Anxiety

If you based your impression of me off of the first 15 or so posts I've made here on this blog, you might be surprised to learn that I have an anxiety disorder.

But I do. It's there. From what my mother tells me, it's been a problem my whole life. She said she thought I just had very low self-esteem growing up, but I was just really anxious about everything. And that led to stress eating, which led to weight gain... and maybe it was a little bit of low self-esteem at that point.

These days it manifests in different ways. I avoid phone calls, break out in hives when there is any type of confrontation in my life, break plans because I hate going out, I second-, third-, and fourth-guess absolutely everything I say, and most times if a silence becomes too uncomfortable when I'm left alone in a room with someone, I couldn't break said silence even if I wanted to.

I know it sounds like I'm making light of a condition that I actually have, but really this is the tip of the iceberg. It's been taking a toll on my social life for years.

Now, around friends? I can absolutely be a lovely human being, but my crazy former fat girl brain thinks, even to this day three years out from weight loss surgery, that everyone is secretly laughing at me.

You might think this strange to hear because I'm in sales, and I do believe I've mentioned before that given my personality it is an odd choice for me, that I'm basically socially retarded... but there you have it.

The whole point of this blog is that: my anxiety is starting to freak me out. I've been under a ton of stress lately, and I've begun to develop a certain habit that I hate.

I pick at my face almost constantly. This is not good. I'm getting married in four months. My skin needs to look nice!

When I was a teenager, my skin was very bad. Not cystic acne level, but maybe one step below. So I'm no stranger to the thrill of the pick. However, this particular quirk is not because of any acne I might have... it's purely self-inflicted psychological torture.

I go to bed at night and my face basically bleeding, because I've messed with it all day. It's a little easier when I'm at work, because I have a full face of make-up on. (Lord, I can't mess up my make-up!)

It would be so easy to say, "I need to go get on some medication for this issue." But I even have a reserve about that because I've been on SO many in my life: Lexapro (which worked the best, but my old insurance carrier wouldn't pay for it), Celexa, Prozac, Effexor, Zoloft, Wellbutrin... the list could go on, but I've forgotten the last few.

It's been years since I was able to get into my general practitioners' office to get a prescription that might help, so maybe the answer is biting that bullet and going to see her.