M
mentalcompass
Guest
Hi everyone. I'm 40, I'm a mother of a young girl. I run my own company, I'm saving to buy for a house by staying with a relative. My partner and I have a stressful relationship. My child is developmentally delayed. I was once a very confident person with some pretty fantastic acheivements to my credit and some recognition in my work. I'm a writer (don't spellcheck me now. 
A spot check on my life now isn't so interesting.
I've had a horrific amount of stress over the last six years: a bad divorce, a career lost, a complicated pregnancy where my child nearly died. I "cured" that suffering by spending two years high, becoming an addict rather than face the loveless relationship I was in, a sick child, low confidence from my struggles at my once beloved career. I moved across the country, started a business with my partner, struggled with money daily, started taking perscription drugs instead.
Talk about a lost soul.
Our business is doing well now. We are close to getting the things we want. But in January I got sick with a lung infection. It went away, it came back a week later. I was on Levaquin and prednisone. I suffered from major problems with my nervous system from those drugs. I was on Augumentin too. I seemed to kick the cold. At the same time, I stopped smoking and stopped taking perscription meRAB. Three weeks later I find out I'm pregnant. I lost the pregnancy. Then, a week after, I get another chest infection, this time a whooper. Now my lungs feel like cement. A chest xray shows I might have COPD (crazy at 40, huh?), but nothing else notied. I cant breath right still and all day I'm struggling. My pluse ox was fine, the doc says my lungs are clear and while I know that if I had cancer causing all my symptoms, chances are it would have been seen on an Xray. So now my mind is totally focused on this fear that something is seriously wrong with my lungs and I'll die having never achevied the things I'm close to getting.
This negative thought makes me very depressed.
I know that I have to address my health because it's causing so many issues for me. I have all kinRAB of doctors appointments scheduled (a lung function test coming up and I want a CATSCAN too if they'll give it to me). I smoked 20 years, that's a long time.
Anyway, I have become so focused on this, and afraid, that my life isn't normal anymore. I have been taking Ativan to control the breathing problems, it's like I'm breathing by raising my shoulders and sucking my diaphram up instead of down where it would normally be if I wasn't thinking about breathing. It's causing back aches and soreness all around my body, which of course makes the health anxiety worse.
I had a bout with this type of behaivor in my 20s and suffered clinical depression. I feel on the verge of this again. I keep trying to get up and move, I ran for the first time today (felt good after the first mile), and I keep going for walks, getting out of the house. I recall being inside depressed me greatly and I'm feeling that again. I am just trying to hold off on the big depression that I got the last time. I'm wondering if I should be taking something for this, besides Ativan, which doesn't really work that great, this breathing problem has taken on a life of its own. I am getting plenty of oxygen so it has to be in my head. I wake up breathing normal and it starts when I start thinking about it, or if I left myself wandering in the negative thoughts.
I can't stand this crap anymore. Maybe this is my long overdue breakdown. You know how it is - once you go to that place, you start taking stock in what a loser you are, how you're life isn't how you imagined it, it's too late to make it different, etc., junk thinking.
I have to get this breathing thing under control because it's putting so much pressure on my mental state.
I'm sorry if I'm rarabling.
I never knew that whacky breathing could cause so many other awful physical symptoms. I keep thinking I have some awful illness. I'm looping, as I like to call it, replay, replay, replay.
A spot check on my life now isn't so interesting. I've had a horrific amount of stress over the last six years: a bad divorce, a career lost, a complicated pregnancy where my child nearly died. I "cured" that suffering by spending two years high, becoming an addict rather than face the loveless relationship I was in, a sick child, low confidence from my struggles at my once beloved career. I moved across the country, started a business with my partner, struggled with money daily, started taking perscription drugs instead.
Talk about a lost soul.
Our business is doing well now. We are close to getting the things we want. But in January I got sick with a lung infection. It went away, it came back a week later. I was on Levaquin and prednisone. I suffered from major problems with my nervous system from those drugs. I was on Augumentin too. I seemed to kick the cold. At the same time, I stopped smoking and stopped taking perscription meRAB. Three weeks later I find out I'm pregnant. I lost the pregnancy. Then, a week after, I get another chest infection, this time a whooper. Now my lungs feel like cement. A chest xray shows I might have COPD (crazy at 40, huh?), but nothing else notied. I cant breath right still and all day I'm struggling. My pluse ox was fine, the doc says my lungs are clear and while I know that if I had cancer causing all my symptoms, chances are it would have been seen on an Xray. So now my mind is totally focused on this fear that something is seriously wrong with my lungs and I'll die having never achevied the things I'm close to getting.
This negative thought makes me very depressed.
I know that I have to address my health because it's causing so many issues for me. I have all kinRAB of doctors appointments scheduled (a lung function test coming up and I want a CATSCAN too if they'll give it to me). I smoked 20 years, that's a long time.
Anyway, I have become so focused on this, and afraid, that my life isn't normal anymore. I have been taking Ativan to control the breathing problems, it's like I'm breathing by raising my shoulders and sucking my diaphram up instead of down where it would normally be if I wasn't thinking about breathing. It's causing back aches and soreness all around my body, which of course makes the health anxiety worse.
I had a bout with this type of behaivor in my 20s and suffered clinical depression. I feel on the verge of this again. I keep trying to get up and move, I ran for the first time today (felt good after the first mile), and I keep going for walks, getting out of the house. I recall being inside depressed me greatly and I'm feeling that again. I am just trying to hold off on the big depression that I got the last time. I'm wondering if I should be taking something for this, besides Ativan, which doesn't really work that great, this breathing problem has taken on a life of its own. I am getting plenty of oxygen so it has to be in my head. I wake up breathing normal and it starts when I start thinking about it, or if I left myself wandering in the negative thoughts.
I can't stand this crap anymore. Maybe this is my long overdue breakdown. You know how it is - once you go to that place, you start taking stock in what a loser you are, how you're life isn't how you imagined it, it's too late to make it different, etc., junk thinking.
I have to get this breathing thing under control because it's putting so much pressure on my mental state.
I'm sorry if I'm rarabling.
I never knew that whacky breathing could cause so many other awful physical symptoms. I keep thinking I have some awful illness. I'm looping, as I like to call it, replay, replay, replay.