Triggers For My Anxiety

There are a few things that trigger my anxiety. They are listed below:

  • Conflicts– With loved ones, friends, or others. It hurts me the most when I get into an argument with someone I love.
    • If someone I am close to is acting a little different than they usually are, sometimes I jump to conclusions and assume they are mad. I have been this way for a very long time.
    • My anxiety is even sparked when I see an argument or fight happen. It brings me a lot of stress.
  • Social Events/Parties- If I am surrounded by a lot of people I do not know, then I do get a little anxious. I would rather be surrounded by people that I know so I can feel comfortable and safe.
  • Low Energy– When I get tired, I will get very anxious and emotional. Nothing has to happen, I just want to cry and I start to overthink life.
  • Negative Thinking– I tend to use a lot of negative words about myself and situations that make me feel uncomfortable. If I start out my day saying,” Here we go, another long, tiring day,” then my day will not end up being as good as it could if I decided to say,” Lets start this day out right, excited to see where it goes,” instead.
    • Being positive makes a huge difference in your day to day life.
  • Financial Well-Being– I would get very anxious when I would struggle thinking about how I was going to pay my housing bill for college.
    • I decided it would be best if I commuted for the rest of college, to save some money and erase at least one of my problems.

I am someone who does a lot of over thinking, due to my anxiety. I tend to be over cautious when it comes to new experiences. I could turn a normal situation and end up labeling it as dangerous , just because it is a new experience for me. I make problems out of situations when there was no need to start any problems. I physically make my life so much harder than it needs to be.

If I simply stopped overthinking and had a more positive outlook on things, then I would be a happier person overall. It is a work in progress though, and sooner or later I will get to the place I want to be. Anxiety and overthinking does not have to be a part of your existence and it sure will not be a part of mine.

Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome

It all began when I was at my friends house and I had a sharp pain in my stomach. It literally came out of nowhere. I went to the emergency room and they just assumed I was constipated (LOL). They put me on a stool softener to try and see if I was just “backed up”. The pain did not subside and I tried looking for an actual doctor to check me out. I started with a pain specialist at Connecticut Children’s Medical Hospital. A really good hospital with amazing doctors. This doctor thought that everything was in my head. I did not know what was wrong with me, but I did know that my pain was not fake. This was beyond frustrating. Basically, they did a lot of blood work and x-rays, and tried finding something, but they couldn’t.

Next doctor I found did a very quick look at me, and she told me that I had AMPS. What the heck is AMPS? It is known as Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome. I did not know what it was at all. I have never ever heard of this. I asked her if there was anything I could do to get rid of this thing, but she told me that there was no cure. It is a chronic pain syndrome that closely relates to fibromyalgia, but at the same time is different. This is a condition in which, the person’s pain is more intense than “normal” pain. The initial cause of AMPS is usually an injury or illness that causes pain. I did cheerleading for awhile and was dropped a few times. I have been injured a lot, so I did not know what could have caused this condition.

The pain in this condition is different from a normal person’s pain reaction. In a normal person’s body, pain usually travels from the site of the injury, through the spinal cord, up to the brain. In someone who has AMPS, the route of travel is interrupted and the pain signal goes to the autonomic nerves, which control involuntary movements like breathing. When the pain reaches the autonomic nerves, they react by constricting the blood vessels, which cuts off the flow of blood to certain parts of the body. At the same time, there is a build up of lactic acid, which is produced when there is a lack of oxygen. These two factors combined are what causes the amplified pain. People who have AMPS could have the pain directed in one place of their body, or all over their body. My condition started out in my stomach, and moved to my whole body.

I met a few people about my age that had the same condition as I did. It was nice meeting some people that I could relate to. Nobody had any clue what this condition was, no one had heard of it. There was barely anything about it on the web. I felt so alone. Even some doctors had never heard of it, so how could I understand what was going on in my body? I could not even explain the condition to my friends.

I realized that the best thing I could do, was keep moving. Literally. Exercise had its pros and cons. If I stopped exercising, I would feel run down and really crappy, but if I did exercise, my soreness would last really long and hurt really bad. I also ended up needing to be on a few medications. One medication that was technically an antidepressant and it could help with nerve pain, but it was such a low dose so it did not act as an antidepressant. I was also on a medication to block acid in my stomach to help myself gain my hunger back. These things seemed to work for me once I found the right dosages for myself. This condition can last for a year or your whole life. I am already three years into this journey with AMPS.

I believe this condition has led to me have heightened anxiety and depression. I have had to quit a lot of activities that I loved because I physically couldn’t handle it. I have lost friends because I would rather be in bed where I was comfortable. This condition is always heightened when I am stressed. If I end up having a panic attack, I usually still have sharp pains in my stomach. But overall, I am doing very good with my condition and have had much relief.

It is still a new condition. A lot of young people are being diagnosed with this. I hope they do more research on this condition in the future. As a reminder to everyone… you do not know what people are going through, even if they are your close friends. Try your hardest to always be there for your friends and anyone that might be in need of a support system.

Thank you to my family and friends who have helped me get through these tough times. I appreciate you more than you will ever know. (I am making these posts to help myself get out my feelings and hopefully help others). SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO MY MOM FOR BEING MY ROCK, I love you.

