Healthy Again

I've thought twice, three times, even four times about posting this--or even saying it aloud--for fear of jinxing it, but it's been about a week, and I think I'm safe.


For the past few months (like seven), as I'm sure you guys could probably gather from the nature of a huge chunk of my posts...I haven't been well. I've been very, very sick, physically and mentally.

I started about mid-January-ish when I started to get really depressed. Hopeless. Like there wasn't going to be anything good that came out of me or the world, so I just let it beat me down. I didn't eat. I didn't sleep very well. And then about February I started to feel really sick. There were a few days when I had moments I thought I was going to pass out or succumb to convulsions like I was having a seizure or start speaking incoherently. And the dizziness.

Oh, the dizziness.

That's what plagued me for the longest time. When I walked, stood still, or even sat down, I had the constant feeling that I was on a boat. Constantly rocking. Playing with my vision. It was extremely hard to walk because the ground always felt like it was moving. It was rather unpleasant and I pretty much wanted to avoid it at all costs. In the middle of this, I thought it was because I needed glasses that I was seeing things. Looking back, this didn't solve the problem. (Although, I honestly did need the glasses...things in the distance were starting to get a little fuzzy anyway...) And so it continued, well until the end of the school year and into the summer.

All the while, the constant worrying about what the hell me body was doing in addition to that bout of depression all rolled into one and I began my intense battle with anxiety. I looked up the symptoms of anxiety (so many times it almost became compulsive, and that would just be another ingredient to throw into my bag of crazy), and it turned out that there are many, many symptoms that would make anyone freak out. Symptoms that would make you think that you were having a heart attack or a stroke or had a tumor or an aneurysm. And dizziness/unsteadiness was right smack in the middle of the list This was about March, when I was getting ready for my last trimester in high school, and I had my Senior presentation coming up and stuff for band and...STRESS. Who wouldn't be anxious about that kind of stuff? In truth, I probably was exhausted and burnt-out on school, as is common among seniors.

Anyway...things came and went, things that would make anyone anxious...and yet the dizziness was still there. For a few weeks, I was on supplements (never actually had to resort to anything like Xanax or the like, thankfully) that were supposed to help me be calm, but those didn't really help all that much. I was on melatonin tablets for a while to help me sleep (yep, I even had insomnia for a few weeks). I was a mess.

School was the worst. I felt like I was floating in and out of reality. I would spend my lunch periods in the office of my band director. This sounds really sad but, luckily, this was actually kind of a safe-haven for me. This was where we ate at lunch, because it meant that all us band kids could talk to each other. But once I stepped out of that room...it was over. I didn't like having to go out to the cafeteria to go get a spoon or a fork or a cookie. And the other six and a half hours...I don't know. I would take as little time as possible to get from one class to another. Then having to sit there...struggling to absorb what my teachers were throwing at me while clutching to my sanity...it didn't help that I had kind of a hefty class load. Or that I started my day at seven-thirty and it ended at four. And I wouldn't get home some nights until almost six. Anxiety makes it hard to concentrate on things, which hindered my inability to really make progress on a lot of my schoolwork, hence my days where I felt worthless and such. And then, of course, there were the days when I couldn't even go to school. When it was physically impossible for me to get out of the car.You guys know exactly which days I'm talking about.

When I wasn't at school, I spent a lot of time alone in the downstairs living room of my house (i.e. our basement), where my bedroom is also, on my computer, surfacing only for meals and, occasionally, outings that my mom would pretty much drag me to in order to get me "socialized". Because of the aforementioned difficulty of walking, I mostly just went with the lesser of the evils that came with the dizziness, which was sitting. On my couch. For hours on end. In my pj's. Often until four or five in the evening on the weekends. Wasting away in front of the T.V. or my computer, not really taking in what was going on around me, just letting everything float past me.But it was really hard for me to enjoy myself, with the constant worrying, keeping inside my head. I didn't like going out in public for a really long time. And, yes, that even included walking around my neighborhood. My first-ever public panic attack in May kind of set me over the edge, so I really didn't like leaving the house after that. Or the car when my mom would force me out of the house. I only left when I really had to.

