Sparklemuffin85, your friendly neighbourhood Peacock Spider is here

Sparklemuffin85 · ‎12-09-2018

Hi guys,

My name is Sparklemuffin85. I know it must be really hard to contain your squeeeee of adorbs when you see my name. I'm named after very pretty species of Peacock spiders found in Australia. If you haven't yet, please check out their dance moves on youtube.

Now that we have the important stuff out of the way, I will get into the technical things.

I have been looking for a place or outlet where I can be amongst people who understand me. Looks like I'm at the right place.

Why I'm here, you ask? I have been having suffering from uncontrollable anxiety with frequent panic attacks ( in private), dark and self-abusive thoughts for months and months ( I can't remember when it all started). Finally i decided i can't live my life like this. I believe I have been suffering from depression too, most likely for several years now ( though I'm not sure whether i've always had these problems).

I have signed up for the "Mental Health care plan" and have seen a therapist three times so far. She has been nice and helpful. She has given me tips to sort my life into a coherence with SMART goals, positive thinking and avoid self- abusing language.

I have made a few improvement in my lifestyle, and have been getting much better sleep due to regular exercise and healthy-ish diet. However, i noticed after a while, the momentum is hard to keep going. Any minor inconvenience can set me off my anxiety and I cannot rest.

I have a couple of friends i can chat to about my problems, but most of the time i feel really awkward to suddenly send a message like, I feel bad today. I need somewhere I can talk and be heard and not feel guilty about wasting other's times.

I am hoping i made the right decision of opening up here.

Please take care of me.

Regards

Sparklemuffin85

Croix · ‎12-09-2018

Dear Sparklemuffin85~

Welcome to the Forum, I expect you will find it is a good move, even if hard to get stated with a post about yourself to strangers. On the up-side we do understand exactly what you are talking about, and you don't have to worry on a down day about singing out.

As you have found here are down days and anxiety breaks though the surface quite easily - especially early on.

I'm very pleased you had the wisdom to seek help, and I'm glad you psychologist seems sensible. As one has either 6 or 10 visits on the MH plan in a year getting as many techniques as you can quickly is a very good idea.The diet, lifestyle, particularly exercise, and the rest are excellent tools.

Once the anxious thoughts do start they can be difficult to settle down. Very easy to get caught in a spiral of anxious thoughts and anticipating disasters. I use the free smartphone app "Smiling Mind". It takes practice but ends up pretty effective steering the mind away from those hassles.