Sound Mind and Body NJ

Your mental and physical health resource for northern NJ and beyond

Tag: anxiety

Social Anxiety

July 12, 2021 /

I suffer from pretty severe social anxiety, especially now that most of the covid restrictions have been lifted and many people are out there socializing in large and small groups. I actually felt much less anxious when covid restrictions were in place and we couldn’t do much socializing in person.

people toasting wine glasses
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

First some vocabulary words which I hope are helpful:

What is anxiety? “Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. It’s a feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come (https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety).” Some situations that may cause anxiety include taking a test, the first day of school, going on a first date, etc.

When is anxiety considered a disorder? “… if your feelings of anxiety are extreme, last for longer than six months, and are interfering with your life, you may have an anxiety disorder (https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety).”

What is social anxiety ? “Social anxiety disorder (also called social phobia) is a mental health condition. It is an intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others (https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/social-anxiety-disorder-more-than-just-shyness/).”

I believe that at times my social anxiety can be considered a disorder, especially when it interferes with my life. One example is my fear of going to get togethers like parties, especially those with more than a few people. The guests could be people I know or don’t know. Lately I’ve been attending these gatherings with my husband who is a big help. I tend to stick by his side and talk with people he’s speaking with. I actually end up listening much more than talking.

Another way I handle large gatherings is by NOT handling them and simply not going. I did this on July 4th. This tactic, however, is usually not an option if the party concerns a family member(s) or a certain holiday.

My psychiatrist gave me a medication, Propanolol which is supposed to help me with my social anxiety at large parties, etc. I’ve taken it twice so far. The the first time it seemed to work and the second time it didn’t. I ended up having an anxiety attack in which I left the party and took a walk. This helped so that I could return to the party. I was fine from then on. I’ll probably still use Propanolol at my next large party.

I also have social anxiety when we need to have a repair person come to our house. Again it could be someone I know or don’t know. We tend to put repairs off until we really need them usually because I have anxiety about people working in our house. Sometimes I bite the bullet and have the repair done. Usually I’m fine if it’s a quick job and not fine if it’s a long and complicated job. My husband has been helpful by working from home when a repair person is coming.

I even have social anxiety when my daughter has a play date at our house. Her friends are very nice and respectful but I think that my trigger is having people who don’t live in my house, in my house. There really is no place to “hide” very well in my house.

I believe that some of my social anxiety might come from the time when I had pretty severe depression and didn’t attend my high school graduation. I didn’t want to be seen in my home town. I eventually allowed myself to be seen but to this day I still feel a little anxious there.

I also think that my social anxiety might come from having been teased pretty mercilessly about being fat through a good deal of my childhood and adolescence. Even though I’ve lost weight, I’m still very self-conscious about my weight and entire body.

For the most part I live with my social anxiety and go to social gatherings and meetings. I however torment my husband about going to social events with his side of our family. This is something I’m trying to work out in therapy.

Does social anxiety affect your life?

How do you manage your social anxiety?

Depression and Me: The 50’s -Miracles and Mayhem

May 7, 2021 /

Although I’m still in my 50’s, I’m 57 to be exact, I have a great deal to write about up to this point in my 50’s. The number “50” was scary to me. For one thing, I began to receive mail from AARP (American Association of Retired People) which is a misnomer since many people who are members of this group are working and aren’t retired at all! Also, when I think of “retirement”, I think of people much older than 50. Anyway I haven’t joined AARP yet.

Not only did I receive mail from AARP, but also from cemeteries and mausoleums! Well if I did’t feel old yet, I sure felt old now! I think that my parents actually received their cemetery plots as wedding presents! Very thoughtful and practical gifts, I guess.

Well enough about being in my 50’s and death! Instead, let’s talk about some miracles that occurred in my life in this decade…

At the age of 50, my kidneys were starting to fail. This was mostly due to my having had Type I Diabetes for more than 40 years and not controlling my blood sugar very well at certain times in my life. In Type I Diabetes, the pancreas doesn’t produce any of the hormone, insulin which metabolizes sugar (glucose) in your blood stream. Your body uses glucose for energy. This unmetabolized sugar in your blood then begins to break down the blood vessels in your body, especially the ones in your kidneys, retina (eye), brain, and nerves. Diabetics are more prone to strokes and heart attacks too.