So I've really missed out on a lot. Things that were fun for me at one point and time now had absolutely no appeal to me. Some even terrified me. This meant going shopping or going to the movies or going to Seattle or going out to eat. I was afraid that something would happen to me while I was out doing these things and I wouldn't be able to escape or get help or whatever...And I know that sounds crazy, but that's what anxiety does to you.

That first panic attack that elicited a doctor's visit unearthed--after a thorough physical examination--that I had fluid in my ears. So they prescribed me some medicine that would surely help me with the dizziness and whatnot. It kind of did. But not really. There probably was some crap in there from allergies. But that really wasn't it. I stopped taking them a few weeks after school got out. And it didn't change a darn thing.

However, this while thing did change almost exactly a week ago when I underwent a relatively minor surgery that most adults undergo once in their life.

It was my f#*%ing wisdom teeth. Messing with my ears because there wasn't any room for them to grow properly because my jaw is so small. Messing with the part of your body that AFFECTS YOUR BALANCE. LIKE MORE THAN YOU THINK IT WOULD. This winter, before...everything...I was complaining to my mom about some ear pain, so I got my wisdom teeth checked out and it turned out that all four had to come out (the bottom two were dangerously close to a nerve in my jaw). That was in April.

Who knew something so relatively insignificant could effect your health that much. I mean, I knew my mom got ear infections (she thought) before she got hers out. But this...whoever decided that we should have wisdom teeth....*shakes fist*. Most people end up having them out at one point or another, and they just cause problems...Heck, if you go to the dentist and they find you have a cavity in one of them, they just pull 'em anyway.

To be honest, I was really worried that this surgery wouldn't fix it, that this would be something that I would have to suffer with for the rest of my life. Especially for the first few days after, when I was still on heavy pain medication that can make you kind of loopy. Not to mention that I didn't really have anything of substance to eat until about five days after. The dizziness persisted a little and I figured--hoped, really--that it was purely due to the fact that that part of my head was still heavily swollen, so my ears would still be a little wonky.

But when I woke up yesterday, I got up and started to get dressed (it was my first day back at work since my surgery) and I noticed that the ground didn't move like it had been for the past seven months. I didn't feel like I had to hold onto anything when I moved, for fear of falling over.

I made a resolution at the beginning of this year to make an honest effort to take care of my body, especially since I'm heading off to college in the fall. Better to get into the habits now than receive a culture-shock in September and be even more susceptible to the "Freshman 15". I did really well for the first few weeks of January. And then it all came crashing down when my wisdom teeth decided it was time to show up and start shaking things up. While all this was happening, I was keeping that in mind. Yet it became increasingly to even get off the couch in my basement and go take my dog for a walk. I fell into a sort of despair, like my dreams of being uber healthy would never be realized because I would be stuck in this unhealthy, dizzy, weird state forever. I haven't been able to walk/run/get active like I wanted to because of all...this. I even lost the 'high' I would get after I marched with my band (yes, like the runner's high). Marching made me anxious, and it's something for which you really need to be physically fit. In past years, leading up to our first parade, I would do laps around my neighborhood in order to train myself. That wasn't the case this year.


Like I sad, though, it all changed when I woke up yesterday, feeling better than I had in months.

This afternoon, I went for a walk that turned into a run, and it felt liberating. Since then I've been busily buzzing around my house, doing chores, organizing piles of clothes for when I go to school, doing laundry...things that have been hard for me to do for the past seven months.

I told myself that, when this whole ordeal is over--if it would ever be over--that I would seriously and vigilantly continue my regiment of making myself healthier. I never thought the day would finally come, the day when I finally felt normal again. And I don't plan on stopping any time soon.

