The Rage Factor – Part Two – PMS

One of the most difficult times to control GAD symptoms is when your hormones are surging during PMS week. PMS is hard enough as it is, with all the physical symptoms that can make women uncomfortable – PMS is notorious for causing bad mood swings and crankiness. This combined with the symptoms of anxiety can create a terrible cauldron of pain for myself and others during PMS week.

On the one hand, there are tonnes of ways to prevent these symptoms from getting the best of you. Recognizing an anxiety attack, taking Vitamins to account for any deficiencies aggravating symptoms, eating healthy and exercising all work to help regulate GAD symptoms and build up a stronger defense against attacks. These work for PMS too!

On the other, there are times that I am susceptible to attacks and symptoms big time and it is harder to control. Examples of these are if I am tired, have too much caffeine and especially if it is PMS week. ESPECIALLY PMS WEEK.

My anxiety symptoms were very aggressive during PMS week and a lot more difficult to control. My worst attacks had begun to happen during this time of the month. My counsellor said to stay positive when I first noticed the problem. She placed the emphasis on not expecting it to be a bad week – that this month could be different – that I was learning to handle it. She was right, it definitely came down from the level it was and started to calm down.

A few days ago a simple argument about a change jar spiraled out of control. A few days later my period started and I figured out why this fight had escalated on my part.  But I also realized a few other things:

When I’m happy - super happy – I can let my guard down. If it is a time when GAD is more aggressive a fight can come on in a snap. I went from joking around and being very excited to starting an argument – it took a second for the change to happen. I was in full on argument mode and it took the other person saying something for me to realize how nasty I was being. This is a new development – I didn’t realize how QUICKLY an attack or mood change can happen. NO time to check for symptoms, no time to stop it.

This was my first slip up in a few weeks and it hit me hard, but I remembered what I told myself – I will make mistakes and mess up once in a while. The remedy is to take the steps to own it, apologize then move forward. I am trying to break the habit of guilting myself because there is no point of beating myself up every time there is an argument that is happening for the wrong reasons.

As fast as this mood change/GAD Freakout came on, I was able to calm down pretty quickly. The aftermath is happening at a much quicker pace. I rehashed what happened in my head and asked myself – DID I overreact? I tell myself it’s okay if I did because I’ll make mistakes. If I feel confused or any upsetness is still lingering I check for GAD symptoms, if they are there I know what happened and I try to free myself from feeling bad about it.

There is improvement. The more I am reading and observing, the more I can tell that there is a HUGE change from how I dealt with these same negative emotions this time last year. I can recognize anxiety when it happens and I am also learning about the nature of it. It can happen very quickly and aggressively. Sometimes the attacks catch me off guard.  This, however, is a big difference from before. The majority of the GAD symptoms that slip through and affect how I interact with others are the ones that come on out of nowhere. Only the really quick ones are slipping through the cracks, as long as I keep working on this I will be able to seal those cracks up.

Taking ownership is a big part of it, but not punishing myself for it is just as important. The more gently I treat myself the better I can do damage control after an attack and the better I can allow myself to feel for the improvements that are happening.

Sometimes after an attack there is some lingering weirdness. When this happens, I realize I need to write it out.

My old way of dealing with lingering weirdness was to talk to someone. Not a professional, but a friend or family member or boyfriend. Usually it would be with the person I had the conflict with in the first place. Something I’ve realized is that this doesn’t do anything. It only brings up the argument again, the other person can’t reassure me because they aren’t feeling the GAD symptoms – they can’t fix the feeling for me no matter how sweet they are. On top of this, it can easily spiral out of control a second time because the way I am portraying myself is as if I am still upset. When I take ownership of my over reaction it has to be on two levels to work - taking ownership by apologizing for my treatment of the other person involved – and taking ownership of making myself feel better. I have found it does not work to rely on others for this reassurance, I have to be strong enough to make myself feel better.

Writing is the therapy that best helps me. The nature of writing is also good because it’s a solo activity, it’s a time out from what happened, and it gives you the time to decompress the situation. In this case, I grabbed my book and wrote what happened, wrote the ugly thoughts I was having – I’ll never get better/I’ll always be this way/Why can’t I assert more self control? These are the thoughts that happen automatically – these ones are the thoughts that surface because I have conditioned my brain to think this way over a lifetime of having GAD.

To balance this scale –  I write an equal amount of improvement I am making to counter the bad thoughts. This is the new process. I am going to have ugly/negative thoughts because that’s the habit that has formed - the point is to purge them and reset that bad thinking process. I am truly trying to emphasize to myself that I am getting better/I am gaining more control/I am feeling better. I try to tell myself – look at how this has changed – look at how that has changed. It is a hard and long process. Each time I tell myself these things they become easier to accept.

It has just been a constant process of countering bad stuff with good stuff and dealing with the symptoms on my own. It feels like an ordeal now, and when I read this post I see that it really is a long and exasperating process. I am trying to stay strong - mainly because I don’t like the alternative. I don’t want to ruin relationships and I don’t want to be a shitty person to be with. I’ve had a taste of how amazing things can be if I work on my problem – I’ve been to the point where I feel no GAD symptoms without actively trying to prevent them and it is pure bliss. If I can get to that point with my efforts now – I know it will only get better if I continue them.

-tigerslut

Day 4 of 21

Internet Boyfriends

Now look at this, me being a very bad girl and breaking my habit the third day in!

Bad tigerslut!

To make up for this, I will write about INTERNET BOYFRIENDS.

Really? Internet Boyfriends? YES INTERNET BOYFRIENDS

During the beginning of University I led a somewhat lonely existence. I would commute to school – which would take hours – go to my classes – more hours – sleep in the library on my three hour class breaks – take another class –  then come home.

Time with my friends was usually Friday or Saturday night. It would be difficult to meet any other day during the week. I spent majority of my evening – hours again – working on assignments for the next day. Any other spare time during the week was spent at work.

