High Anxiety; an Autumn Fun Update!! W00t!

The Hungarican Chick is a mental case. Well, you probably already knew that, if you follow my blog. Mommy issues, whining, grumpiness; it's all there. The whole gamut. But the last couple of months have been a bit of a wild ride for me.

Alex's first pony ride of the day, yesterday. He is fearless.

A few weeks ago, I was standing in the bedroom, folding laundry while hubby stowed everything where it belongs. We were going to finish up that task and go to bed.  Out of the blue, I felt three powerful palpitations in my chest, and my consciousness seemed to waver, my knees buckled, and I nearly fell over. My hands and fingers went numb and I felt like I was going to pass out. I could barely breathe.

Riding on Grandpa John's shoulders.

My husband saw this and immediately became concerned. And of course, I, being as I am, began to let all the worst-case scenarios flitter through my brain, until these weird episodes kept happening in waves. Tingling limbs, bursts of adrenaline. The best way to describe the feeling is this: Imagine you did something really horrendous and got away with it. You stole something, or cheated, or hurt someone, or something really terrible. Imagine that nobody knew, but if you're a normal person, this would weigh on you, this bad thing, and every day, you would be paranoid. And then one day, someone who is closely connected to this bad thing, and who stands to get you in deep trouble, comes up to you and says: "We need to talk right now."  Imagine what you would be feeling. A tightness in your chest; your stomach ice cold, your skin tingling from the adrenaline. Utter, complete horror, physically terrified.  This is what I felt. All the time.

We decided to go to urgent care, so I climbed into the car, and with escalating anxiety my symptoms magnified. Dan called 911 and the ambulance met us at the end of our street.

So much to look at and see, it was hard to get his attention.

So, an anxiety disorder has cropped up. Out of nowhere. Now mind you, we're not without stress, we have lots of it, but even with my disthymia, I still could cope with it. I don't know what snapped, I really don't. But my ability to withstand copious amounts of stress has been badly impaired.  Now I am on medication they used to give my brother for anxiety, and have been prescribed Pristiq; something that apparently works well as an anti-depressant for veterans with PTSD.  Yay. Back on medication again.  We ran out of the anxiety stuff the other day, and it only took a day for the waves of tingling cold to come back.  I don't know if this is for the long haul, but for someone who worked so hard to cope and function without medication, this is a deep disappointment.

I won't lie though. The Pristiq started off rough, I was nauseated a lot, and tired for the first two weeks taking it, but now, emotionally, I feel pretty good.  I still feel tired a lot, I'm hoping that will normalize at some point.

First of three hay-rides. This one was with Grandma & Grandpa.

One of the most valuable benefits of being on this medication is that one cannot nurse a child when on it. So I used the retreat as a way to start the weaning process. I left that Thursday morning sans nursing, and Alex has been weaned since. FINALLY!!! Thank god, because he is nearing two years old and it's TIME. He was starting to beat me up.

So yes, I'm a mental case. I'm a bit iffy about driving when I am in my dizzy phase. But hopefully that will go away.

Another pony ride. Because tears and grandma. Spoildy. Cried when I took
him off the pony.

So... onto other subjects. Alex is going to be two this November. Can you believe it? I haven't had a chance to plan his birthday with all this loony-tune craziness, but I plan to do so in the next couple of weeks.  This Thursday is our ninth wedding anniversary too.

Naturally, the aftermath of the day.

Yesterday, we went to Kruger's Farm on Sauvie Island to pick pumpkins with Alex. The last time I was there, I was eight months pregnant, and miserable.  Yesterday was such a wonderful time. Alex rode ponies twice, he rode the hay ride three times (he would have stayed on that thing all day, if he could have).  We picked two pumpkins (Alex did), and ate roasted corn on the cob and caramel apple, and had a grand old time with Grandma Linda and Grandpa John.  Obviously, I've thrown in some photos of the past few weeks along with this update.

My cutie pie.

It was the first time in weeks I actually looked forward to going out of the house. The retreat was a tough exercise for me. The six and a half hour drive alone was hard enough, but being social and outgoing when I was dealing with the anxiety was really hard. I managed though.  But yesterday, it was okay. I dealt with the crowds and the activity pretty well. I was tired, yes, but I didn't feel anxious, and that was good.

Nomming corn.

I'm going to be working on writing and finishing up some books before December. I have another table at the Portland Comic-Con in January and I want to have some more stuff to add to the table. I'm sharing the table with another author, so it'll be fun, fun, fun.  I think Alex may stay with grandma during the day this time. It was really hard on him last time.

I'm sorry to those of you that don't like 'all about the baby' photos. It's hard not to post photos of my kid when he is the center of my horizon. He is so beautiful to me. I hope with this medication that I will be doing projects again, and working on some costume stuff. I plan to do a tutorial on how to do a dormeuse cap.  Those will come, I promise.

That's it for now. Thanks for following me, guys. Sorry I've slowed down so much. I hope that maybe this medication will take the doldrums away. Happy Halloween!