The Picture of Mental Health

That would be ME...if said picture were kinda blurry and not properly framed and taken without a flash, that is. Still, it's an improvement.

Which is all my way of saying that I didin't even have to break up with my therapist, because she broke up with me! Or, rather, she suggested I start coming every other week rather than weekly. Which is really all I wanted to do to start out with.

Wanna hear what my big breakthrough was, the one that got me over the crazy hump? I've somehow figured out how to respond to anxiety attacks like a not-quite-as-crazy-as-I-was person. Before, I'd start to have an anxiety attack, and it would terrify the shit out of me. Which would, of course, make me more anxious. And that would start me worrying about how long this anxiety attack would last, just how crazy I'd get, whether I was going to wind up as bad as I was back in aught 3, whether this was the time I was going to wind up in an institution, etc.

But now? I look up from whichever of my three jobs I'm doing, and think to myself, "Hmm. My fingers are tingling. My chest feels tight. My leg is bopping up and down at supernatural rates. I can't breathe. And it's entirely possible that my skeleton is going to jump out from within my skin in a minute or two. Hey! I'm having an anxiety attack! Better take a Xnax."

And then I do. And then I go for a quick walk. And about twenty minutes later, I realize I can breathe again, and I go back to my life.

As I told both my therapist AND my shrink today (during one-after-the-other appointments; it was Psycho Day for me today), it's not that I'm not having anxiety attacks any more. It's that I can now treat them as nothing more than a psychological headache. I think, "Hm. That's uncomfortable. Let me take something for that." And I do.

So there you have it. My breakthrough = Anxiety; don't fight it. And I did it all by myself. Well, with a little help from my good friend Xanax. And my other good friend Celexa. And my other good friend Neurontin. And my therapist. And my shrink. But otherwise, all by myself.

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On a completely unrelated note: Those of you who think fall never comes to Southern California haven't been to the right places at the right times.