bad mood, chain smoking

[Evie Luv]

I was gonna say the same thing

Well, there ya go, geminis think alike, it's been proven.

 

[leaford]

I'll honestly offer up a different view on the work/social anxiety thing though. Fight it out and win. For much of my childhood and early adulthood years I was very anxious and nervous in social situations. Something as simple as buying gas would have me all worked up. What if I accidentally handed the cashier a $5 but said "$10 on pump 2". Or what if that's too curt, should I say "may I have $10 on pump 2 please"? No, that's too long winded... OK, I'll just leave out the please. 15 minutes later I finally get over worrying about what to say, go in the store, and sure enough I ask for $10 but hand over a $5. Then i had to worry about never going in that store again!

Analog, that's an amazingly good description of how I feel constantly. Even just passing an aquaintance in the hallway gets me worrying the rest of the day. Did I smile too much, will they think there's something wierd? Did I not smile enough, will they think I'm being unfriendly? Everywhere I go I always feel like everyone around me is constantly watching everything I do and judging me.

I HATE eating in public, my stomache gets queasy and I can only pick at my food. I can't stand large crowds. I've never in my life been to a rock concert, only once ever been to a sporting event, and very seldom go to big public events like 4th of July fireworks shows. I accidentally got trapped in the crowd watching the Chinese New Year Parade in San Fran while trying to walk home from work once, and had a bad enough panic attack that I passed out.

And YET, just like you ZM, I've always wound up in heavy public contact positions, like front desk at hotels. And learned to smile and fake being comfortable. Even then, though, I always went after the night shift, to keep public contact to a minimum. After a while though, I just couldn't keep even that much up, and shifted to things like telephone operator, or office work. And now the internet. Even forums like this get to be a bit too much sometimes, though.

It got to a point where I was working a night shift office job at UPS, and only saw a handful of people a night. By day I would just hole up in my crappy little apartment self-medicating with weed. I ordered all my meals delivery, online instead of by phone whenever possible. I got my groceries delivered. Did all my shopping online. Even ordered cigs by mail. And if I HAD to run an errand, I made it a quick shot, there and back, no stops along the way, and at the closest possible location even if it cost more.

That's when I decided I needed real help, and got some anti-anxiety meds. Nothing too strong, tamazapan. Just something to take the edge off. I took them regularly for a while, but now I just take them when I need them, like when I know I'll be meeting new people, or going out to dinner, or to a crowded place.

And paradoxically, being here in China has helped. Somehow it's easier to deal with feeling like everyone's watching me when I know they really ARE, and why. Because I'm an unusual sight for them. And with the language barrier I never talk to the store clerks anyway.

But still, I've been finding myself staying home after work more and more, avoiding shopping trips, getting all my meals take out, or from KFC delivery, etc. So that China advantage is fading.

 

[leaford]

The anxiety part of me, isn't so much afraid of people, it's moreso like you said even going to get gas or buy smokes sometimes, I walk in, and immediately go into a state of panic, shaking, leaning on my ankles, as if i have no legs. I'm medicated for it. Until just a few months ago I was on about 2mg of xanax a day, taken in half mg intervals. I've since cut that dose down to .25mg every few hours, and I notice my anxiety is far less, but the rebound anxiety (the feeling when the medicine is wearing off) kicks in full throttle, especially at work. My body is used to it, but it wants more than I will give to it as I've been medicated for about 4 years. I used to have really bad panic episodes when trying to rest. Feelings as if my "lungs weren't working" and I wasn't getting any air. A few times a night I'd jump up out of bed, splash some water on my face, and then lay back down. Got the point where I either had to do something, or I was going to lose it. I battled it unmediated for about hmm, since I can remember. It got to the point where it was every night though, and I dreaded even thinking about sleep. Hit me hard right before signing up for college. It took me about 5 attempts to even be able to go down to the college simply to register. At that point I was all ready medicated and the anxiety and nervousness still lead me to vomiting and embarrassing myself in front of my girlfriend at the time. I think the worse part to me, is even when I have those "what if I'm dying, what if I have a heart attack and I'm found in the shower, what iff.... what if.... " I feel like it's real, then as soon as I take a pill before it even has a chance to kick in, I feel better subconsciously, and then I'm upset that I ever believed I was going to actually kick the bucket. I almost find it humorous how dumb anxiety is, and yet it seems the more you fight it, the more you lose. It's something that is one hundred percent learned, as soon as one thing happens, every time you jump into another situation similar you get nuts about it, and think it will happen again, and it's all really a matter of just not thinking about it.