Somewhere during this time the movie “The 40 Year Old Virgin” came out. It was a man who had made it to 40 without having sex. Once it gets out at work, his co workers – who become his friends – help him find the one. 

Why the big delay? It just didn’t happen. Due to awkwardness and mishaps – circumstances prevented the main character from swiping his Vcard. I loved the movie.

The movie was an entertaining comedy but it hit a little too close to home. Everyone I knew had already had sex. I was 20, (which I didn’t think was that old!) but it surprised anyone that found out that I hadn’t. The response usually was, “Really?!!? Oh My God!!” I did not think that it was THAT strange. I wasn’t scouring the streets, looking for a warm body to play toesies with and continuously striking out. I just hadn’t clicked with anyone yet. Nobody made me feel the overwhelming urge to HAVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEE SEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. And I am certain a little bit of anxiety played a part as well.  

There wasn’t a lot of time to date. If I did meet someone, it would end rather quickly. It was a repeating cycle of loneliness. I would be with someone - we would start to become close – a feeling of unpreparedness would set in and I would delay having sex. I would believe I was ready then want to stop and feel like I wasn’t. The word tease was thrown around like a frisbee on a hot summer day. I didn’t understand what was happening and soon became fed up and frustrated. I decided to forget trying to date and focused on school.

This meant A LOT of isolation. I was hanging out at home, exploring the internet. I had enough time to write and research an animal book, as well as get a better understanding of all the musical talent that was out there in the world. Most people discover music as they grow up, I had a small interest in it that EXPLODED during the first couple years of University. The main thing I did was listen to as many different artists as possible and type type type on my computer.

In momentum with this, time was a wasting. I wasn’t gathering any kind of understanding of relationships by hanging out at home. I was not meeting new people. I was fueling my naivety when it came to creating a relationship. I didn’t realize any of this because I was only doing what felt safer.

Luckily, I made a friend on the internet. Let’s call him Dan.

Dan was the same age as myself and lived in a small town that was about four hours away. He spent his time working at Home Hardware and drinking. Those were the only two things he did. Dan was going through a rough patch. He had been in school and then dropped out. As a result, he also spent a lot of time hanging out at home on his computer type type typing away.

As I listened to music/did homework/looked at animal pictures, Dan would make snacks/probably play video games/drink and we would converse through typing to each other on MSN. It began with short conversations everyday, that soon turned into 3 hour chats late into the night. We would make fun of the fact we spent so much time typing to each other when we hadn’t met.

The internet has a different set of rules. You can ask someone you meet online whatever you want with little to no risk. It began slowly, but I started to talk to Dan about some issues I was having. I discussed the shortness of relationships and Dan was brutally honest but considerate is his explanation of why the people I would date would react the way they did. He told me:  

“You tell them you’re a virgin and they get that - But they’re also into it because they see it as a challenge - They’ll start dating you -hoping you will want to/they can seduce you into having sex -Because you’re older, odds are they have had sex before – they expect it sooner than you do and it becomes more difficult for them to wait - Because they are frustrated they are calling you a tease - Because you don’t eventually fuck them - you have to dump them when they start behaving in a way you can’t handle. It’s nobodys fault. Even if you tell them your situation from the get go, it won’t mean they don’t want it.”

This saved me a lot of grief. It seems like a fairly straight forward explanation but when you have ZERO understanding of how the other people will feel, sometimes you need someone to tell you in the plainest way possible. Dan became my guide. He helped explain why people behaved the way they did. He honestly answered a tonne of sex questions, which I could ask him without shame or scaredy cat ness because I hadn’t met him. I started to trust him. Conversations would never enter the creepy zone, he would never say anything inappropriate that would make me uncomfortable. He was a good friend, who was a guy, who I had never met. He could ask me anything, I could ask him anything, it was an excellent relationship. I had the Boy-relationship-understanding-friend without the Boy-wanting-to-engage-in-penis-jabbingness-friend. 

Dan was the ‘safety net’ I needed at the time. We were able to honestly talk about a lot of things – especially sex – and I was able to ask a lot of questions I did not want to ask my girlfriends or my MaMa. This helped prepare me for a lifetime of difficult situations. Many of my friends had to learn the same things different ways and sometimes it was a lot more difficult for them.

This was a fairly well working set up until the one year mark. At this point, we were scheduling our conversations. We would set time aside specifically to talk/we knew each others schedules. Topics like people we were dating/seeing became off limits. We would flirt. We would not so jokinglyjoke about meeting.

A few months later, we were planning to meet. We both wanted to do it safely in case one of us was not who we thought. I would bring a friend, we would meet in the closest city and we would pick a public place. We would see what would happen and we were both very excited.

When I finally did tell one friend about this, she teased me that I had an “Internet Boyfriend.” Then she grew very very concerned when I said I wanted to meet him. She kept pushing the fact that I did not know for sure that Dan was actually Dan.

A couple months before Dan and I were planning to meet I met my first long term partner. I told Dan, he was upset, and it felt like breaking up with someone. Which was double strange because it was someone I had never met in person. We did not end up meeting and stopped out internet talkfests shortly after.

So – is an internet relationship legit?

 

I have no idea. I don’t think  it’s as valuable as the real thing. A lot of people meet via something on the net and end up being an awesome match when they take it to the next level and meet in person. On the other hand, a lot of people meet on the net and it turns in to a very dangerous situation.

 

I wouldn’t recommend meeting someone from online in person unless you do it safely and I definitely would not suggest a young person EVER take this chance. I think a part of me felt I would never go through with actually meeting Dan because of all the horror stories I had heard. I still don’t know what would have happened, would he have been who he said or some creeper? I don’t know! But I always like to believe he would have been exactly the same Dan the brat I imagined he was.

 

-tigerslut

 

Day 3 of 21

Figuring It Out

What was it like before I knew I had a disorder?

