Social Anxiety

Diagnosis Date: March 21st, 2011
Do I Actually Have It: Yes
Severity: 7/10

I'm shy.

Very, very shy. I haven't always been shy, but I don't like talking to people in classes or out in public. I've never been very good at small talk either, even though sometimes I do like to try and throw caution to the wind and give a shot with a stranger. But I'm afraid that I'll mess up, or say something stupid, or never talk to this person again. They may be completely irrational fears or they may be legitimate, but I suppose I'll never know for sure.

Social anxiety is pretty common in everyone, to a certain degree. I know I don't have it as bad as some of my friends, who can't even eat in public and never talk to anyone outside of their rooms, but I do know what it's like. Social anxiety isn't fun because, like with general anxiety, irrational fears or thoughts pop into your head and join your minds circulation of things.

Social anxiety, or social phobia if you prefer, has strange manifestations and degrees. I don't like making small talk with people usually, or I feel uncomfortable around new people in a group, but I have no problems performing or speaking in public. Social anxiety is weird like that, because it's hard to get just what is going on in your head with these social conflicts.

Doesn't that sound familiar?

Obviously there are medications to help out, but this is a disorder that's hard to grow out of or even get used to. There are few advantages with general anxiety but one of them is that you can be alone to sort out your thoughts or your tendencies. With social anxiety? You have to walk around and try not to look like a lunatic while your mind is racing on the inside.

Again, everyone has social anxiety to some degree (especially if you've ever been on a date), but some have it worse than others. So if you know someone with severe social anxiety, make them feel as comfy as you can. If you have social anxiety, don't worry; you aren't alone in this world. Everyone else does in some way too, and they know how you feel.

Insomnia

Diagnosis Date: N/A

Do I Have It: Yes

Severity: 9/10

Insomnia sucks.

And if you have anxiety, there's a huge chance you have insomnia. 

This isn't a disorder you need to get diagnosed with; you know right off the bat whether you have it or not. The lack of sleep, staying up at night, tossing and turning and thinking about anything and everything in the world, including those stupid mistakes you made 8 years ago that should be out of your head forever. It blows, it really does. And one of the worst things about it is there really is no way to help it. 

Insomnia is a disorder that you have to take day-by-day. Some nights will be fine, others you'll accidentally stay up all night. You know how it goes, fellow anxious reader. It's not because of drugs (well, it can be) or because of any conditions--you just kind of stay up all night, thinking about everything under the sun.

With anxiety you do that anyway, but it always seems to be that much worse at night, when those thoughts keep you away from the safe-haven of sleep. It can cut into your daily life and can come and go for no reason. So in a way, insomnia is a lot like a hooker: keeping you up at night and never really knowing where to stay.

You know how it goes, I know how it goes... but because of our minds keeping us awake, we're prone to think of some cool things at least every now and then. Like imagining a huge dragon fighting a robot somewhere. That's awesome.

Like I said earlier: always something good you can take away from the bad. Even if it's a huge dragon fighting a robot somewhere.

Hypochondria

Diagnosis Date: Early childhood

Do I Actually Have It: Yes

Severity: 2/10 (earlier in life, 8/10)

Hypochondria, you probably already know, is basically when you think you have a sickness but you actually probably don't. It can get bad enough that even your body will start to show symptoms, but that still doesn't necessarily mean that you've got it.

Hypochondria was a problem for me growing up because it would annoy other people. I constantly didn't feel good and complained to everyone about it, parents, friends, etc. This would have been when I was in elementary school, way back in the day. Eventually teachers got sick of putting up with it and made me go see the school nurse about it.

The nurse led to a doctors office, doctors office led to being told I've got it. 

The thing about hypochondria is doctors have no idea how it is caused. It's presumed to be caused by mental trauma or inherited from family, maybe even seen or heard about it and triggered, but that still doesn't explain all cases. I didn't grow up in a broken home, there's no huge history of anxiety disorders in my family, and I'm not sure what could have triggered it. I just woke up one day and kind of... had it. 

Which is strange, because a few years later, as quick as it came into my life, it just kind of stopped. I quit panicking about diseases and illnesses I might have had and started panicking about other things. It was very strange.

In my findings, the best support for hypochondria is two things: support and time. Anti-anxiety medicine probably helps but I don't know, I didn't take my medication for hypochondria because it was already gone by the time my anxiety started getting bad, but I do remember just asking people to try and be lenient (I probably didn't word it like that, I was like 12 at the time) and try to deal with it.

After awhile I just kind of grew out of hypochondria, but I know for some people it is incredibly chronic and can last a long time. I wish I knew how to help people who have it bad, but I'm not even sure where to begin with the disorder, just that support from peers really helps. If you have hypochondria, I'm sorry, I wish I could help you out and give you some chocolate.

But remember: everything is gonna be fine.