Oh, God, sleep anxiety. Yeah, me too. And the later it gets, the worse the anxiety is. ANd then I start listening to my heartbeat, and noticing it skips beats. The other night, along with my migraines, I was having bad sleep anxiety, and started noticing I was only feeling my heartbeat when I exhaled. When I inhaled, nothing. I shot up out of bed in terror, and then immediatly fell back clutching my head from the sudden spike in my migraine.

 

[slim66]

I'm sorry Leaford, I had no idea it got that bad.

 

[leaford]

Well, of course I'm talking about the WORST times. But yeah, even today it's pretty bad sometimes.

And truth be told, that's probably the real reason I haven't had a relationship in almost 2 decades. I don't like the idea of going OUT for dates. Out to dinner, out to a movie, out for drinks. I'd rather do all of those at home.

KTVs here are better for me, you get a private room so it's not so public. But that seems like mostly a guy thing. Whenever the factory staff has a KTV party, it's always the guys, never the girls who go. I've asked a couple of girls here to go to KTV, but then they want to go to a KTV bar, where it's in public like karaoke bars back home. That's probably because they are too conservative to be alone with a guy in a small room, so they want other people around. But my voice always chokes up and I sound awful.

 

[zeromisfit999]

I've had the oddest dreams as of late. The one I can remember the most was the night before last. I had a dream I was up in this loft like thing, then there were spiders falling down, and creeping me out. Next thing I know one lands on my face, I wake up, lose my mind, and my girlfriend is just like "Are you ok?" and I'm like I had a spider on my face in my dream, nightmare, ugh!!! I've been waking up consistently at 7 am and having trouble going back to sleep (usually go to bed around 3 or 4), and I have no idea why. Craziness, vivid dreams, and I'm not even off analogs yet.

 

[starsong]

I really wish I hadn't read this just before going to bed.

 

[zeromisfit999]

I really wish I hadn't read this just before going to bed.

I'm sorry

 

[analog]

Nicotine causes crazy vivid dreams. I personally like them, their kinda like "bad trips". I first noticed them with nic patches on previous quit attempts, then found out it's a common side effect and most patch boxes advise removing the patch before bed for that very reason. I would semi-regularly put a patch on before bed even when I had no intention of quitting because the dreams are just so spooky.

Point being maybe you need to vape less, or vape lower nic before bed? Perhaps the vape/analog combo is delivering more nic than you're used to, and the longer saturation time of the vape is keeping it active after you go to bed, whereas the analogs you are used to wear off before you hit rem?

 

[Evie Luv]

Hey Zero, did you notice we have a new sticky thread. It's for jokes and fun stuff.

 

[Blooper]

i had a dream about a giant floating catfish the other night.... On another note a majority of social anxiety situations stem directly from the powers of perception. I'm not going to go into a lecture about it though. And it is an extremely difficult task to change the way you perceive the world, for some it is almost an insurmountable task. Also, not thinking about a challenging part of life, whether it be romantic, social, psychological, physical, professional ect.. is not the best way to deal with things. Not thinking about something stems from some type of fear, either real or perceived. When there is such an overwhelming feeling inside of you and you think you're unable to deal with do not fear it or run from it. Try closing your eyes, breathing deeply and embracing it. DO NOT FEAR IT.. If you fear then you are just setting yourself up more emotional walls which will only hinder you in the future. Let the anger, sorrow, nervousness wash through your entire self and then confront it in a logical fashion when the fear is gone. And yes it will be gone.

TLDR:: changing your perceptions and embracing your fears will lead you to be a stronger person...

 

[Sandrita]

Hey I know how you feel. I used to work in a bar at weekends. You the type loud music full of drunk people. I used to get stressed out with how rude people would get because they would have to wait maybe five mins for a drink! I used to do what you do and ask a colleague for a cigarette even though I was vaping all time outside this few hours in the bar with no problems. In the end I got my hands on some 36mg e juice usually I smoke 16mg. I started to go outside for 5 mins with a fully loaded 36 bad boy and I have to say it worked very well indeed!!!