For majority of my life I did not know I had GAD. I went about my life, made my decisions, and lived day to day believing everything I felt was how the average person felt/feels.

After a major life change, I had moved back to Toronto. For the first while things were fine, I was having lots of fun. I had a new look – I was losing a lot of weight I had gained – I was going out with my friends a lot more than I used to and spending time revisiting my favorite things – listening to music, writing, drawing. I was also very – VERY – excited to start dating. I felt like a bratty girl who had been locked up for a long time that was finally unleashed on the world. Look out everybody – run for cover – she’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

All the excitement was new and wonderful, but there was something underlying it. I was having really REALLY bizarre thoughts about my past life. For some reason, I had it in my head that I was pregnant.

S0 let me explain. Logically there was no way I was pregnant. I had a yearly exam shortly before the last relationship ending. A few months had gone by and I had regular periods. I hadn’t had sex for a long time, it just was not possible. But no matter what I told myself I had this all gripping fear that I was pregnant.

I was coming up with solutions to this problem I believed I had. I was terrified of any connection to the past, I was terrified of any change to the new life I was currently enjoying, I was terrified that I couldn’t stop obsessing and was wondering if I was actually just losing it, if I hadn’t recovered from my last relationship ending. I did not know what was happening and I was absolutely scared.

I had bought home pregnancy tests, all were negative. I had a test done at the local Clinic, negative. With every test I thought this feeling of dread would lift but nothing worked. Nothing was reassuring me, I still felt like something was happening that I had no control over.

I called the clinic again, and explained that I was just not able to let it go. I needed a blood test to confirm I was not pregnant. I explained the past relationship ending. I was very lucky that the nurse I spoke to was compassionate and told me yes, they would make an exception and give me a blood test if it meant I was reassured. I came in, had the test done, and waited for the results to show up. I was CERTAIN it would come back positive. I was CERTAIN I would have to make a very difficult and horrible decision. Even if it came back negative I was CERTAIN the lab had mixed up my sample with someone elses.

All of these thoughts were actual thoughts that were constantly cycling through my head. It went something like this

You’re pregnant – NO I’m not, I can’t be I had my period – It doesn’t matter your pregnant Everything is going to change, you will have to call him and talk to him and explain to him because there’s nobody else you would be pregnant from – I’m not pregnant it’s been months there’s no chance I can be, I’ve had all the tests done – what if the tests were wrong? You’re pregnant, what are you going to do? you have to deal with it don’t tell anyone they wont believe you you’re pregnant

I was arguing with myself. My logical side was saying, it just can’t be and here are the reasons why – but something was fighting this reasoning and scaring me big time. This was happening all day, from the moment I woke up until I tried to go back to sleep at night. This is how scared I was all the time. I would function, I had a job and I would go to work, I would have regular conversations with people – I would laugh make jokes – and the entire time I believed that I was pregnant and I was completely fucked and would have to make some really difficult decisions very soon – I was struggling with this and I just did not talk about it.

I called the clinic again and they told me that my blood test was negative. I felt slightly relived and I tried to ignore the what if thoughts that were now bubbling up – what if they mixed up the tests – what if they are lying and did not process the test – what if they are just humoring me – this was cut off when I realized the nurse was still talking on the phone. She said

“I understand you are dealing with something difficult, maybe you can use one of our other resources here. We offer counseling and I think it could benefit you.”

I was polite and said thank you but dismissed the idea right away. I had been to counseling before, it had not helped at all. I didn’t see the point in trying to see a counselor now that I knew for the most part that the crisis had been averted.

It took two more obsessive attacks like this happening over the next couple of months for me to realize that I needed help. I had anxiety my entire life, but for whatever reason now – at this new stage and new beginning – it was not going to go ignored. I made my first counseling appointment because I was willing to try anything at this point.

It was grueling. I cried in almost every appointment. I talked about parts of my life I never wanted to, and usually needed the rest of the day to recover from the emotional exhaustion of an appointment. The counselor I started with was amazing and saw me through much of the process. She saw something was up and called in a psychiatrist who diagnosed me based on two months of meetings. I started researching GAD and found that my symptoms matched up EXACTLY with what was described. I was, in a way, relieved, because at least this meant I could do something about it, I knew what to look for and I knew what I was dealing with. I wasn’t actually losing my mind, I was suffering from a disorder that had become very severe in the face of all these changes in my life.

A major change I made, and I think this is because of the counselor that was helping me worked so well, was that I was completely open. I discussed the extent to which I worried about things, I exposed the way I was thinking about things and my thought process, I laid it all out on the table. This was scary because I was fully exposing my inner most ideas/perceptions/thoughts – it made me VERY VULNERABLE. It also made the result I needed, I received a proper diagnosis because I was honest. It was very difficult and it only worked because I was in trustworthy hands.

The best part was realizing I DID NOT have to feel this way. It has taken/is taking a lot of reconstruction on a daily basis to let this idea sink in, but I am working on it.

When I reflect back on how things were before I was diagnosed and started reading about my disorder, I remember how purely panicked I would become. I remember how scared I was. I remember how embarrassed I was that I was so emotional on an ongoing basis and seemed to have no control over it. One comfort that exists now is that I know what is happening. I can take ownership of it and I have some power over it.

I was very lucky in my situation that I could find someone who helped me right off the bat. If you are also looking, One clinic I recommend if you are living in Toronto in the Yonge and Eglinton Area is the Anne Johnston Health Station. My experience has only been with sex positive counselors who are there to really help from an unbiased place. If that’s not where you live, they can probably recommend someone if you give them a call. They can also provide you with other forms of therapy – group therapy is an example – if you don’t want a one on one.

-tigerslut

Day 3 of 21

Doing some Defeating

Posting to this blog is helping. A LOT.

