Doctor of DOOM

My Personal Stressor for Today

Anxiety and Anticipation

So this post is going to be of a more personal nature but as always I feel my personal account could be helpful to others in some way or another: whether you relate, you are experiencing similar emotions currently, or it just helps to humanize me (this person, known or unknown, who's writing you are presumably reading be it regularly or sporadically or just by chance.) Today the biggest and pretty much only thing on my plate is a doctor's appointment that I have later this afternoon. I call her the doctor of doom but she's not really evil, now that I think of it that title sounds kind of like a comic book villain, it's really just the appointments, procedures, and unknown results that cause my stress and ultimate hatred for visiting the doctor. I used to see her biweekly and recently was switched to monthly so I haven't seen her in a month and my appointment today includes the works: weigh-in, EKG, vitals, blood work. Anticipating this appointment has left me anxious and confused for days now. I can address where the anxiety is coming from. I fear getting weighed and I have no idea what the number will be and I am concerned about the results of the other tests. I want everything to be ok and reveal that my physical health is stable but at this point it is unknown. The tests could show anything and of course I am assuming the worst. However the thing that gets me most is the weight and this aspect of the appointment is playing into my confusion as well. For all of my previous appointments I had water loaded (for those of you who do not know water loading is the act of drinking an immense amount of water in order manipulate your weight and make it appear higher than it actually is.) This is not a practice I had ever engaged in before but one of my medications is dependent upon my weight and I did not want to risk losing it so I performed this very eating disordered practice simply to get the prescription that I felt and still feel I benefit from. Now walking into this appointment I seem to be in quite a predicament. Because of the water loading no one has an accurate weight or weight history for me and I am starting to feel as if I am deteriorating physically. This physical weakness and my extreme lack of energy concerns me in regard to my health and I feel that I need to finally be honest and go in without having intentionally altered my weight. This issue is that doing so will result in discontinuation of my medication that seems to really help me. Furthermore I am terrified of seeing what my weight is without water loading because I feel as if I have naturally gained some weight and I am not prepared to deal with that. If you are confused by everything I have just thrown at you don't feel bad, I don't blame you, I am clearly just as confused as you are. 

I am going to post a few quotes to help me get through this time and figure out the best choice for me but if you have any feed back I'd really appreciate any responses on this post or you can ALWAYS email me at rbesvi@sas.upenn.edu. (Feel free to email me personally whenever you want even if it's not in response to this specific post- I'd love to hear from you and get any feedback or even requests for post topics.) Anyways the quotes follow and I hope that you have found something useful from my personal saga or at least the quotes I have chosen-

"This too shall pass."

-King Solomon

This quote is one I have heard repeatedly and is beyond simple. I like to use it as a mantra because it's length lends itself for such a usage. "This too shall pass" can be used in any situation and helps reaffirm the fact that all moments, good or bad, are just moments and they will come and go. 

“There are moments in life when it is all turned inside out--what is real becomes unreal, what is unreal becomes tangible, and all your levelheaded efforts to keep a tight ontological control are rendered silly and indulgent.” 

-Aleksandar Hemon

Thanks Hemon for making me feel normal in my confusion. I guess it natural for things to be imprecise and indirect. The idea presented in the quote seems to make sense and now I feel kind of silly for become so obsessed with my own confusion and uncertainty. We all get thrown sometimes, are left in disarray, and feel the need try and piece everything together. Maybe it's part of life for all of our norms to be scattered and thrown into the wind every now and again no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

“Anxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential ingredients in suffering from pain, as opposed to feeling pain pure and simple.”

-Lucy Grealy

This last quote speaks directly to what I am currently experiencing. Grealy explains that is the feeling of anxiety and anticipation that create the suffering. Indulging in these feelings prolong the painful experience I suppose. Instead of just a quick in and out at my doctor's appointment, probably about an hour total of feeling uncomfortable, I have extended the experience and permitted it to last days. Why would I torture myself this way? I wish I had found this quote earlier. Like any of our emotions we have the ability to control them and attempt to alter them. They come from within us and because they are a part of us we have the opportunity to turn them from negative to positive as long as we muster the strength to do so. I have less than 3 hours now until my appointment and for this period of time I am going to attempt to shift my feelings of anxiety and anticipation or at least distract myself from them. Everyone is presented with a new stressor everyday whether we expect it or not. Both the excepted and the unexpected have their challenges. While the expected can be prepared for they can also cause excess worry and stress leading up to the even. However the unexpected have the ability to totally catch us off guard, knock us on our butts, and force us to question the predictability of life. Either way these stressful events and experiences will come, they cannot be avoided, but we must remind ourselves that this too shall pass.

Keep it together inspite of your personal stressors,

xo

Keep it Together, Guster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj0wsNvpUyY