My anxiety is being triggered

[Carnation]

I think once you have a bad night or nights you become so anxious about the the night approaching and repeating itself. So it doesn't help. Like you say our anxiety seems to latch on to poor sleep. But try not to think it will and have an attitude of 'what the heck'.

[pulisa]

I agree with Carnation. Lack of sleep anxiety is very common and waking up repeatedly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Catkins]

I need to check what I'm doing with myself. I'll definitely look into sleep hygiene again.

Going to take up residence in the attic for a bit too, then I won't worry about it affecting my husband.

[Catkins]

Slept a little better last night. Awake every couple of hours, but managed to get back to sleep after a bit each time. Took the propanolol before bed, but not sure it actually did anything - I didn't really feel any different.

Negative thing was that I looked at my phone in the night and I had been pinged by track and trace and it says I have to isolate for 6 days. I've just done a lateral flow and I've got to ring Occupational health at work to check how it works because apparently there have been changes.

[Catkins]

Lateral flow is looking negative.

[pulisa]

I may be wrong but I think if health workers have been double jabbed and are pinged then they don't need to self-isolate?

[Catkins]

You might be right Pulisa. I have a feeling that I've read that somewhere. I'll ring them at 9.

[Catkins]

Well things haven't been too bad lately. A couple of rises in anxiety last week. My husband wasn't feeling so well so I had a couple of mornings when I had the 'OMG what is he going to be like today', but I'm now in the habit of doing grounding exercises when I take the dog out first thing - which is helping. Plus I'm still doing yoga twice a week (once in a class and once with a friend in her living room), guided meditation about twice a week and reading all sorts of wellbeing stuff. CBT isn't entirely successful but I'm trying to keep at it and I made a mistake with my therapy this week by deciding to stay and do it at work in a spare office - couldn't entirely relax with it and it felt a bit - odd,, will try not to do it at work unless I can't help it.

So we've booked a campervan for the beginning of September for 6 nights. We were chatting with our son the other night and we mentioned (on my instigation) that perhaps he'd like to come up and meet us for a couple of nights (we're planning on going to Norfolk). He said that's a good idea. So we thought about it some more and I messaged him last night and said 'why don't you come up for the last two nights? We'll bring the tent down and we'll go on a campsite and you can have the tent and we'll stop in the van. Then you could come back home with us for a couple of nights and see your friends up here and travel back on the train to London'. This all seemed perfectly doable to me as I typed it. Honestly, I thought he might say yes to part of it but not all of it, but he replied that he thought it was a good idea and he'd check with work about it.

So, I guess because of getting overwhelmed in London and trying to please everyone and then getting bad guts and being totally fried for 3 days after I got home with my anxiety all over the place. I started to doubt myself and whether I'd made a good decision suggesting this. My immediate instinct was to totally dismiss what I was feeling and tell myself I was being ridiculous.

But then I remembered something that I'd been listening to in a talk by Tara Bracht (not sure if I spelt that correctly). It's called RAIN. So as I was walking the dog I was trying to do this, R = recognise, so I tried to recognise what I'm feeling, the next phase is A = allow, so I tried to allow myself to feel how I'm feeling, then I = investigate those feelings. Then came N, so I was wandering around probably longer than I normally do, getting infuriated with my self, what the hell was the N??? When I got home I had to google it, N = nurture, bloody typical that that's the bit I forgot. How ironic that was the missing bit, when that was the bit I'd forgotten about doing since my husband got ill in 2019 and contributed to me falling to bits this year.

So I'm not going to shove how I'm feeling to the back left corner of my brain and do my usual carry on regardless and completely ignore how I'm feeling. I'm going to keep trying the RAIN thing. I might even give it a go in the 'worry time'. How this makes me feel is important and I've got to accept that and not put how everyone else feels/thinks ahead of me. I want to see and spend time with my son, but to make the most of it I have to take myself into consideration.

I'm hoping that makes sense.

I shall now go and make tea, we're currently trying out Gousto as there was a discount on it. Hello Fresh was ditched as they kept putting the wrong/completely missing ingredients.

[Carnation]

I think the camper van is a brilliant idea catkins and Norfolk is a good choice this time of year. You have the Broads and the coastline.
Your last trip to London was a past experience, that's where you leave it in the past. Now look forward to your next experience and time with your son. x

[Catkins]

Thank you Carnation.

From past experience, we've had fun in a campervan. I'm going to take plenty of books and not put pressure on myself. I can still keep a routine of sorts and still work on my coping techniques. It's not a big van so not sure I'll be able to incorporate yoga - but who knows?

The main thing is husband and son are more than capable of looking after themselves. I don't have to do that. I'm a work in progress I guess.