My husband and me 2 days after our kidney transplant

What do the kidneys do? “Your kidneys remove wastes and extra fluid from your body. Your kidneys also remove acid that is produced by the cells of your body and maintain a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals—such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium—in your blood (Google).” They then produce urine with these substances. .

When I was in kidney failure, I was tired all the time and used to take at least 2 long naps daily. My daughter was 4 years old at the time and I didn’t have the energy to play and run after her. I was cold all of the time and had a metallic taste in my mouth from the toxins that weren’t being removed by my kidneys.

So I needed a kidney transplant or would soon have to go on dialysis. The plan was for me to get both a kidney and a pancreas from a deceased donor so that I could cure my diabetes for a time while getting a functioning kidney. But I couldn’t wait long enough for a deceased donor before I needed to go on dialysis .

Then a miracle occurred! My husband offered to donate one of his healthy kidneys to me, but first he had to be tested to see if he was a match to me. And he was a match! So in May 2015 I got one of his kidneys and it worked right away in my body. I felt so much better after the surgery. I had much more anergy and I didn’t have the metallic taste in my mouth. I was much more able to take care of my daughter. What a blessing this was for our family!

A few months after my transplant however, my depression intensified and it brought along its good friend – ANXIETY! I’ve heard it said that “Anxiety is the flip side of depression.” I really never had such severe anxiety before. Plus one of the psychiatrists at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) put me on Pristiq for depression, which made my anxiety much worse. I couldn’t eat. I paced the floors. I cried when my husband had to leave to go to work. And I had the shakes.

Finally I was hospitalized in the Psych Unit at HUMC for about 10 days. I actually had to stay 2 days in the Emergency Room first because there were no beds available in the Psych Ward. In the Psych Ward I went off of Pristiq and I believe I started Buspar for the anxiety and went back on Zoloft for the depression. When I came home from the hospital, I still had anxiety but it wasn’t as severe as before. I have had both anxiety and depression ever since then though.

So my depression and anxiety continued but they were manageable for the most part. I was however, having a great deal of difficulty managing my diabetes. My blood sugars fluctuated from being very hight to very low. I was trying to control them as best as I could by using an insulin pump and taking insulin shots to supplement the pump. It wasn’t working very well and so my diabetologist felt that I needed a pancreas transplant.

“The pancreas is an organ located in the abdomen. It plays an essential role in converting the food we eat into fuel for the body’s cells. The pancreas has two main functions: an exocrine function that helps in digestion and an endocrine function that regulates blood sugar (https://columbiasurgery.org/pancreas/pancreas-and-its-functions).”

I had a pancreas transplant in May 2018. The pancreas was donated by the family of a young man 19 years of age who died after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle. The pancreas started producing insulin almost right away so that I no longer had Type I Diabetes, at least for 10 years if not more! Up to this point I had Diabetes for 46 years!

Another miracle for me and my family! When my blood sugars were so out of control I would feel very tired and extremely irritable. I was not at all easy to live with. My moods evened out with my new pancreas. I didn’t have to do any finger sticks to find out what my blood sugar was. I could theoretically eat whatever I wanted to eat, except for a diabetic complication, gastroparesis getting in the way. (The nerves in my stomach were damaged from years of diabetes and didn’t move food along the digestive system well.)

However, a few months after my pancreas transplant, my depression and anxiety intensified again. I was in such bad shape that I ended up being hospitalized at HUMC at Mountainside 3 times. I also attended their Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) 3 times. It’s been almost 2 years though since I was in the IOP.

This time I was put on Escitalopram (Lexipro), Bupropion (Wellbutrin), and Atomoxetine (Stratera), not all at once though. The Lexipro came first, then the Wellbutrin, and finally Stratera. I’ve been on this “cocktail” of meds for almost 2 years and it has worked fairly well, up to now.

I decided with my psychiatrist to go off of Lexipro and go on Prozac. So I am back with my old friend, Prozac since it had worked very well for me in the past. I’m hoping that since I haven’t been on Prozac in a while, it will work again and I’ll feel better.

It’s very frightening to me when my psych meds aren’t working and so I have to try other ones. One of the main problems is that for many of these meds, it can take a few weeks before you feel any effect. I’m hoping that the placebo effect of knowing that I’m on Prozac will help me feel better before the Prozac kicks in.