Yesterday throughout the day I was having a BAD anxiety attack. It was building up all day and I was holding it at bay by writing, focusing on my work, and reassuring myself it would be over soon. By about hour 6, I realized my anxiety was just acting up this particular day.

One of the ways I try to explain how anxiety feels to people is by comparing how a ‘normal’ person would feel doing an activity and how I may feel doing the same one. For example, let’s say you go home and take a sweet bubble bath. You have warm water filling up the tub and bubbles are popping up all over the place to hang out with you. Many people would find a bubble bath to be very relaxing. I will feel better, but never completely relaxed. The nature of my anxiety is that it is always always there/always present/always lurking.

It helps me to keep a picture of a thermometer in my head of where my anxiety level is at any given time. During a bubble bath it is probably at its lowest BUT IT IS STILL THERE. I can still kind of feel it. There are specific times I never have anxiety – but those times are rare. Even a bubble bath is not one of them. However, I have grown accustomed to feeling anxiety at some level - whether it be low or super intense –  that the level I feel during a bubble bath ain’t no thang.

Yesterday was a challenging day. My anxiety thermometer was bobbing up and down up and down up and down then finally way way up. 

How Do I know it’s Anxiety?

This is one of the most difficult things to learn. I realized that the intense ‘afraidness’ I was feeling majority of the time was not normal. This fear was guiding my thought process and in turn fueling negative emotions and taking them to a hyper level of feeling. I was a scatterball mess. I would overreact to situations and not realize I was blowing things out of proportion. My brain was always at odds with how I felt, constantly questioning: IF nothing is wrong then WHY do I feel this way?

My counsellor taught me something that has been an immense help. She explained that I can PHYSICALLY feel my anxiety. My body will do certain things and they will be the same things each time if there is an anxiety act up.

What are they?

1 – My heart speeds up. It beats really fast. If I am lying down and doing nothing my heart can still be thumping away like crazy. My favourite thing to do is run because it takes that fast heartbeat and really uses it. I always feel better after a run because I can really tell the difference as my heart slows down.

2 – A feeling of dread  or of sinking in my chest. This feeling has got to be the scariest part. It’s the DANGER DANGER signal that my body is shooting out to every part of me. My body is physically reacting to the anxiety by making me feel like SOMETHING IS WRONG right in my chest. This one is the hardest to shake. When it’s gone I always feel relieved because I know that whatever intense anxiety was occurring has fully stopped.

3 – Breathing – I did not realize this one was happening until I really started to pay attention. I have to take deeper and faster breaths because I feel I’m not getting enough oxygen in my body. I feel light headed, I feel like the air isn’t absorbing. I am currently trying to mediate this with yoga, but it is a slow slow process. A tip I was given by my counsellor was to just suck in a deep breath, count to two then slowly release that breath. Repeating this tends to help. And it’s something you can do without having to remove yourself from any given situation.

The thing that takes a lot – and I mean the most effort – is reprogramming myself to realize that the anxiety I am feeling is baseless. It is not caused by anything. It is just happening. As people we constantly look for meaning, it is in our nature. The hardest thing to tell myself - to really believe and put faith in – is that the anxiety that feels so strongly in my chest – that remains so insistently throughout my life – is just a process my body is more vulnerable to. It is just something that is happening, that I am feeling, that has no cause.

This means that I cannot trust my body OR my mind when it is having an anxiety attack. I have learned/am learning to dismiss whatever I feel or think or expect during an anxiety attack. I always do a mental check if I feel something wrong – Am I having any of the physical anxiety symptoms? If I am then whatever is happening at the time, whatever the anxiety is making me focus on – gets dismissed as nothing. It’s nothing because I am imagining it to be more than it is because my body is fueling that reaction in my head.

Pretty weird right? Imagine not being able to trust how you feel OR how you think. It is/was one of the most difficult things to learn when you have this disorder. And I think over time I will learn how to sort what I am actually feeling and what anxiety is making me feel. I’m not there yet, so I have to make it very cut and dry as I learn more about how this disorder works in me.

What do you do when you have an anxiety attack?

There are a bunch of coping mechanisms that we create to use when we do not feel good. I took this idea and learned to apply it to my Anxiety. If I wanted to function as a fairly normal person throughout my day and I wanted to enjoy the good things in my life, I had to take treating this disorder into my own hands. There were a few different tools I have learned about and picked up on to help me deal with the disorder on a daily basis.

Yesterdays anxiety attack had built up for most of the day. I was focusing on something and obsessing about it. I knew I would do this and had written an email to myself in an effort to ward it off. I wrote that the anxiety could be there and could be really bad and I would deal with it if it did become too intense.

It reached a point where I could no longer distract myself or use the coping mechanisms I usually do – refocusing on what I am doing, breathing, drinking a glass of water. None of my usual ways to break out were working and the anxiety was getting worse. I had been researching a little bit about it during the day and realized that I was still fighting the attack. I wasn’t letting myself just feel it so I could get past it. I decided to just let go and see what would happen.

I ended up doing something a little bit stupid, I just started crying. For about 2 minutes. I just sat there and cried, told myself I wasn’t upset about anything in particular, I just didn’t feel good and reassured myself it would pass.

I came down from the crying and the attack started to calm down to the point where I could at least think. I felt myself starting to become angry about the situation I was obsessing about and wanting to place blame. I did a mental check for anxiety symptoms and sure enough they were all present and roaring at full velocity. Fast heart beat, breathing didn’t feel right, and overwhelming sinking feeling of dread. I told my self to “stop right now. You are not going to let your mind run away with you. You are having an anxiety attack. Let it ride out. Nothing is wrong.”

After another 5 minutes I was actually okay.I felt relieved. The sense of dread was gone and best of all - I had handled it myself. I hadn’t called anyone, I hadn’t told anyone it was happening, I just let. it. happen.

