Weekends with Worry

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not depressed. I don't know. I've been adamantly stating for the past 5 years that I am not depressed; just anxiety stricken. I know the two can be separate, but maybe not.

I sleep a lot. And by a lot, I mean that, left to my own devices I will sleep 12+ hours a day. It seems to be my method of escape from not knowing what else to do.

I really have no motivation to get up on the weekends. Even though I need to take the car in for an oil change, do laundry, clean the house, go to the library, go grocery shopping, go to the gym...all of these things just seem overwhelming and instead of getting up and doing one thing at a time I will stay in bed and sleep. Often I don't even sleep...I just lie there and fantasize. I guess it's a form of stress relief. I used to do it a lot in high school when I was more depressed. I enjoy my fantasy life. In that life I am someone totally different from realitly. It's nice.

I have recently acquired several books on dealing with anxiety. It seems that I have a highly "reactive body". Meaning I respond more intensely to environmental stimuli than your average person. This explains how I can be so sensitive to my body's normal functions and instead of just noticing them, I can easily create deadly diseases as the cause of my tingling fingers and ignore the fact that it's probably just an anxious reaction. It's a panic disorder. I get a physical symptom due to my sensitive body and the stress I am experiencing. I don't identify the source of my anxiety symptoms accurately and then I begin watching my body to take note of any sensation that originally frightened me. Thus, I become trapped in the anxiety/panic cycle.

Kind of cool that I can understand this is my problem. But not so easy to stop the cycle.

So that's where I am right now. Just trying to be my "normal" self again. I should probably stop analyzing everything to death. I'm just like Bob Wiley. ;)

Now...baby steps go take a walk.