I Love to travel. I mean I love being in different places. The traveling part, the getting from point A to point B part, leaves much to be desired. My anxiety pops up, and the next thing I know I'm on a plane sweating my butt off from all the hot flashes. It's interesting. If there is any doubt that anxiety is something apart from what I am wanting to happen to me, I can assure you I don't always have control over it. For instance I just got back from visiting my family in NYC. While on the plane, there was turbulence. No-one likes turbulence. Not even my anxiety. I started getting hot flashes. But instead of recognizing this as part of my anxiety, I assumed that the plane was hot. Which incidentally, it was. Very stuffy. Eventually I did realize the anxiety was acting up and I took a Xanax to calm me down. But in the meantime I'm relatively calm! I'm breathing slowly and smoothly but I am still sweating and am very uncomfortable. And I must have been moving around a lot because the woman sitting to the right of me kept looking over at me. Which was making my anxiety even worse! Ha!
Needless to say, it was not a fun flight! Once I'm where I need to be though, I will level out. But I'm going to act like a kid here and figuratively roll around on the floor taking a temper tantrum and say "it's just not fair"!. I know I have a mental illness. But I just want to be able to pick and choose what type of suffering I'm going to have, and when. But I just can't. And that makes me angry. Don't I deserve the right to have a good time, or to be at peace? I think I do. But I also know that real life isn't getting what we want all the time.
So for those moments, there's my meds, there's my therapy, and in dire situations, there's my Xanax. Because once I get to where I need to be, I can be me again. But also with that experience try to prepare for going back.
Namaste'