I think because I have been writing here and researching the condition and understanding how it manifests, I am able to realize how to handle it better when an intense anxiety level does happen. I think that my counsellors have helped tremendously by providing me with the tools and mechanisms I needed to fight this disorder.

But up until yesterday, I did not know if these tools were even working. Yesterday I had my first anxiety attack that I handled by myself. This is after about 6 months of learning to recognize and then stamp out an attack. When I first was figuring this whole thing out, I felt angry and frustrated. I knew, on a personal level, that I would not go on medication. I knew that if I was going to handle these attacks myself without the aid of medication it would be more difficult than it needed to be. I have it firmly in my mind that I cannot take medicine, that I do not want to be medicated for the rest of my life. This is a fear I have. But in order to reassure myself and account for another course of treatment if I need it,  I gave myself a time limit. One year. One year of really working on the anxiety, learning everything I can about it. One year on my own to see if I could handle this disorder myself. Yesterday was the first day that I took a step in the right direction that makes me believe I made the right decision for myself. Yesterday I actually realized I have some hope that I can do this by myself. I am really happy about this, and I think I will be better prepared for next time, knowing that I could handle this time.

-tiger slut

Day 2 of 21.

Form A Habit

I read or heard somewhere that it takes 21 days to form a habit.

Here is the habit I want to form:

21 Days of Blog writing.

21 Days as this being my outlet.

21 days of Tigersluttiness.

Even if it is a short entry – whatever – 21 Days of typey typey.

Let’s see if I can do it!

 

The Rage Factor

The Rage Factor

One of the most difficult things to do is controlling what I like to call my Rage Factor.

GAD sprouts up in different ways during different situations. For me, GAD makes it so that it is a lot easier for me to give into the flux of emotions that is whirring around inside me. If something sets off that makes me feel sad, I will become really sad – like Eeyore of Winnie The Pooh. On the other end of the scale, if my anxiety connects with something to make me angry – I will rage out The Hulk Style in a matter of minutes.

How does it work?

Imagine that everyone in the world was a gasoline tank.

Imagine someone you know that has it together really really well. They remain composed most of the time, and seem very ‘business.’ They are probably a really good poker player. Their gasoline tank had no cracks, no leaks, no weaknesses. This person would be a pretty solid Gasoline tank.

Now, take someone you know that has problems – they have to work a bit harder to make it through the day. They can lose their temper sometimes, they have to be treated more carefully, people tend to walk on eggshells around them if they are having a ‘mood’. This person would be the Gasoline tank that is leaking, it has vulnerabilities, it is not solid.

If these two Gasoline tanks were hanging around a Bonfire – which one would be the most likeliest to explode? 

The way I imagine myself everyday is as the second gasoline tank. There is a chance either of the tanks could blow up depending on the way the wind blows that day. But there is a much greater chance for that last Gasoline tank to shoot into the heavens because it has the cards stacked against it from the get go.

Whatever emotion I am feeling, if my anxiety scale tips a bit – I really really give in to that negative emotion. It is very difficult for me to hold back and not lose it. The dam is always strained, and it’s my all day, every minute, every second job to make sure it doesn’t break and cause a flood.

Suffice it to say, this can be exhausting/frustrating/terrifying and draining.

If you had met me maybe a year ago, my Gasoline Tank wasn’t doing too well. It was overflowing with fuel, next to a Bonfire, with a Flame thrower pointed at it and a pyromaniac with a pocket full of matches dancing around it. I was ready to explode all the time. It has taken a lot to realize and admit there was a reason this was happening.

One of the biggest kicks to the faces was understanding how horrible I have treated people in my life. I let it get very bad and almost lost some very important relationships because I was not understanding that I was the common denominator. It was me causing conflict, pushing people away, constantly testing the strength of the relationships for no reason.

Yes, I have GAD. But it’s not an excuse. Yes, it makes my life harder on a daily basis, but it doesn’t mean I can blow up all the time. Having GAD does make things more challenging. But I have to meet that challenge. If I want to be the type of person that I hope to, it will take a lot of changes, a lot of work, and a lot of determination.

How do I do this? What method do I employ to make sure I don’t snap/crackle/pop?

I Think of Lost Girl

There is a show called Lost girl where the main character, played by the super gorgeous and hot Anna Silk, is a Succubus. She has a constant hunger to drain peoples chis.

It helps to think of my rage Rage factor as Lost Girls hunger for Chi. If that Succubus really let loose, she could feed on everyone around her. She could cause a lot of damage by giving in. But instead, she chooses to fuck fuck fuck people and get some delicious chi that way. She takes something that could be totally debilitating and puts that energy into something else to meet her needs.

I am currently learning to do the same thing with my rage. Whenever I get these really strong big emotions that are fueled by GAD, I channel that energy into something else.

Typing here in this blog always helps, drawing, writing, and running are other ways to deal as well. There are millions of creative outlets and I use use use them whenever I feel bad. This takes something that could paralyze me, turns it around and makes it productive. Once I have started my activity, whatever it is, I can focus that bad energy, and by the time I am half way in to whatever I am doing, I am feeling better and the Rage is draining away.

This is how I cope right now. I hope to one day be disciplined enough that I can calm those rage factors mentally. For now though, this works

What about when the dam breaks?

No matter what we try we don’t have the complete discipline we wish. I still have emotions crop up that do get out of control. What happens? If there’s an argument, if it turns out I do some Damage, I have learned there is only one thing to do. Take ownership, apologize and move the fuck on.

Take Ownership

Be Honest. I will admit I fucked up. I will explain why I did succumb to this argument. I will say that I am working on it, it could happen again, but I will work hard so that it doesn’t.

This means, I know the dam broke and that I let it. I rebuild it. I make it stronger, better and help it last longer. I do whatever I need to do to burn off that excess energy so the dam isn’t as strained in the first place. I make a bigger effort to keep things balanced. I work harder.  

Apologize

I say sorry. And I mean it.

