wound a little tight

No surprise to anyone really, but I'm naturally just wound kind of tight. I've had trouble with anxiety for a long, long time, and for years now I've been taking medication for it. For the last couple of weeks though I've been having lots of trouble, despite the meds. I'm not having full-blown panic attacks, but hours-long episodes of a nearly constant tightness in my chest and this feeling of my heart jumping into my throat, my stomach flipping, and what feels like a racing heart rate occasionally skipping a beat. It's like being terrified every few minutes, if not more. I was thinking I was a little more stressed out than usual, and it would pass. But it just got worse.

Since that started happening, I've become hyper-aware of my heartbeat, which just makes things worse. It began to worry me so much on Monday that I got an appointment to get checked out the next morning. Despite everything I was feeling, my heart rate was healthy, my blood pressure is great, and my heart isn't skipping beats. They ran a blood test, and there's nothing wrong with my thyroid either. So I'm just having super long anxiety attacks.

I say "just," but in reality, it's hard to concentrate, it's scary, and it's been making it very hard to focus on work, which causes me even more anxiety. So my doc is trying out a higher dose of my anti-anxiety meds to see if that will get it under control. I really hope it works, because it's been hard to work, eat, sleep, focus. I'm physically exhausted from scrunching up my whole body from the tension. I went to bed at 10 last night, woke up at 1:44, and haven't been able to get back to sleep. :(

I'm trying to relax at work, but it's taking a conscious effort to walk more slowly, breathe deeply, relax my neck and shoulders. It's like I've become hard-wired to rush, every second. I actually suck at breathing! Who knew?

So... any tips on relaxing and slowing down? Good music to calm me down, meditation exercises, anything??? I really need some help with this.

what's up with me?

I just completely blew off the last two days of work. And I'm not really sure why. I'm not pulling my hair out at how much I hate the job, and it's not like I'm bored to tears either. I just... didn't go in. And I didn't call in. I "hid" in the real world. I didn't get on the corporate network, so no one could IM me. I checked my email a few times on my iPhone, but nothing urgent came up. And I didn't fill the time with all the other important stuff I could be doing either. I napped a lot. But I worked out too. I watched some TV, but not a lot. I read. I bought household supplies, with coupons! I also bought some sewing necessities, since I'm learning to sew. I did laundry, and got the mail. I picked up prescriptions. I didn't even spend a lot of time on facebook. I *did* spend a lot of time finding great new people to follow on twitter, though.

I guess I just needed some space. Time to not rush. I walked at a normal pace. I enjoyed what a nice day it was. I'm recovered from this bought of illness, but I guess I still wasn't at 100%. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be 100%...

Anyways, I enjoyed the time, and actually got a decent amount of stuff done. Nothing work-related, but stuff that needed to get done. Now I have a weekend to myself. JR is off on a ski-trip to Tahoe, so it's just me and my shadow. And Winston & Mercury. We'll be cooking at home, and sewing, and reading, and watching movies, maybe drinking a bit of wine.

I'm seeing unexpected possibilities open up around me, and I'm just trying to be open to those opportunities. I have interests that aren't confined to experience design, and I'm trying to give them room to grow. Maybe that's what's up with me.