br500
12-20-2012, 03:54 PM
When I was a kid, we rarely left town except for 6 hour drives to another city for family, perhaps once a year. Which I hated. When I was a teen I opted out. And after a few years I wanted to travel again, so I drove to the other side of the country and back alone for the adventure. After that, I started getting anxiety issues.
I get migraine auras, which scared me and I didn't know what was happening. I found that if I were alone, I could get "stuck" until the aura passed. I didn't know these were headaches until recently. But from that I developed an anxiety problem that seems to have everything to do with being without help or being in a situation that frightens me and I have difficulty controlling thoughts.
1. I hate wide open spaces. I cannot walk around in mall parking lots. I cannot walk over open spaces in stores--I have to be within arm's reach of a wall or shelf or something. I can handle clothing stores very well, since the racks are always so close lol. When I walk over open spaces I start feeling dizzy or unstable, like I could trip and fall and the entire world will be upside down--as if separated from the world entirely.
2. I cannot do artificial lighting well. Some stores, like Walmart, use cheap lighting which seems to exacerbate migraine aura symptoms. If I am around that cheap, bright light from which there is virtually no escape, I start having issues.
3. I don't like the wide open sky, and feel similarly to #1. With bizarre thoughts about gravity, stability, etc.
4. If I get inside a building after walking across a big open parking lot, I immediately have to physically shake off a chill (like one gets from hearing a scraping sound on a chalk board), and that seems to shake the tension and I can go about my business as if there weren't any problems. I feel like if I could shake away that tension while I'm in the middle of the parking lot I could reset and continue almost without issue.
These feelings cycle, sometimes I can go just fine. I usually can do very well when I am ill (with a cold or something), as if I have a real tangible complaint that drains my ability to focus on negative things.
I can sometimes tell myself to "think normal" or to "not think" and these feelings and thoughts will stop instantly, but if there is a tiny "leak" of bad thoughts then I lose it. Overall, I've tried to avoid thinking negatively--it is easy for me to think negatively.
I've been like this for so long, I cannot seem to separate myself from this general anxiety, as if it is part of me. Which definitely complicates my effort to just free myself from this. I lose confidence every time I fail and a tiny leak of bad thoughts sneak into my awareness.
Now, I have to drive a friend to another city and back by myself, over wide open, flat land and clear skies. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to make sure these thoughts don't enter my mind.
I get migraine auras, which scared me and I didn't know what was happening. I found that if I were alone, I could get "stuck" until the aura passed. I didn't know these were headaches until recently. But from that I developed an anxiety problem that seems to have everything to do with being without help or being in a situation that frightens me and I have difficulty controlling thoughts.
1. I hate wide open spaces. I cannot walk around in mall parking lots. I cannot walk over open spaces in stores--I have to be within arm's reach of a wall or shelf or something. I can handle clothing stores very well, since the racks are always so close lol. When I walk over open spaces I start feeling dizzy or unstable, like I could trip and fall and the entire world will be upside down--as if separated from the world entirely.
2. I cannot do artificial lighting well. Some stores, like Walmart, use cheap lighting which seems to exacerbate migraine aura symptoms. If I am around that cheap, bright light from which there is virtually no escape, I start having issues.
3. I don't like the wide open sky, and feel similarly to #1. With bizarre thoughts about gravity, stability, etc.
4. If I get inside a building after walking across a big open parking lot, I immediately have to physically shake off a chill (like one gets from hearing a scraping sound on a chalk board), and that seems to shake the tension and I can go about my business as if there weren't any problems. I feel like if I could shake away that tension while I'm in the middle of the parking lot I could reset and continue almost without issue.
These feelings cycle, sometimes I can go just fine. I usually can do very well when I am ill (with a cold or something), as if I have a real tangible complaint that drains my ability to focus on negative things.
I can sometimes tell myself to "think normal" or to "not think" and these feelings and thoughts will stop instantly, but if there is a tiny "leak" of bad thoughts then I lose it. Overall, I've tried to avoid thinking negatively--it is easy for me to think negatively.
I've been like this for so long, I cannot seem to separate myself from this general anxiety, as if it is part of me. Which definitely complicates my effort to just free myself from this. I lose confidence every time I fail and a tiny leak of bad thoughts sneak into my awareness.
Now, I have to drive a friend to another city and back by myself, over wide open, flat land and clear skies. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to make sure these thoughts don't enter my mind.