Move the Fuck On

One thing GAD will do is making you linger on something. You will hold it in your heart and feel guilt over it and think and re think it and spend all of your mental energy reviewing and analyzing it. One thing I have told myself is to just STOP. Stop the what If’s, stop the reviewing. If I have that feeling of dread in my chest, the kind I only feel when it’s anxiety, I know I can’t control it and I accept it and let it pass. I Move On – The Most Important Step.

Topping It Off

When you say to someone “I am afraid of going on top during sexy time.” You can get a few different responses. Here are the ones I have received in my past:

“What do you mean? I get up there and I’m all like wOOOOOoooooooOOOooWwwwwwyyyy” [Thrusting Motions and a big smile]

-Friend One

“Seriously?? Why? You’re super tiny.”

-Friend Two

“But Youre missing out! It’s so much fun!” [Thrusting Motions and a big smile]

-Friend 3

“It’s a matter of confidence. You are my beautiful baby you will figure it out.”

-My Mom (Oh So Sweet) 

I started out being afraid of SEX period. THE BIG S-E-X.

But then, after meeting  a partner I was happy with, sex would happen. Often. More than I was used to (which was once every 3 months – so you can imagine)

And something new started to happen during all of these sexy times, I realized I was very VERY limited in my understanding of what sex was and how it could be.

I found myself wanting to try things but not knowing how to try them.

I wasn’t afraid of the S-E-X now, I was afraid of the O-N T-O-P.

During my first relationship I had managed to avoid going on top for majority of the time. I think I can trace it back to a point where my first partner had said to me “You are awkward on top. It doesn’t feel good,”  on my second attempt.

Now, before everyone gets in an uproar – you have to realize – first partner/first relationship = young/naive/inexperienced. I did not realize that this kind of feed back was unacceptable. Someone who loves you will work with you and support you while you are trying to figure out something that is new to you, whether it be anything from juggling cans of chicken noodle soup to learning how to be the one on top – they will show patience and understanding, because their ultimate goal is that you are both satisfied – and they will draw satisfaction from seeing you happy as well.

Despite understanding that my first partner may not have handled this the best way – or may not have realized that I would stop trying to be the one on top - did not realize that I would apply this to anything and everything when it came to trying something new during sex - 

The words still stuck in my mind.

 ”You are Awkward.”

One of the aspects of GAD is that you OBSESS. You obsess about the same thing for a long long time. You try to see it from a different perspective, but when you are only drawing from your past experience - and it was not a good one – it can be very very difficult to pull yourself out of this frame of mind.

So despite being free and clear - despite being with a different person – despite experiencing something that felt very very good – there was an issue. Here I was, free of the past, and some fun desires and curiosities were bubbling back up during the positive sex that was taking place.

But these curiosities were then being met with “You’re awkward on top. It doesn’t feel good.” That meant, during the good sex, I was thinking about bad things from my past, and the urge to try something new was being overwhelmed by baggage, and by baggage I mean 300 suitcases of it.

So the dilemma:

How do you break out of a learned habit?

IN my case, How do I tell myself – “YOURE NOT AWKWARD, YOU FUCKING IDIOT. SNAP OUT OF IT TRY STUFF ITS OKAY!”

It took about half a year. And a lot of reading. And a lot of rethinking. And it will still surface as a problem from time to time. But here are/were my ways to deal with it:

1 – I said what was bothering me out loud to my counsellor

She helped me pinpoint what my exact fears were and helped me squish them

2 – I said my fear out loud to my partner

Who reassured me that they enjoyed my body, but also gave some sound advice. “Try to focus on the moment, try to focus on what you’re feeling”

3 – I read A LOT of stuff on the internet.

Two sites I found incredibly helpful:

Joy McCarthy of Joyous Health wrote an article on How To Make Peace with your Body

Here we meet Joy, who is super cute – watch her videos and you’ll see – She tells us a personal story about her past experience.

I could completely relate to Joy. I was currently doing what she was doing. I kept obsessing about this “Youre awkward on top” comment. I realized I was awkward because I was uncomfortable with the way my body was/I perceived it to be. When you are on tippity top – you become the focus, I mean hello YOU ARE NAKED AND RIGHT UP THERE. And this made me afraid. I thought – what if he sees this, what if he thinks this. My mind would keep going and going over the WHAT IFS and I couldn’t stop it. This would result in me being uncomfortable, drying up, being unable to have any kind of relaxation or any kind of rhythm when it was my turn to be large and in charge!! And of course, any good partner senses this and then they stop to  ask you what’s wrong – because they don’t want you to be uncomfortable either. What A Mess!

I was focusing on a specific insecurity, and I was trying to hammer it down with exercise. I was running and running – which was really good for me, But no matter what changed I was still unsatisfied. I believed that  once I had rid myself of this insecurity, I could be the initiator, I would instantly have tonnes of sexual prowess - I would be a master of sexyness. But after reading this article I realized, I REALLY REALLY hated myself, I really hated my body. It wasn’t just one insecurity – there was a whole big jumbly mess of them. I needed to learn to love my body the way it is NOW before I could try  and change it. The problem wasn’t how I looked, it was HOW I FELT ABOUT HOW I LOOKED.

And the second site, believe it or not, was Dan Savages’ Sex Advice Column,

Savage Love

Here I learned a lot of new and exciting things. (To be expanded upon) I read about tonnes, and I mean TONNES of people who had faced the same dilemma I was.  SO many that Dan Savage had coined a term – DTMFA – which stands for

Dump

The

Mother

Fucking

Asshole.

Amazingggggg!

He also had some very solid advice that I wished I had read years ago: that went something like this:

“There comes a time in those first go around relationships when one partner loses interest for whatever reason. Unable  to deal with it – or simply not knowing how to handle it – they act badly as a partner hoping the other will end the relationship. This can drag out the process until ultimately, the other gets dumped anyway, and feels like a big piece of shit.”

