One of my greatest weaknesses when it has come to my anxiety is how many irrational thoughts run through my head at any given moment. Sometimes it can be quite crippling and I can't even focus or remain calm enough to breathe. I lose sleep (literally tossing and turning from sun up to sun down) and sometimes a whole day has passed and I've forgotten to eat. I'll admit that there have been more than a few times where something was so obvious and sitting right in front of me and it still went right over my head. I think that's where this issue came from. I've always been pretty observant and I've done well when it comes to paying attention to detail, but as my anxiety got worse, all of that went right out the window (again, I had to put so much of my energy into concentrating on my breathing).
I used to find it hard to interact with people because I was afraid of saying something offensive (I'm friends with some pretty cool and laid back people. It's pretty hard to offend any of them). I could take two weeks to obsess over a conversation because I was afraid that I made the other person mad. I know I don't exactly seem like the type to care about what other people think about me, but it's the reason why I avoid social situations. It's not always bad though. Sometimes I enjoy interacting with others because I can't even deny the fact that I enjoy showing off, being noticed, and the attention (of course, that part is something brand new to me). When someone finally noticed me for the first time and had something positive to say, the desire to want to be a shadow that was unnoticed sort of fizzled out. I still have my moments where I want to just carry on and be left alone, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Thankfully that problem took care of itself.
Since I've been living on my own, I ended up being more nervous about things like bills and rent (a common adult problem). But if we were to be a day or so late on a bill, I wouldn't sleep for days because I was so sure that we'd wake up and something would be terminated and that absolutely terrified me. I didn't want to feel like I was working for nothing, but shit happens. You can't always pay those bills on time. Hell, sometimes you might need to go a few days with your phone disconnected. Your paychecks aren't always as much as you expect them to be (and they sure as hell aren't as much as you would like for them to be). Most importantly, I didn't want to feel like I failed. I saw my mom raise 3 kids while working at McDonald's and my dad working at Wendy's for as long as I can remember and they always found a way to make things work.
This is just another one of those things that medication has helped me with. I'm able to organize my thoughts a lot better (even when I do things around the house from day to day, I can take it all step by step to figure out what needs to be done and I just do it without any effort and I didn't even realize it until I started on this post). If something doesn't go as planned, I no longer have "this is the end of the world" meltdowns. I can just breathe and tell myself that we can make it through this and that's the end of it. I don't even think twice about it. I'm happier because my thoughts are no longer debilitating and I can function the way I did 10 years ago when I didn't have all of these responsibilities. I can finally let things roll off my back.
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