In my absence I’ve been trying to maintain my loss but lose no more for that period. I’m not done losing weight. I have a long way to go.
I took a break as I felt at breaking point. It culminated in the 5th death of someone we knew and I kinda spiraled.
I used to think anxiety was for people who couldn’t handle stress. After my husband lost his 2nd coworker and friend in a month (hit by a car) I started imagining every single possibility of what could happen to us all in my family of 4 and I would panic. Out of the 5 deaths, one was in a car crash, one hit by a car, one had an asthma attack then a seizure that totalled his brain. It brought home the fragility of life and it terrified me.
I would panic about my husband going to work driving in case he died like Faye did in the new year. I panicked about every noise in the night in which I was certain someone was trying to steal or kill my children. I worried when out driving that trucks were going to not see me. I worried that if my husband died I have no family of my own in Australia and I’d be completely alone with my kids. I worried about going anywhere closed in in case something like an ISIL led attack on the Lindt cafe coffee shop took place. It all got too much for me.
Then I realised I’ve been through a lot in my life and it’d probably led to this point.
-I had a car accident with a truck that didn’t see me in 2008 which I miraculous emerged unscathed from
-I moved across the planet 5 yrs ago and that was huge.
-I was in a previously physically abusive marriage before meeting my lovely husband and when I told my family they didnt believe me and thought I was just making up excuses to get out of my year long marriage
-My sister let me down and hadn’t spoken with me for a year as she felt my moving to Australia meant I was leaving her to look after our family in the UK.
-I narrowly escaped an IRA bomb in Ealing, West London in 2001. I mean I was standing talking with friends in front of the car with the huge bomb in it less than 2hrs before it went off.
-My son is a late talker and was going through checks for autism. They’ve so far just agreed his expressive language is just a little slower to emerge and he shows no markers for autism yet.
So there’s all my crazy.
And my studies got crazy. I felt entirely swamped. Until I started talking. I told all this to my best friend in Toronto and she was like “Yeah, anyone would be struggling right now!”
I’d love to say I’ve been eating and exercising perfectly but I havent. My eating has been 80% portion controlled and 20% anything. I’m an addict. Food is my drug. Exercising went from 4 times a week to once per week if I was lucky. But thankfully I’ve only re-gained 0.5kg from the 6.1kg I’d lost.
Onward and upward 2.0
I can’t say I feel completely over my anxiety but I feel like I’m driving it rather than its driving me. I’ve never realised just how important mental health is until I suddenly no longer possessed mine.
Thanks for all the comments. I’ve been reading all my subscribers blogs and its been nice at times to know that I’m not alone in my struggles 🙂
whenimsixtythree 