Why would my depression and anxiety intensify after having had a kidney transplant and then after a pancreas transplant? I believe that it has to do with both transplants being such big changes in my life. As far as the kidney transplant, I was living with kidney failure for about 1 1/2 years, and probably with damaged kidneys for much longer than that. In terms of the pancreas transplant, I got rid, at least for 10 to 20 years of a disease that I had for 46 years. Both kidney failure and Type I Diabetes require you to change your way of life. Taking care of diabetes becomes your way of life. And then with the pancreas transplant and a working pancreas afterwards, it no longer is your way of life.

Much more has happened in my 50’s than I wrote about here, but I will share these events in other articles under different topics.

Have you experienced any miracles or major changes in your life? How did it affect you?

Depression and Me: It’s Back :(

April 13, 2021 /

The main reason I haven’t been writing my blog for a few weeks is that my depression is back. It’s not really back because it never really goes away. It’s always been there since I was 16, whether at a mild, just below the surface, baseline level or at a major, severe, needing to go to the hospital level. This time my depression is moderate, between mild and major. It’s definitely at surface level though!

thunderstorm with glimmering lightnings over ocean
Photo by Lachlan Ross on Pexels.com

I know that my depression is back because I have the following symptoms: I’m having trouble getting out of bed in the morning; I’m crying more often, especially in the morning; I’m very irritable and picking fights with my husband; I have a constant, underlying level of sadness; I’m having trouble doing things I like to do like writing this blog, and walking on the treadmill and around the park; and I’m tired most of the time.

I don’t think that this depression is a major one because I’m functioning for the most part, but with a struggle. For example, I have to get out of bed on weekday mornings because my daughter has hybrid school which includes both in-person and remote school, and I help her get ready for this. I also get out of bed because I’m hungry for breakfast and so are my daughter, the cat and the fish! (As for being hungry for breakfast, for as long as I’ve been struggling with depression, I don’t think it has ever taken away my appetite for food.)

On the weekend it’s harder to get out of bed especially if we don’t have anything scheduled to do. But even if we do have plans, I have a hard time getting out of bed and getting ready to do them. I end up planting myself on the couch and either sleeping or ruminating over whatever is bothering me at the time. It could be worrying about my daughter, how I look, what someone said to me, being overwhelmed by household chores, worrying about my physical health, etc. After a while my husband usually talks me up (instead of down) which helps me get moving. He also encourages me to work out which he usually does with me. Working out like walking on the treadmill and weight training really help lift my mood. So my depression is definitely moderate since I’m able to change direction and come out of it under the right circumstances.

Being an amateur psychiatrist/psychologist and a professional depressed person, I think one main reason I’m depressed is because of the changes going on in my life and stressing out over them. Plus the stress over such things as Covid, finances, plans for the summer for my daughter, and trying to fit in various social activities, etc. are contributing to my depression too. In fact, I learned in the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) I was in that Stress + Change = Depression for many people, including me.

One big change is that more people are out and about since getting their Covid vaccinations. Sounds good except that I have social anxiety so that seeing people I know and don’t know makes me very anxious. I hate to admit it but the quarantine was kind of helpful to me because of my social anxiety which eased somewhat during this time.

Another BIG change that came up was that my daughter returned to school for in-person/hybrid learning 2 or 3 days a week. She has been home with me for over a year doing remote schooling. I’ve been not only her mother but also her teacher at times. Hybrid will be only for 4 hours a day and then she’ll have the rest of the school day remotely at home. I still miss her though and the house feels empty.

What adds to my depression is that my husband works at his company’s building in the morning but works from home in the afternoon. I feel very lonely when both my husband and daughter are out of the house in the morning. My husband however, will be gradually working at his company’s office building full time, and this change will add to my depression.

As to how I’m going to treat my depression, I plan to speak with my psychiatrist in order to change medications. I’m on 3 right now and I’m not sure that any of them are working properly. Another thing I’m doing is trying to exercise every day. Exercise is very helpful at raising my mood. Going outside is also very helpful at raising my mood. You don’t need to walk with a large group of people.

If you need help, here are some resources, and also please see my Resources Page.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.  800-273-8255

Disclaimer

The contents of this blog are based on the lived experience of one person. They are not a substitute for medical or psychiatric consultation.

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