Panic Disorder

Diagnosis Date: April 7th, 2011
Do I Actually Have It: No

Our brains are fascinating tools. Inside of our heads, we have the greatest calculator, creator, music maker, writer, performer, speaker and overall personality definer floating around, held up by a tiny stick and helping control our entire bodies. You, me, and everyone on earth is incredible in their own ways, and a lot of the ways it starts is in the brain. Everyone has great abilities and crippling weaknesses, most of which can be traced back to our heads.

Our brains are so great, in fact, that one minor thing can worm itself in there, or one wire could go a little loose or one chromosome could be added in and break down the whole system. Even then, we have the greatest tool on earth, right inside of our bodies.

Which is another reason why our disorders, fellow anxious readers, are so hard to pinpoint.

You see, the list of mental disorders is really long and really insane. Some are really subtle or crazy and things that people don't have. Those things can be ruled out immediately. Others are spot-on and evident from day 1.

But some are caught right in the middle. That's where me and "Panic Disorder" come in.

First of all, Panic Disorder is a fantastic band name (quick! Take dibs!) and second, as the name implies, it is a disorder where someone has frequent panic attacks, mostly for no reason. They literally just appear out of nowhere. If you've had a panic attack or are still having them, you know how not-fun they are. I was having panic attacks--a lot of them--and, with good reason, my doctor thought that having this disorder was very possible. And for that, I don't blame her.

But here's how strange anxiety is, and another reason why our disorders are so tough to even explain to people: When I was out in public places, or performing in front of people, I didn't get stage fright or agoraphobia, two common themes of Panic Disorder. (To be fair, stage fright is like the number 1 fear in the world, but you get the point.) Along with that, the longer time went on the less panic attacks I had. Now I don't have them anymore except maybe once or twice a year, maybe less than that. Last year I only had one. This year so far, I haven't even had a symptom of one, making this a false diagnosis. (I talked to her about it, she said so, I promise. :D)

I wrote this disorder down to really (try to) lay out the more confusing parts of anxiety and how easy it is to even mix up different disorders. With anxiety, OCD, depression, depersonalization, schizophrenia, etc., there are so many layers to every cell of every part of our minds that not even so-called professionals can always accurately predict what's going on up there in between your ears.

Know this: No one is perfect. If you're doctor/therapist/psychologist/mom says you have something in your head that you don't and they're wrong, don't get mad at them. Anxiety isn't a physical disorder. We, as humans, can diagnose the flu or broken legs, but that beautiful, wonderful instrument up in your head? There's a lot going on up there all the time, so it's understandable that sometimes people are going to make false diagnoses.

Along with that, know that you're AWESOME. Anxiety/OCD/Depression/anything else is tough, really tough, but it's just one flaw in a literal catacomb of AWESOME. You're great the way you are, your brain is great the way it is, and there is no one in this great earth that has a brain that is AWESOME like yours is.

General Anxiety

Diagnosis Date: March 21st, 2011

Do I Actually Have It: Yes

Severity: 9/10

I guess the best place to start with this stuff is at the beginning. In late 2010, my parents and friends started to notice something about me: I would stare off into space for no reason and ask weird questions. I didn't notice for whatever reason, but after a few months it started to become a problem.

I went to the school therapist on March 21st, and then the doctor the following Friday. They took some blood tests and determined that my serotonin levels were low.

Like, really low.

Approximately 60% below the "normal limit" low. 

After two prescriptions to some anti-anxiety medicine and a few weeks, things started to regulate. Sort of. I still thought a lot about random off the wall things that weren't relevant to anyone or anything in my life, coupled with asking weird questions about things that weren't important or even made any friggin' sense, but things were still a little bit better at least. And when you feel like the world is against you, you're gonna have to take every little victory you can get.

Living with anxiety has had a lot of bads and a lot of goods. For awhile when I was taking the anti-anxiety meds, I couldn't write. (That's kind of my thing.) I couldn't write songs or stories, or even good papers for English. That was a problem. On the flip side, I could talk to people and give a really good speech, something that I'd struggled with in the past. And that was a good thing. One of my philosophies in life, and probably the most important one to me, is that no matter how bad something is you can always take something good away from it.

Fast forward nearly three years, and I no longer take the anti-anxiety medicine. (I quit a little over a year ago.) I still have bad days, and occasionally I even have a bad week, but things are much, much better than they were when this first arose. And that's the best part I can take away from all this. Things are better.

Sometimes not great, but better.

Introduction

Hi!

I see you're one of the 6 people who checked this Facebook link to read this, another blog by me that I hope people will read.

But probably won't.

I started a journal three years ago today (March 2nd at the time of writing), charting when my mental disorders started to kick in. I read through every page, spawning from March of 2011 to July of 2013, and found out that doctors and therapists had diagnosed me with 30 different disorders. So, since I think I'm clever (I'm not), I decided to start up this little writing experiment, 31 Days, 30 Disorders. Everyday for the next month I'll write about different diagnoses, what day I was diagnosed on, and how it has affected my life. Some will be funny, some will not be funny at all, but they're just here because I really wanted to write about them.

I mean, that's what blogging is. There's no deeper meaning. I just wanted to write about this stuff.

I hope you enjoy!