Mr. Savage, and his readers, helped me to understand I had not been alone in my crappy situation. That tonnes of people were in the same situation – that tonnes of people forgot they had the option to leave – that tonnes of people let a shitty relationship where they felt shitty become the norm without even realizing it! This helped because it made me realize – it’s no ones fault. “Youre awkward on top. It doesn’t feel good” was one of many statements made over a very long period of time. And like many statements made during that period of time, it was flat out wrong. It could be changed and the importance of it could be diminished – IF I CHOSE TO DO SO.

It was only after making a big effort to overhaul these big thoughts/big insecurities/big perspectives that I was able to come to terms with and face these issues. I had to admit I had some deep deep issues, and even though I seemed and acted very confident at times, I was riddled with some deep-set insecurities that needed to be pulled up and pummelled to pulp.

 After all of this, I had just one thing left to do when it came to topping it off, as it eventually has:

Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

Afraid To Fuck

One of the strangest/scariest/most exhilarating combination of things I have experienced is being Horny Afraid & Fucked.

Let’s rewind. I have always felt sexually inexperienced. I have a limited number of partners (at the time this happened 1, Now 2) and I always felt I was at a disadvantage. There seemed to be sexual secrets out there, just shimmering, there but not quite there like the wavy haze you see if you look at something through a fire. They were just out of my reach. They were just on the fringe of my finger tips, just a millimeter more and I could touch them, tap them, caress those sexy steamy passionate sex secret secrets and become a super cool and collected multi orgasmic confident sensual and over all super hot being that could pull off a Christina Aguilera ala Burlesque Dance routine.

I honestly felt this. I felt there was a thing out there I just wasn’t getting when it came to sex. I was a lego, and there were other legos, and I was trying to connect the two legos but they just weren’t fitting. It was as if some idiot had chewed up and left dried pink gum inside the lego so nothing was happening, my lego was just gumming up the other legos and making a sticky mess.

I was missing the Passion. It had been a very long time since I had experienced it. The passion, the supreme horniness, had returned with a vengeance. I was a bear awake from a winter of Hibernation and I was ready to feed. It was driving me a little crazy because all of this new found sexual desire was mixed in with insecurity and fear.

The fear list was big.
I was afraid of being naked.
I was afraid of taking off my clothes.
I was afraid of being the person on top.
I was afraid of making the wrong noises.
I was afraid of cumming.
I was afraid of not being able to cum.
I was afraid of looking ridiculous.
I was afraid of being too vigorous.
I was afraid of being too into it or not into it enough.
I was so so so afraid that all sex was bad sex and I would never experience good sex.

I was being a puss puss when it came to the vagina penis action. I just could not handle the idea of sex again.

Here I was, in my brand spanking new bed, with a brand spanking new super sexy guy that just wanted to have his way with me. I always wanted this. The reality was better than what I imagined. But I simply could not handle it. My mind was reeling with fear while my body was freaking out screaming “LET HIM STICK HIS DICK IN YOU” I wanted to be super smooth and pull some fantastic move and jump his bones, but I was paralyzed with horrible WHAT IF HE THINKS I’M A FUCKING FREAK fears. It was Anxiety Overload. There was baggage from the past, mixed in with excitement, mixed in with anxiety, mixed in with at least twenty other things.

In the past, sex had become a bad thing. Sex had become associated with desperation, negativity, unpleasantness and upset. Sex was a problem before because it wasn’t happening/rarely happened/and when it did was not enjoyable. It left me feeling horrible about myself. It left me with an emptiness.

Sex was a problem now because it could happen and I was too afraid to let it because I was so afraid it would be exactly the same as before.

My expectations were skewed. I believed anything I would experience would have to be the same as what I already had experienced.

I remember watching movies with romantic scenes where a couple would kiss and I would be jealous. I would want that same passion. But I told myself, shamed myself, into believing that I was being ridiculous. It’s not real, I said. It’s just a movie.

Regardless of how perfect the actors were or how staged the scene was, their job was to communicate something that does happen in everyday life. Unbridled, uncontrollable, desire/passion/hunger for another being. Wanting someone so badly you didn’t stop to think before you went ahead and mauled them. I felt it, I felt the want and the desire – the passion, the yearning the every synonym we can come up with for what you feel when you are extremely horny. But I also felt so so afraid.

I was so afraid I was too afraid to fuck.

So – How did I solve this? (You know I did solve it, because I already told you how 1 became 2)

I think it was a few things. If I had to extract them this is what I would see:

I had some perceptions, some beliefs that were firmly in place that I had to break.
They were stopping me from doing what I wanted to do.

All Sex would be Bad Sex.

How did I break this one?

I tried to level it back. I drew from what I was learning and experiencing in the moment. From just hanging out with this new person I felt better than I had in a long time. When he kissed me, it felt really good. It made me really horny. I knew that if my body was having a positive reaction to kissing or even just seeing him, there had to be something there worth exploring. I told myself. if these things aren’t bad, then seeing what taking it a few steps further would be like is worth a try.

I was afraid of being naked.

How did I break this one?

UGH – I still struggle with this one! I definitely have my insecurities, but saying them out loud to myself, or spending time naked in front of a mirror helps. I try to work in a different perspective. I think about the things I like about myself. I try to see my body as a complete body instead of just the parts I am insecure about. When I am able to see myself as a complete self, I think – hey that’s not too bad. I like this this and this. This is perky. This is bouncy. This fills in nicely over here.

Another tip I was given was, instead of focusing on myself, or how I looked or what I was doing, focus on the other person. Focus on pleasing them as much as possible. Take yourself out of the equation for a moment and just work on making the other being have the time of their life. This thought really helps.

The Expectations of Orgasm

How did I break this one?

