Things That Make Me Anxious

My life at this very moment

2010-03-01T12:38:00.002-05:00

What is going on with my right now has produced a high level of anxiety.

Thing #1: My dad
In January my dad had shingles and was in the hospital for a few days. When they sent him home he seemed like he was better. Within two days my mom found him passed out in their apartment. He's been in the hospital since then. He had a blood infection, brain lesions, an abscess on his new heart valve, and a stroke. It turns out that dialysis patients are at high risk for infection, due to getting stuck with a needle 3 times a week. The infection spread and he was in prime condition to have a stroke, which happened while he was in the hospital. In late January he had a life saving operation to remove his bad heart valve and replace with a new one. The surgery went well, and although he is debilitated by the stroke, he is getting healthier.
The surgery had a 50-50 chance of clearing up the infection. My dad had a very good chance of dying in the hospital. Soon he will be transferred to a rehab in Manhattan. He can't walk without assistance, he has slurred speech and he doesn't really have a short term memory anymore.

It's been a crazy year and this is only thing one.

Anxious Item #2 e-mail

2009-12-07T23:00:00.000-05:00

I remember when I first got the Internet. I was 12 and I was so freaking excited to figure out all the wonders the computer held in store for me. After a week I figured out that it was mostly porn and Geocities (RIP) sites about TV shows.

My Internet plan came with an IRC application and I became addicted. Real time chat was where it was at, baby! I became an op in a room and I knew all the codes to be able to type in every color. It was all I really did. I came home from school, did my homework, logged on to IRC and chatted with strangers in Germany until it was bedtime.

I don't remember when my IRC usage dropped off, I think it may have been around the time I entered high school. I had a falling out with my biggest friend IRL and we used to IRC together. When we got into a huge fight she talked shit about me on the Internet. I know, 14 year old girls using the Internet as a social weapon, who would have thunk it?

Anyway, this brings me to the form of communication we were left with in those pre-social networking days, e-mail. To this day, a full 11 years after my love affair with IRC ended, I am a shitty e-mail correspondent. I would rather have a face to face conversation than try to think of what to type out that wouldn't sound stupid or contrived.

When I get a nice, thoughtful e-mail I am paralyzed for a response. I want to type something that would make the receiver laugh, cry, and wet their pants all at the same time. I want to move the heavens and earth with my casual yet meaningful prose style. I want to be able to convey my deepest feelings and heartfelt wonder of life.

But mostly my replies are "Ok, thanks. See you later."

I don't know what my problem is with writing e-mails. I have Gmail and they say it is supposed to be like having a conversation, but I just can't get think of it like that. I get a nice note from someone who cares and I just can't bring myself to write a nice note back.

As for calling them, that is a whole different anxiety post.

Anxious Item #1 Subway Vampires

2009-12-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

I would like to preface this with the fact that I am not afraid of the subway.

Living near Boston I use the subway, called the T, quite a bit. Red line, Orange line, Green line...all the colors of the filthy Boston rainbow are familiar to me. I even know the buskers, like that Sammy Davis Jr. impersonator who sings along to his CDs or scratchy throated bum who once sang the dog version of Jingle Bells. My ass has never been grabbed nor have I ever been robbed.

But I have small panic attacks on the subway sometimes. You know when you're on the train and you're zipping along in the black tunnels under the city and all of a sudden the train stops? You're stuck in an inky tunnel and you can't even see the walls from the smudged windows. Immediately when this happens my brain goes straight to a vampire attack.

It's not logical, but there it is. My brain seems to think that subway tunnels are the perfect place for vampires to chill out and wait for a subway car to come along so they can rip it open like a Twinkie wrapper and get the gooey filling inside.

Whenever the train slows down without a station in sight my heart starts pounding a bit harder and it becomes difficult to take a breath. Again, I know that there being a vampire attack on the subway is illogical and kind of dumb, but I just can't seem to help it.

2009-12-05T17:30:00.000-05:00

I have been in and out of therapy for a few years now. I have lots of things, some serious, some funny, which make me have anxiety attacks. I wanted to create this blog to develop my writing and share some of these things with the blog reading public.

Because you all know reading about other people's neuroses make you feel better about your own.