![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 24th, 2015 05:08 pmLast week, in therapy, I mentioned that — no, wait, let me rewind. Last week, in therapy, my therapist asked how I was feeling about being in a transition period in my life, which has been pretty stable fr a while now, and which is the way I like it. "Overwhelmed," I said.
"Hmmm," she said. "I'm not getting that from you."
And we talked a little more, and I said something about how I had been so anxious over formally resigning and announcing my resignation and so on and so forth that I had taken a wee dose of ativan, a few days before, and for the first time it had had a real effect; the few times I've used it before it's kept whatever panic attack I've been having from increasing, but hasn't actually stopped it. This time, holy crap, it actually got my brain to stop chewing on itself completely. I was sort of astonished. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know I was capable of — for example — going down to the laundry room in my apartment building early and instead of pacing and twitching and counting the seconds until the goddamn dryer stopped spinning, just hanging out.
"Hmmm," she said. "I'm wondering if we don't talk enough about your anxiety. Because I don't think of it as a major problem for you, and you don't mention it much."
"I don't? Uh, I bring it up when it's a problem, but I guess I'm just used to having a background level of high-pitched yelping in my brain — I mean, people don't go through life with their minds empty except for what they're specifically, consciously thinking about, right?"
Apparently the answer to that is both yes and no. Apparently we're going to be talking about this more. I suspect there are more mindfulness exercises in my future. And probably yoga. Which I don't actually mind.
The other thing I am spending a lot of time thinking about these days is finances; I'm at that spot where I have enough money to do retirement planning and have some fun (although not unlimited fun; my monthly do-whatever-with budget is $200, so traveling is sadly limited), but not quite where I can make real investments; I keep playing with the calculators at Bankrate, and I have mostly talked myself into trying out a laddered CD investment, which should make me around $150 over five years. Which, you know. Is better than my savings account.
"Hmmm," she said. "I'm not getting that from you."
And we talked a little more, and I said something about how I had been so anxious over formally resigning and announcing my resignation and so on and so forth that I had taken a wee dose of ativan, a few days before, and for the first time it had had a real effect; the few times I've used it before it's kept whatever panic attack I've been having from increasing, but hasn't actually stopped it. This time, holy crap, it actually got my brain to stop chewing on itself completely. I was sort of astonished. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know I was capable of — for example — going down to the laundry room in my apartment building early and instead of pacing and twitching and counting the seconds until the goddamn dryer stopped spinning, just hanging out.
"Hmmm," she said. "I'm wondering if we don't talk enough about your anxiety. Because I don't think of it as a major problem for you, and you don't mention it much."
"I don't? Uh, I bring it up when it's a problem, but I guess I'm just used to having a background level of high-pitched yelping in my brain — I mean, people don't go through life with their minds empty except for what they're specifically, consciously thinking about, right?"
Apparently the answer to that is both yes and no. Apparently we're going to be talking about this more. I suspect there are more mindfulness exercises in my future. And probably yoga. Which I don't actually mind.
The other thing I am spending a lot of time thinking about these days is finances; I'm at that spot where I have enough money to do retirement planning and have some fun (although not unlimited fun; my monthly do-whatever-with budget is $200, so traveling is sadly limited), but not quite where I can make real investments; I keep playing with the calculators at Bankrate, and I have mostly talked myself into trying out a laddered CD investment, which should make me around $150 over five years. Which, you know. Is better than my savings account.