This is a big problem for a lot of people. With this one, there was no skirting the issue. I had to be blatant and honest. I explained that I had bad experiences for a big chunk of my sexual past, and having an orgasm was one of those big issues. I took the pressure off of myself and my partner by saying – just DO NOT EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN. I gave myself permission to not have an orgasm and just enjoy myself. I gave myself permission to be happy for my partner if they climaxed and I didn’t. I was honest and explained this long before sex was even an option, I had no choice. It was just too difficult to date without explaining that I did have sexual issues and that it meant it may take me longer to become more comfortable with things than it may take other people. Once the pressure was off, the Orgasms would cum. (Get it?)

Humour Helps

We had a running joke, that things were “too soon.” The joke became employed in other aspects of the relationship: it was “Too Soon” to hold hands or it was “Too Soon” to share the same glass of water. The humor helped lighten things up and made it easy for us to communicate what we were and were not ready for.

Most Importantly – I realized I had Requirements

I chose someone I could talk to. The one night fling was not an option for me. I realized, to my chagrin at first, that casual sex just wasn’t in my cards. I could not become the fuck bandit I had secretly pondered becoming. It wasn’t in my blood. I do not judge people who are able to have lots and lots of sex with lots of different people. I just knew I couldn’t do it, not right now, because I was too messed up from the past. There was too much going on in my head, there was too much doubt. I needed to be able to sleep with someone who  I could actually explain these things to. If they didn’t try to understand them, or didn’t share their own concerns and insecurities  – it wouldn’t’ work. This was something that took time to accept. I almost saw it as a weakness, but over time I realized they were my requirements. I was simply too inexperienced and too young to have them with my first partner – these types of requirements were not in my grasp of understanding at that time.

But, it’s not all talk

When I fucked – and I mean FUCKED – fucked/made love/soaked everything/scared the neighbors
it
was
fucking
amazing.

The Big Dump

Almost a year ago, I, Tiger Slut, was unceremoniously dumped. It was an unpleasant occasion on all counts. Tiger Slut was upset, the dumper was upset and the family was upset. When you are with someone for a very long time (5 fucking years) and when you have certain expectations (unrealistic – marriage and kids with someone who could not even talk about marriage and kids) it can be a big blow. Especially when it is your first experience with this kind of thing (First relationship – handed over the vcard for its only ever swipe = young/naive/inexperienced)

I sat there, on a sofa that didn’t belong to me, in an apartment that was not under my name, crying tears of confusion and grief that were over the end of a relationship that was long overdue to end. I was lost.

Where was I to go?
Where was my home now?
What would I do without him?
How would I face everyone?
How would I make ends meet?
There was one comfort (Kitty – the cat – my cat – there was no custody battle)

She sat on a table, a black table from Ikea, a black table I hated. A black table I constantly stubbed my freakishly long toes on, that was too short to do anything on, that seemed so out of place. The black table stood stubbornly on a carpet that wasn’t mine, a monster faux persian rug mess that collected far too much dust and never came clean no matter how many times I took the mini vacuum to wage war against it.

My sweet Kitty cat sat in front of me. She was as cool as a cucumber. She licked my hand once. A warm tear fell on it and our eyes met. My messed up snotty teared face met her calm and knowing eyes and it happened.

I got a fucking grip.

The tears stopped. Yes, temporarily, but they stopped. Long enough to come up with a game plan, long enough to make some decisions. The first step was to pack everything the fuck up and get the fuck out of there in as little time as possible.

I moved home – my worst nightmare – or so I thought – and it turned out to be fun.

I moved back to the city I was in, this time on my own. And after some roller coastiness I managed to have my own place where I stay of my own volition. Everything balanced and settled. It took time, it was fucking painful, but it was the wake up call I needed.
It was this punch to the Vagina that made me realize I needed to change. It would have been very easy if I could simply blame the person I was with for my misery/upset/depression/offness/insecurities/every bad thing I ever felt or ever would feel. But even with him out of my life it remained. Something was wrong and I had to get to the bottom of it if I wanted to function and really let myself be happy.
After some episodes – to be expanded upon – it was suggested I see a counsellor. Here, at the age of 26, I found out I had a Disorder. It was called GAD. I wasn’t the only one suffering from it. Lots of people had it. And I have had it all my life.

 
I just did not know.

 
Knowing changed everything. Knowing meant I could take action. Knowing meant I had options. It took a long time to accept that I had a disorder, that my thought process was not how it had to be. That I could let go of big burdens if I wanted to. It has/is taking a lot of work. It can be/is exhausting. It can be/is rewarding to make progress. I am working on it/I am coping with it/I am suffering from it/I am fighting it/I am accepting it. I have GAD. And now I know.

 
I have changed since and partly due to the Big Dump.

 
I’m not the only one, so has my cat.

 
Kitty is now known as Miss Kitty and she won’t take your attitude and she will deliver advice with Sass at a 1 dollar and twenty cent per minute basis. Plus Applicable Taxes.

Tiger Slut Signing In & On

I’m not a doctor. I’m not a counsellor. I’m just a mostly average/below average/above average girl/woman/lady-child with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
This is how I deal/don’t deal with my disorder on a lifelong/yearly/seasonally/monthly/daily/minute by second basis. You can explore every facet of my life. Out of curiosity – a need to connect – for a laugh – for solace – for whatever reason you wish and desire.
You will find my soul sprinkled as a light pink dust over all the o’s. You will find my smudged finger prints on the edges of the s’ and the bottom of the t’s. You will see a stray eyelash floating around the e’s and a little gust of my breath straining an I that is trying to stand up straight on your screen. Look for a a goopey drop of my brain juice, leaking from the cracked petrie dish – containing a purple sliver of brain – my brain – a sample from my braintopsy – drip drip dripping a gross tiny pool puddle around the y’s.
This is the lovely/painful/sad but true yet awesome letter-novel from me to you.

This is tiger slut, signing in and on, for a naked bit of truth.