I've never been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, because I don't have it. Nevertheless, I get anxious about stupid things that shouldn't cause me anxiety all the goddamn time. On top of this, I suck at aiming my cannon filled with anxiety and spite in any sort of productive way, and so it often tends to cause a huge pointless goddamn mess all over my poop deck instead of sinking enemy ships or whatever the fuck cannons are for. Before I was diagnosed with my physical illnesses, my anxiety was incredibly confusing - it would pop up out of nowhere for short bursts every day, always when I was already feeling "sick", and I couldn't place what events were triggering it. But I could feel it sidling up behind me and breathing down my neck, like a creepy guy on a crowded bus. Now that we know I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), me being anxious isn't particularly surprising. In fact, one study showed that 70% of hypermobile patients have some type of anxiety disorder, whereas only 22% of the control group did. There are a lot of potential causes for the correlation between hEDS and anxiety. It's been suggested that people with hEDS feel physical discomfort (like hunger, cold, and pain) more intensely than people without hEDS, and that this could cause anxiety responses. It's possible that, as hEDS is a genetic disease, there's also a genetic predisposition to anxiety that comes with it. It's possible that there are physical differences in the brains of people with hEDS that make them more likely to have anxiety. It's also incredibly likely that being in pain all the goddamn time just makes you feel pretty goddamn anxious. However, the working theory about my anxiety is pretty closely linked to my POTS. See, because of the hEDS, I'm really stretchy. My skin is stretchy, my joints are stretchy... my veins are stretchy. Too stretchy. I'm like Stretch Armstrong or Mr. Fantastic, except their real superpower was that stretching really far didn't injure them. Being stretchy does hurt me. So aside from all the bruising and muscle pain and joint injuries from my stretchiness, my stretchy veins also allow my blood to pool more than it should. My blood pressure is always low - 90/60 is a "normal" blood pressure for me, whereas 120/80 is the usual normal measurement. If I get dehydrated or stand up too quickly, my blood pressure drops even lower because all that pooling blood isn't circulated the way it ought to. So all that blood pools down in my lower extremities instead of going to my head... and my brain loses its fucking mind (pun intended). Convinced that I am at death's door, my brain decides to nuke my whole body with a flood of adrenaline. To my brain's credit, this does solve the low-blood-pressure problem... but it introduces a whole new problem. My body, flooded with adrenaline it didn't expect, is now ready to rumble. ...but I am not ready to rumble. I am probably dehydrated, and definitely tired, and am medically not permitted to partake in contact sports anymore (I miss them). So my brain makes another fun executive decision and chooses to freak the fuck out, but emotionally this time. It will pick a thing and PANIC. At a thousand miles per hour, it will rage and rush and ruminate on the thing until all of my being is vibrating in dread of the thing. It will do this until the adrenaline wears off, at which point I will feel completely fine emotionally again. This can happen several times a day if I'm dehydrated enough or in a lot of pain. It took me awhile to figure out that the anxiety pattern wasn't actually kicked off by events that happened to me, but caused by physical discomfort. My management of the anxiety has gotten a thousand times better now that I've realized that. However, it was a mystery for long enough that I developed some pretty shit coping mechanisms, my favorite of which is the subconscious anxiety-target-selection method. See, I imagine a normal person's anxiety-target-selection method looks something like this: My subconscious, however, decided to cope with my ridiculous and pointless adrenaline-anxiety by taking all the anxiety that I could feel about something reasonable and scary, and pointing it at something that I feel like is in my control instead: In a way, this is a great kindness. All the fear I should have of something scary can be displaced by a fear I feel more prepared to manage. In practice, it is fucking ridiculous. I am having surgery for endometriosis in less than a week. Consciously, I am terrified that the surgery won't work or that something will go wrong. Reasonable fears, for a reasonable person. But subconsciously? Subconsciously, I have been worrying about how to get my hair done. See, I've decided that it's a little too long and that i don't love the color, but i cant decide if i should get it trimmed just a little or maybe i should get a few inches taken off so that it doesnt get too long too quickly or maybe i should change the style entirely and get a short mohawk like i always am thinking about or maybe i should just go for it and get a perm and for the color im not sure either see im blonde but it gets too dark in the winter so maybe some highlights or even a balayage but im actually not certain exactly what a balayage is and is that more expensive than highlights or maybe i should go red because i look great as a red head but then red dye stains everything and requires so much maintenance and im not sure if I want to go to the salon that often and maybe since im not working I should just do a pink ombre like i used to do but that also takes a lot of work or maybe if i do the mohawk i could just do a big streak of red which would be pretty cool but if i change my hairstyle do i have to change the way i draw myself for the blog and will that hurt the continuity of my drawings and is it irresponsible to get an expensive hairdo when australia is on fire and should i just donate all my money to koalas and orphans and ferret rescues and to groups that research rare diseases or should i save all my money to pay for all these doctor bills instead but ugh have you noticed that my hair is a little too long I'm scheduled for surgery next Wednesday. I'm worried about it, because you never know what's going to happen and it feels completely out of my control.
And I'm also scheduled at the hair salon this Friday. One thing I can control is looking like a dime on that operating table.
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I've been feeling very poorly as of late. It seems my endometriosis just keeps getting worse and worse, and I had an incredibly bad flare-within-a-flare over the last three days. Pain so bad that I'm having weird ideas that don't make a lot of sense, crying when nobody's looking, trying not to vomit, fevers, diarrhea - the whole shebang. When I get bad, I am a veritable crudités platter of symptoms. I don't have an entire post for you, but I'm trying to keep this blog going and post at regular intervals. Therefore, I'm sharing some art I did, which is weird for me, because I mostly consider myself shit at art. But it's all I've got to share, and I think it's less bad than my usual art, and anyone who has been reading this blog has already been exposed to my crap art, so here it goes. Above, you can see a truly mediocre painting of two prescription pill bottles, which instead of instructions, read: "But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything". This is an actual real quote that Charles Darwin actually really wrote in a letter. I love this quote - Charles Darwin struggled with health issues and was actually a bit of a recluse. The knowledge that Darwin could be angry and miserable and sick but still make such valuable contributions makes me feel a little less bad about how often I am angry and miserable and sick. Here is a less-mediocre-but-still-meh painting of a person wearing a little yellow raincoat rowing a small boat on a stormy sea. Underneath the person is the last two lines of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." I've made a reference to this poem before on this blog - I love it and I use it as a sort of "pain mantra". I'm sure I'll devote an entire blog post to it someday.
Anyways, there you have it folks, some amateur art that is at least tangentially chronic illness-related. Enjoy it, and then go look at some better art. Might I recommend an art museum? They're these cool places where you can see art by people who are good at art, thoughtfully curated and displayed by people who understand and appreciate art. Also, the art is actually there, instead of just bad pictures of the art, which is what this blog primarily features. I know, I know, it sounds too good to be true, but I promise, art museums are as real as my chronic illnesses. Which is to say, very real. |
Grace Daly
I'm young, hot, and have multiple chronic illnesses. Come with me on this magical fucking journey. Archives
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