anxiety

Get Outside and Breathe

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Since Monocacy Park (Illick’s Mill) in Bethlehem is right on my way home from work, I’ve stopped there for a walk and to take some photos fairly often over the last few years. It’s important to make the time to get some fresh air and sunshine and just take a breath and clear your mind.

I’ve been undergoing relentless harassment over the last 7 or 8 years, called gangstalking, so it’s all the more important to decompress as much as possible. Does it totally work as much as I’d like? Unfortunately, no, but it’s a choice that I make to do my best to find something positive to focus on and put the bullshit out of my mind, at least for a moment. Even if I keep having to do that over and over in a short span, it’s worth the effort. Even when someone is deliberately trying to piss you off and steal your joy from everything you do, they can only succeed as much as you allow.

God is way more powerful than they are, and God dwells within us through the Holy Spirit. Some folks will just never understand that. Bullies are pathetic cowards. So, without further focus on the negatives I was dealing with, here’s some photos I took.

The Earth is burning. Are we really ok?

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Living in the northeast U. S., I’m seeing a lot of haze from Canadian wildfires this summer.  It’s not as bad as when it first occurred about two years ago, but today was pretty bad.  I am taking it in stride.  I don’t feel any adverse health effects.  I’m thankful that I have been able to keep up weight training at home since last October and I’m in the best shape I’ve been in years.

I also am not feeling anxiety about the smoke.  There’s nothing I can do about that, but the aforementioned exercise has enabled me to handle it better.  Of course, if it gets worse, it won’t matter what shape you’re in, we’ll all need breathing masks.  But I’ll still keep focused on things I can control. It’s all we can do.

The thing about these big problems beyond an individual’s control, though, is that there seems to always be something happening.  These fires are happening more frequently and intensely due to climate change, which brings many other problems as well.  Super storms, flooding, famine, species disappearing.  It can be very overwhelming.

Then you have your normal personal stuff that brings its challenges: relationships, family, work, finances, aging.  Survival.  And it seems like life just keeps getting busier for us all while we try to juggle all the responsibilities and obligations.

There’s no one coping strategy that works for everyone, but I’ve found it helpful to adopt a routine over the last year that includes making time for daily devotionals, working out on the designated days, taking care of the critters (my two cats, feeding the neighborhood strays, and the birds), texting with my mom while I make supper and she has her supper.  It helps her to have a visit by text for dinner since my dad died.  Then it’s time for writing and relaxing on the couch or on the deck depending on the time of year and the weather.  Unfortunately, the writing time is the one that keeps fizzling out, especially after I’ve eaten and the TV is on and I’m laying back on the couch.  That’s where working on the routines comes in. And trying to manage things you can control to the best of your ability. If you don’t beat yourself up and feel satisfied as long as you’re working on those things, then it can help alleviate anxiety and feeling overwhelmed by the chaotic world around you.

And of course, stay connected with others. We’re all in this together, so reach out to your friends and family, and always be ready for new friends.  Try to understand other people’s views so that we don’t feel so disconnected and separate. We can feel a sense of community and cooperation that will inspire us and keep us going.

Failing patience, fading empathy

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I find myself getting impatient with my elderly mother more quickly and more frequently than I used to. She has always been an extreme worrier, engaging in catastrophizing and panic, always assuming the worst, sometimes imagining well beyond the worst-case scenario fearing things that there’s basically no chance will be the outcome of the situation. It started getting considerably worse in the fall of 2022 and continues to be so. It may be a side effect of a medication or her age exacerbating things, but the increase of problems started about the time my dad’s fight with cancer started taking more of a toll. He was gone six months later.

My mom and dad were married 56 years and when you include dating and engagement, were together for just about 60 years. I understand that her anchor was gone and she felt more vulnerable. I did a lot of things to help her with everyday personal business like making calls with her to Social Security, insurance companies, then renewing said insurance, and transferring the van and getting a new handicapped plate, checking her math when balancing the checkbook. All things she knows how to do but hadn’t been doing them for a number of years.

I also made improvements to her physical environment. I had replaced a bookshelf a year or so earlier and still had the old one, so I took it to her and made room for it, put it in place and moved the books and other items to it. I also gave her a little corner shelf that I hadn’t been using for a while and helped get that in place and found a little side table that would work next to her couch better than what was there already. I didn’t even realize it, but the table had been my dad’s before they met, so she really appreciated having that.

It seemed like things were improving, and indeed I think she was coping well for a number of months of the first year without my dad, but then she started to say she felt “blue” more often when I asked how she was. It felt like my efforts were all in vain. Like no matter how much I did, it wasn’t enough and she just kept doing worse. She wasn’t oblivious to this decline in mood and in fact, talked to the nurse practitioner at her primary care and they tried her on an antidepressant for a while but that only seemed to make her worse and it was stopped.

After a while, it seemed like her mood leveled off to some degree, enough to cope and find enjoyment in things, but the worrying and panic got worse. It’s very draining to have several calls a week from your mother, who was so strong and wise when she was raising you, in a state of panic because she got some strange call or text on her phone. Like a scammer can somehow ruin your life even if you don’t respond to them.

I tell her to think about what would be the worst that could happen and it’s not going to be as bad as her initial fear-filled reaction has her thinking. And even if the worst happened, she’d get through it. I guess she doesn’t see it as a choice, how you react to something. It’s been an automatic response for so long that she must feel like she can’t control it and that it’s something that just happens, not of her own volition. Maybe that’s true to some degree because it’s hard to retrain your brain when you’re in your 80’s. But I think there’s always room for improvement if the effort is made.

What’s funny is that I used to be so patient that I’ve had people tell me that I have the patience of a saint. In fact, there was more than one occasion when I worked in retail that the next person in line would say so after I finished with a difficult customer. But in the last 6 or 7 years, the harassment that I’ve mentioned in other posts, has eaten up any patience, tolerance, or forgiveness, and even empathy that I had in me. I could easily do a whole post just on that point, but this one is about trying to be there for my mom.

I think the solution is to talk about things on a regular basis and specifically about managing fear and anxiety, to plan for the moments that spark intense worry and be ready for it; to have coping strategies and specific actions to take. Calming imagery or memories, music, inspiring quotes, and mindfulness. I don’t think that’s a concept that anyone ever taught her, but it’d be very helpful to stop and think, observe and then proceed with caution.

It’s always better to get out in front of an issue than to wait till something happens that’s harder to deal with. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But most things worth doing are. I know that my mom is a strong and intelligent person and that God has given me a good heart, patience and kindness. I’ll just have to keep any situational irritability out of the equation and be true to myself and see the strength and ability in her that has always been there. You’ve got to stick together with family and help one another in love. Same goes for friends.