My Relationship With My Mental Health

I can’t remember an exact time when my journey with mental health began. I want to say it all started when I was in fifth grade and my father was deployed to Iraq for a year. I didn’t really know what to expect, because I have never been through this before. I’ve seen this in movies and it looked really sad, but I couldn’t relate at the time. Then in seventh grade, my dad was deployed again for a year, but this time to Afghanistan. When my dad came home this time, he was not my dad. He was so different. He was very aggressive and it was just really scary to see my dad be so different. I probably should’ve gotten some help from therapy or counseling, but I didn’t.

In 8th grade I thought it would be my best bet to hurt myself, because I felt very hopeless and sad all the time. With my dad being so different and my family having problems, I did not know what else to do. On top of that I did not know how to handle my emotions, and this is probably when I really should’ve received some help but once again I did not.

Fast forward to high school, nothing significantly happened to me, but I was a very emotional person. I would have panic attacks at night and wake my mom up from crying so loud, and I would not stop crying until I fell asleep. Then, My junior year I was diagnosed with Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome. It was a very confusing diagnosis for me , and it even took me a long time to find out what was wrong with me. When I did find out, it bothered me because there was no cure for this. Basically with this condition, if my friend was messing around and slapped me, it would feel like they just punched me. I also lost some weight and was not able to gain any because of this condition. I was 90 pounds and as a 16-year-old that was not really healthy. It physically hurt me to eat. I lost a lot of friends during this dark time. I did not want to leave my bed, so I would cut off plans with my friends. They probably thought I was blowing them off, but I just wanted to lay in bed. It was the most comfortable place for me to be. I was just very confused with my own body and it messed with my head. I ended up going see a pain management team in Hartford to help me cope with my condition. I also met a few other people my age that were suffering from the same chronic condition that I was.

Now in my freshman year of college, I thrived. I did not think I was going to make it here. I did not think I was going to go to college because of how dependent I was on my mother. I did not expect myself to live at college and focus on my future. I think my freshman year experience was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I learned how to be independent, I met my boyfriend, I met many friends, and I just truly enjoyed myself. I was so busy with all of these new experiences, that I did not have room to think about my emotions. At the end of freshman year, I was only home for about a week and I was given the news that my father was cheating on my mother. A 20+ years marriage now down the drain. This was my dad who I thought was my hero. Who was I supposed to trust now? At this point, I was very hopeless and my trust issues were at an all-time high. I did not know how to feel about this news, and surprisingly I was okay with the idea of my parents getting a divorce. Maybe I was in so much shock that my true feelings were masked. Little did I know, that this was going to be the start of the worst time of my life yet. I now found out that I would have to move out of the only house that I have ever known. This was the only house I ever lived in. So many memories were made here. I moved into my new apartment with my mom and my sister. I had to share a room with my mom, because we could only afford a two room apartment. This was a new experience and really hard for me to deal with. New experiences and changes were not really my favorite thing.

Fast forward to my sophomore year of college. I knew it was going to be hard because of all the changes that happened over the summer. Maybe it would be good though, because at least I would have my own room. I also knew my boyfriend would be leaving in the spring semester, so I tried my hardest to make it the best semester yet. I struggled very bad with my emotions. I really clung onto my boyfriend because, I didn’t get much affection anymore and love that I needed. My dad’s relationship with me was not very good, and my mom was busy as well with these changes. My boyfriend was like a security blanket. He helped me through these horrible times. But knowing that he was going to be leaving next semester was very scary, because I don’t know if I was going to lose him too. I had lots of panic attacks this semester and struggled, but I did see a therapist at school that helped me focus on working through my emotions.

I was just about to move in for my spring semester. I got to school and I started to unpacked my bags. About 2 to 3 hours after moving in, I had a major panic attack and I ended up leaving school and confessing to my mom that I needed to get serious help. I felt so hopeless and I knew I wouldn’t kill myself, but I really just didn’t want to live. The next day I went with my mom to the emergency room, and I waited over six hours to speak with somebody to figure out what I was going to do. My intentions were to maybe talk to a professional psychologist or something, but it was a little different than I expected. I was taken into a psychiatric ward where I had to stay overnight until I could speak to somebody in the morning. Nobody was allowed to stay with me, not even my mom. It was really really scary, but I knew that this was what I needed to do to get the help that I needed. —————————————————————————-
The next day I was transferred to the Pond House in Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, it was an inpatient psychiatric facility. I was only able to have two visits a day for an hour, and could only make calls at certain times of the day. I really felt like I was in jail. It was probably the closest thing to jail that I would ever experience. After the first day of being there, I decided I could not be angry. I was there to get help. I ended up making friends, older people and even people my same age. Some of the people there were worse off than I was. I was not going to kill myself, so I was not looked after as much. I was probably only there for about three days. When I left I felt very weird. I was not able to have my phone while I was in the facility, I was pretty much cut off from the world, so I was a little nervous to be in the real world again. I can definitely say that it was an experience that I needed. I learned a lot about myself and got the tools to help me handle my emotions better. I was also put on a medication to help with my depression, and it has worked wonders for me.

I still have bad weeks to this day, but I am able to work through all of my problems by myself. I am happier with myself and want to be here. I only have one life, so I need to make it the best life.

(I wrote about my experiences because I want to hopefully help other people who struggle with similar things. Please email me with any questions or if you need any advice.)