My anxiety was in turbo mode today, ramping up so much that it made even simple tasks feel overwhelming. It’s evident in my writing as I’m struggling to use the keyboard, each sentence coming out halting. I have the shakes really bad, my hands trembling so noticeably. Every word comes with a red line beneath it and I'm slowly typing letter by letter, fighting to keep coherence. It doesn’t help that my mouse died so I’m stuck using the bloody pad thingy on my laptop, which only adds to the frustration. At this rate I’ll be up all night, pacing and reworking lines, so some caffeine definitely needs to be consumed to steady me and push me through.
I needed a blood test and it has been a bit of a journey. I’ve had a heap of obstacles pop up that have frustrated me and left me mentally drained for the remainder of the night. I won’t go too much into detail here, that would put you to sleep - I have an appointment on Tuesday at Frankston Hospital to see whether my kidneys have responded positively to the month of alcohol abstinence I maintained while admitted as a patient in the psych ward. Plenty has been written about that episode on this site. So, I needed to get my bloods done. This is one of my favorite things. I made the trip to a collection site in Frankston only to find they closed at 11am, so I missed them and would have to go to a hospital closer to home. I’ve been to that hospital more than once but I loathe the parking. The place was like Christmas Eve at the shops. Stuff this, I thought — I’m going home; this can be done tomorrow. I just hope the results will be available by Tuesday. I hate waiting rooms, so I planned to get it done early. I was up at 6:15am as the centre opened at 7am. I got there early, the lights were out, and I was the only car in the parking lot. Strange. I waited for someone to turn up. It was 7:50am and still no show. Shit. I drove back to the closer hospital and finally found a park.
I am hopeless with directions, and this place felt like a rabbit warren. It took me a full 15 minutes to find the damn collection centre, wandering down corridors and backtracking more times than I care to admit. Of course, there was a dozen people ahead of me, each one adding to the slow crawl of progress. This is going to take a minute, I thought, feeling my patience fray. I was also suffering a lot of pain from sitting too long because I have a badly bruised coccyx from a recent fall, which made the seat a trial. I could feel the shakes coming on, a cold tremor that started in my fingers and worked its way up. Not good. By the time I finally got up and went in, lightheaded, trembling and sweating into the vampire room, I was a complete mess — my pulse racing and my thoughts scattered. I was desperately hoping there would be no paperwork for me to fill in, as my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold a pen. The phlebotomist only just managed to get the needle into my vibrating arm after a few worried looks and steadying breaths. Good… one job down. Then I got lost again trying to find the car park, weaving around unfamiliar signs and looping back the wrong way. That took even longer. By that stage I was overwhelmed with anxiety and on the verge of a panic attack, my chest tight and my mind racing with worst-case scenarios.
On the way home I had to pop into the tobacconist to pick up my monthly vapes. I had no cash, only my bank card, so I had to type in my PIN. I had two attempts and couldn’t do it — my hand was shaking so badly I could not use the keypad properly. For the first time in my life I had to tell the frustrated clerk my code. I felt humiliated, but I really needed my vapes. I can’t even manage the simplest tasks without embarrassing myself, I thought, sinking low with self-reproach.
I felt like an idiot. I came home, went straight for my medication, lay down on my bed and tried to meditate, focusing on slow breaths and counting to ten. I calmed down a little after a while, though the tension lingered under my skin. I have an appointment with one of my GP coming up where I will raise all of this — every awkward detail and every tremor. It’s ridiculous and something needs to be done. I’m hoping it’s just a side effect from my new meds, because this hasn’t happened in a very long time. When it did happened I was taking Paroxatine, which is one of the meds I have just started taking again. Coincidences? I could do without brain surgery, thank you very much.