Tag: anxiety

Calming Hobbies For Anxiety

Anxiety / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple
Knittting a blanket

I’m focusing on calmig hobbies after I wrote about anxiety last week and how I’ve really been struggling. It is really affecting me, along with depression mostly because I suffer from chronic pain.

Calming Hobbies For Anxiety

I asked readers for tips to help me feel less anxious constantly. One tip I recieved was to write down every thing I want to get off my chest at night and the other was to find a hobby to keep my mind focused.

I have managed to pick up the yarn I needed to finish my knitting project and half way through knitting a scarf too. I have been making an effort to knit a few rows every few hours.

CBD Oil

While not a hobby, per se, since we’re on the topic of anxiety, I felt like CBD was worth a mention as something that you could take alongside doing these hobbies to give you a little extra help, since CBD Oil can also be extremely helpful for anxiety, among other things. There are so many companies that sell a variety of products containing CBD oil including gummies, creams, and capsules, such as Blessed CBD. Having tried them myself I can safely say they do provide some health benefits, however dosage may need playing around with to find the perfect dose for you and your individual needs

Writing And Knitting

Every night on my notes I write down everything that has been frustrating me. Knitting, along with writing whats on my mind each night, does feel like its helping. As I write, it feels like a weight is being lifted. With knitting, I think about less and less with every stitch focusing only on the next stitch.

I noticed a lot of my writing each night is about how my pain has limited me throughout the day. It makes me feel useless as I tend to end up sat on the sofa, trying to focus on not moaning too much. However, over the last day or so, I’ve been focusing on my knitting whenever I’m on the sofa. Doing this, I at least feel like I am achieving something, watching my projects grow.

Coping Better

My pain levels have escalated throughout the day but im still feeling positive. I havent had an attack in a few days now and I feel a bit more positive in general so I’m going to keep up the writing and knitting and once Ive finished Izzy’s blanket and scarf I plan to attempt learning crochet!

calming hobbies
Almost complete!

Thank you for the tips and keep them coming in if anyone has any others 🙂

Do you craft? Feel free to link up your makes, I love seeing what other people have created!

Struggling with Anxiety

Rambles / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple
Anxiety

Struggling with Anxiety

Struggling with Anxiety is one of those things that come and go as they please making it very difficult to avoid an attack.

Recently due to the fact I suffer from chronic pain and have struggled for 5 years to get a referral for pain management, having had to swap to Esa because of this (which as a result left us with no money for almost a month!) amongst other things, anxiety has been getting the better of me.

I am quite an anxious person in general I worry about anything and everything and find it very hard to switch off but I’ve definately been struggling a lot more recently.

Its making it very difficult for me to go out and do things even when im having a fairly good day because I panic I wont make it there and back, I freak over the fact I look funny when I walk because of the pain, the more pain im in the more I visibly struggle to walk which makes me panic that people will stare at me.

Im trying to put together a video for the Samsung SmartThings campaign but Im struggling to do it, every time I attempt to record what I’m doing and talk about it as I go I begin to panic and hyperventilate, start shaking & sweating and feel extremely nauseous and like the walls are closing in on me. It’s seriously depressing me that such a simple task feels like climbing the worlds tallest mountain to me right now.

Making calls is a huge issue for me again, anyone other than the Mr on the other end of the phone and I struggle to answer or make the call. Having thought I’d got over making and recieving calls it feels like I’ve taken a huge leap backwards again.

I really need to find a way around this but I haven’t a clue what to do.. So Im asking you, My readers if any of you suffer or know someone that suffers anxiety that may have some tips on how to get around it?

I’ve tried breathing exercises but these just seem to make things worse.. what else can I try?

All comments are welcome, if you’d like to contact me privately please visit my Get in touch page to find a suitable way to contact me. All help is very much appreciated!

Chronic pain at 25

Physical and Mental Health / 8 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Part of the reason I decided to begin blogging again is also part of the reason I stopped blogging before. I am a Chronic pain sufferer and have been for over 5 years now. I struggled to get the help I needed when it first began which caused me to become extremely depressed and anxious.

Shutting Down

I shut off from a lot of my friends and closed my blog and deleted all trace of it as I was fed up of ‘moaning’ about the pain constantly. I’ve recently realised that sometimes to cope with chronic pain you need an outlet where you can vent and moan so you can clear your mind and take control again.

Keeping Track

As I’ve come to realise this I’ve decided I’m going to document what goes on with my various appointments, to help me keep track, vent & moan on bad days and make others aware of how chronic pain affects lives, and hopefully find other’s who have learnt coping techniques and to hear their story too. If you’ve got this far then here is my story.

Lower Back Pain

Since my pregnancy with my eldest daughter in 2010 I have had excruciating lower back pain. It all began with struggling to climb the stairs in our first flat whilst pregnant, I’d struggle so much I’d be in tears. I thought at the time it was just typical pregnancy pains until it continued about 6months after my eldest was born.

X-Ray Results

I eventually got to a point where everyone was telling me I had to go to the DR’s and find out what was going on. Eventually, I did and an x-ray showed I had scoliosis of the lumbar spine and low disc space in L4-L5. My GP referred me to physiotherapy which wasn’t helping and due to unfortunate circumstances at the time I became unable to afford the fare to get to my physiotherapy sessions and gave up trying to seek help.

Chronic Pain

After a few years of struggling with the pain and trying to manage it with over the counter medicines, I got much worse especially a few months after the birth of my youngest daughter. Over time it got to the point where I could barely pick her up, so I went to my local GP to try and get some help.

Physiotherapy, Again

Again I was referred to physiotherapy which didn’t go well at all. After the first session, I hurt for almost 2 weeks! By the third session, I was barely able to walk for the next 3 weeks. I went back to my GP and explained the pain was worse and explained how it travels down my leg and at times I can’t walk or move my legs, attempting to lift my youngest up gives me extremely painful spasms, all of it combined is exhausting and depressing and on top of it all on really bad days I’m extremely nauseous too.

Medication

I was prescribed Amitriptyline, Duloxetine, Naproxen and Co-dydramol to try and help manage the pain & the depression. I was surprised to find out that some anti-depressants are also used for nerve related pain but after doing a bit of research discovered they are quite regularly prescribed for this reason. Unfortunately, the medication does very little but I am at least able to sleep a bit better on the Amitriptyline which is some relief.

Another X-Ray

I was sent for more x-rays which showed lordosis of the thoracic spine which shows signs of muscle spasms. This indicates its likely to be a nerve problem which it seems my GP must have worked out as she prescribed the amitriptyline from the start. When I attended my last physiotherapy session the physio decided it was best to release me and refer me to pain management as he said it was clear the exercises had aggravated the situation and he didn’t want to hurt me more and he made me a referral marked as ‘urgent’.

Pain Clinic

I now have to wait until the 14th December for my pain clinic appointment, which after seeing the waiting times at some hospitals I’m quite lucky I got an appointment this year. I’m hopeful I can find ways to manage the pain and remain as active as possible with their help as being stuck indoors most of the time and unable to enjoy simple things without suffering for it has had a major impact on my mental health and my family.

Reaching Out

I’m hoping to connect to other Chronic pain sufferers by sharing my story here and keeping track of my progress. If you read all of this post then, Thank you for taking the time to do so and please feel free to contact me in any way if you want to share your story or just a chat.