When it becomes so hard to do things, and it's that way for so long...you lose hope. I began to research my symptoms online, and the only results I would find would be of people that had suffered for years and had no sort of relief. Let's say that didn't exactly help me. I continued to do research over the months and I never found anything hopeful or new...and I would pretty much just curl up and cry because I honestly believed that this was me and I was condemned for life. Before I was even 18. And I still had things to do...what was I going to do when I went away to college, where I would be all by myself? Life would be a living hell. And then I thought of the things that I wanted to do after school, even...Backpacking through Europe, becoming a teacher...that just didn't seem feasible anymore. The worst part about this whole thing besides all of the physical and mental weirdness was he fact that I felt like I couldn't talk about it with anyone. I felt alone. I mean, you can talk to people about your anxiety, but unless it's a therapist, it's probably not going to do you much good. Anyway, I thought that, if I told anybody anything that they would think I'm crazy (which I probably was) or dying. Wasn't exactly the most hopeful option.

Again, I'm sorry that I'm not sorry for how long this was. But it needed to be said. And it feels good to finally get all of this off my chest because there's been a lot that's been spinning around my head, stuff that's kept me up at night for weeks on end. And now that it's all done, I have the ability to really sit down and figure it all out. They're all things that need to be said, things that I've probably mentioned in the past, but now I know the source for all this discomfort. Yeah, I'll probably still be anxious about things; I've always been an anxious person. But not in the way that had so negatively impacted my life since January.

This whole ordeal was awful, and I would never wish it upon anyone, even my worst adversary. Nobody deserves to feel that way. At one point, though, I found out that John Green, my favorite author and one of my all-time favorite human beings, also suffered from anxiety and anxiety-related issues. He has social anxiety and he copes with it in a healthy way. But it made me respect him so much more when he publicized this issue. He made a lengthy statement on one of his many social media outlets explaining what was going through his mind around a particular bout of anxiety (it was around the time of him writing his most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars). And it comforted me, not that he had anxiety, but because he was able to talk about it and talk about how he deals with it. What astounded me the most was that, after almost four years of following him and his work, I had no idea. He never let on. Now he's very public about it and talks about it when people ask--within reason--and I'm finding more of a role model in him than I did when I first read his books. At the end of his statement, he thanked the people who supported him, who tolerated his faults and his anxieties about his work and his life.

So I'd like to do the same.

My friends, those of you who are reading this (you know who you are)...thank you for being yourselves. You brought much joy to my days when everything looked bleak and hopeless. Thank you for the days spent running around Seattle and the parties--you got me out of the house. Thank you for being tolerant, even when you probably thought you weren't needing to be. Thank you for letting my work out my weirdnesses by myself...yet never, for a moment, letting me think that I was ever alone.

And so, my friends, I'll leave you now, feeling fifty pounds lighter (though my feet are planted oh-so-firmly on the ground)...I'm walking around with a smile on my face now : ) I promise to treat my body right, eat well (except there is some red velvet ice cream in my freezer calling my name at this very moment), exercise (there's an amazing rec center at my college that I can't wait to try out when I get there). If you treat your body right, it should treat you right. And don't any of you ever take that for granted.

I'm going on a road trip with two of my oldest friends this coming Sunday, and this would be one of those occasions where it would be really hard to enjoy myself (I would enjoy myself, in some facet...no matter how much I was terrified about any sort of social occasion, I would, eventually, enjoy myself, but I shouldn't have to dread it), yet I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much if I were constantly worrying. But I think that dark phase of my life is officially over. Let's just say that now I plan on having the time of my life. : )


Which reminds me...I should probably go pack.


On another note, if any of you are feeling anxious (more than would be considered normal or healthy), talk to someone, preferably an adult or a professional OR check out this link. It helped me a lot: http://www.anxietycentre.com/


Also, if you are having dizziness/balance problems, get your ears checked out. Or, you know, go see your dentist. They could seriously help you out. They aren't all bad people. : )