Anxiety jitters

I have suffered with depression on and off for many years but over the past couple of years more anxiety has crept in. This is a very different feeling from depression. I would describe depression as a low but anxiety is a high but not in a good way.

This is how I am feeling this morning. My whole body feels tense, if I pay attention to it I will suddenly realise I am tensing the muscles in my legs or my hands and I have to tell myself to relax them. I feel like my mind is racing, darting from one thought to another at a million miles an hour. I feel almost frantic, jittery, shaky and on edge. I can't think straight, I feel like there are too many tabs open in my brain. My stomach feels tense, the butterflies are there flapping around in distress. I feel sick then I realise I am holding my jaw shut quite tight so I open my mouth and stretch it, take a deep breath. I feel like my chest hurts, my heart is aching, I feel the strain when I breathe. I am very aware of my breathing, I have to keep reminding myself to breathe so I have to take the odd deep breathe and then it is hard to find my normal pattern of breathing. I have to try and control my thoughts so the panic doesn't start. I have to keep telling myself to keep calm. Most of the time I can talk myself down but sometimes it becomes overwhelming and the control slips away from me and I can't breathe. Luckily today I am ok, I can breathe, I am ok, I can control this, I am ok, relax, I am ok.

I have been reading up about anxiety and how there are different types...

'unhelpful thinking patterns'

- Catastrophising 'what ifs'

- Jumping to conclusions, taking things personally

- Focusing on the negative, ignoring the positives

- Black and white thinking, all or nothing, perfectionism

- Over generalising, labelling

I definitely touch on all of these at different times, but my most visited is the 'what ifs', I go round in circles feeling anxious about things that haven't happened yet, or that might not even happen. I don't want to waste energy for days/weeks about things. I need to try and reason with myself, talk myself round 'there is no point', I must allow myself to worry about it nearer the time, alot nearer the time. I will allow myself some 'worry time' but just a little, not enough to make me crazy.