 16 hours.

- My concentration has deteriorated and it takes immense effort to keep up with expectations at work.

Individually they are not that big a problem to solve. But when they all come together - it has made a mess of me.

Things are getting better - atleast they seem to. I am keeping everything aside and focusing on sleep and eating. I fee the rest will take care of itself.

There is nothing more important at this point than to start feeling fine mentally and physically. The only other thing I am taking along with this is my work - may be it’s good I am a workaholic.

#anxiety #depression #mental health

[ajayrnair-blog]

Everyday is a battle

Everyday, I wake up to a different feeling. Yesterday I woke up fine. Knowing reality. Knowing that I am in the middle of separation, anxiety and depression. Today is different. I woke up in my past.

I spread my hand on the bed to find my partner when I woke up. And she was not there. And it took me almost 30 seconds to realize where I was and what had transpired. That hit me hard. And I already don’t feel good about today.

I miss her. I tried reading my note back to myself. I did not do anything stupid in the moment (like text her to come back). The note helps me. It reduces the impact of my anxiety.

I guess I am still on a “finish one more day” phase. I hardly know what I have to do apart from work. I am still not in a place where I do anything at home. I haven’t cleaned it in weeks. I just do my laundry. And make my morning coffee. That’s it. That’s all my house is good for me right now.

#anxiety #mental health #depression

[ajayrnair-blog]

Distractions don’t work

One of the common advice I have gotten is to engage myself in activities, meet people, focus on work and do whatever to keep my mind off the things that cause anxiety (in my case “analyzing” my failed relations). They did not work for me.

I forced myself to meet people (forcing myself on them frequently too). I went and spoke about various subjects. My mind still was worried. Worst, when I left from these forced social interactions and entered my loneliness it had a greater negative impact. I felt even more alone. At those moments, my anxiety forced me to do whatever it takes to fix my relation. I could not breathe. I could not sit in one place. I started doing solo activities and my mind continued to think about “fixing” my relation. I did not do well in the activities. And I worried if this was going to be the norm now. I would never be able to concentrate on things and suck at them from now on. In the first 2 weeks I realized that running away from my “failures” and “fears” was not going to help me. I had to be okay “not being fine”. Because I was definitely not going to be fine for some time. I told my family I wanted to be alone during this time and asked for their help. I did not want to force talk to my friends and bitch about my relation. I wanted to face reality - not create my version of alternate truth and feel better. Moreover I wanted to be okay with who I am as a person - even my shortcomings.

In the last one week, I have spent time sitting by myself and thinking about my failed relation. What could I have done or still do to save it. And if I was okay doing them. My answers were always “No”. This relation is beyond repair. 

Only if my anxiety and I were on the same page on this “what I want” thought. I still have anxiety attacks. It has gone no where. I have a note to myself on why I am okay with this failure and I don’t want to fix it. And every time I feel anxious and miserable, I read it out to myself. Sometimes loud. Reinforcing this thought onto me has helped over the last week. I have stopped acting in desperation. And the intensity of my anxiety has definitely reduced. But anxiety has not gone anywhere - it is there with me always.

#anxiety #depression #mental health

[ajayrnair-blog]

Anxiety is Real

I first experienced anxiety that affected my daily life in 2015. My dad had fallen ill. And he was incapable of handling any situation. All of a sudden the entire responsibility of the house including making decisions on how to tackle his health was on me.  And there I was, anxious, not able to think, eat, sleep, focus or do anything in the right frame of mind. It was the worst bout of anxiety I had every faced. And I could not find anyone whom I could talk to.

Whoever I spoke to, told me to keep my mind distracted and not think about the issues. I also sought professional help. I met 3 different mental health experts in a span of 2 months for around 7 sessions. I never trusted they could help me fix my problems. Sleep eluded me. And it made things worst. This situation lasted for about 4 months. In these 4 months, I lost my dad. And I had found a shoulder (read companion) whose company helped me forget these feelings. It has been 4 years since I felt anxiety to that extent again. Today, my companion and I are splitting. And I have the same feelings again. What do you do when the companion who helped you out of your first anxiety is now abandoning you?  I have not gotten out of this bout of anxiety. But I want to talk about it. People still tell me “Don’t be alone”, “Focus on your work”, “Life will get better” and many such things (in good intentions). But trust me they don’t work! Each day is a battle. And the only thing that has helped me in the last 3 weeks, is to realize that I need to face this “alone”. I do meet a counselor. But as the name suggest, he is a counsel and I still need to face it. I intent to speak each of my days out. What I do, what I feel and hopefully, when one day I am out of it and find happiness with myself, I can pick out some of these texts which I felt worked for me.  Why do I want to write it? Because I don’t trust that people who have not gone through anxiety can help me. And I don’t intend to brag about how I defeated it in hindsight. Hopefully one day I will pick these texts as an example that life gets better (it has gotten better in the last 3 weeks itself, but thats too less to say I will be fine). Most importantly I have accepted I am not fine. 

#anxiety #mental health #depression