Introductions!

Anxiety Chronicles Video 1

Hi.
My name is Abby.
I'm 29, married, and live in the Midwest.
I also have 4 cats (Rumor has it. Most of the time, you can only ever find three.) and I have severe anxiety.

Odie on the left, Marbles on the right

Neville Bigbottom

Rare: Brooklyn Sighting

Due to a long and tedious medical trial, that I won't go into at this time, I recently had to stop all of my anti-anxiety and anti-depression medicine cold turkey. If you have never dealt with anxiety or have never had this experience, let's just say... I would not recommend it.

Due to panic attacks so severe that I was harming myself, I had to quit my job. I have been put on sedatives that knock me out for more of the day than I am actually usually awake. This is the only way that I can get through until my doctors figure out a combination of medications that will work for me.

All of this is to say that I've had a lot of time to think lately and I have never felt more alone, in terms of someone to talk to.
I have my husband, who is probably the most supportive and amazing person I have ever met. But, he has never had anxiety. He does not understand the frustration I feel, or the crushing weight of feeling like I'm doing things wrong.

I have a therapist. She's pretty amazing, too. But, again - she's just a person I see once a week. She can give me advice, but she has not gone through these things herself.

I have a mom, who calls me every day and has talked me down from some pretty serious ledges. But unfortunately, anxiety seems to run in my family and my mom has her own to deal with.

I have a support system, but often their level of support is only able to take me so far. I started realizing that I want to talk about how I'm feeling with someone. I want to be able to express my feelings without stigma. All of these things are... hard to do. So, I decided to take it to the universe instead. Maybe somebody will read this and that's rad! Maybe you'll even understand or see that other people are here that feel the same. I'd love to be that level of connection for someone.

But the point is, I'm here to talk (and listen if needed) about the things that it seems so hard to talk about in person.

Abby & and her cats