I got nine hours of sleep

I slept in my other bed, the one in my actual bedroom. I've only slept in it a couple of time since my divorce. The warm air from the heating vent comes up onto the bed and was comforting as I wasn't under the covers.

I got myself to the city two hours away with help of Xanax. Fortunately there was almost no work to be done there because I was so exhausted. Driving home from there I am usually decently upbeat and listening to music and often getting ideas for my hobby project. But not today, just exhaustion and driving in silence. At least I managed to get there and back. On the way home I stopped in a market and bought some more kefir, which I bought last time I was at a market in order to hopefully improve my stomach. I've been reading some about how the gut bacteria can possibly affect mental health. And some bananas, I've been eating a lot of them since they're easy. The day is done and I don't have to go back for a week.

Very little sleep tonight.

Very little sleep tonight. Like a few hours scattered over the night. Tried counting backwards, tried moving to my other bed (worked for 45 minutes or so). I took a Xanax but it didn't help. Well, it did for an hour or so of sleep. Around 4:30 or so I just gave up on getting any sleep. If I go to work, I'll have to pack enough food I don't have to leave my office, because I probably won't have the energy to go out for anything.

edit: Once the dry heaving from nausea came on around 6am, I called in sick. Then I got a couple hours of sleep in a chair and now I don't feel quite so terrible. With the dry heaving, better to not push it and stay home and rest.

edit 2: went to the pharmacy and got some pepto bismol for the stomach. I wanted to get some ginger too but they didn't have any, so I ordered some from the internet. Now just sitting and staring, sitting and staring, occasionally clicking refresh on a few websites, mindlessly. My rib/sternum issue is bothering me, my stomach is still bothering me.

I think part of what happened was I reached a year on the job and then basically said to myself, ok, now what? Tomorrow is my normal day to be working in the city a few hours drive from here, I may reschedule that day for later this week as right now I'm not sure how I'll be tomorrow, if tonight will be a repeat of last night.

Cleaning to help the mind

After two weeks of anxiety, and just getting through the day as best I could, the past two nights have been spent tossing and turning and spending a few hours awake. Friday and yesterday I was nauseous, and yesterday I took a nap.

Today I did a few things to benefit myself. First was not eat that leftover pizza for lunch. Spicy pizza, probably not good for my stomach. My diet had been fairly poor for the past few weeks because I have lacked the energy to cook properly or even to get healthier foods for lunch at work some days. Instead of the leftover pizza I had mac and cheese on steamed veggies. The veggies at least are healthier, and the mac and cheese was at least organic and not full of chemical stuff.

I also decided I needed to do something about the messy state of my house and did some cleaning That way I can look at something in the house and say "That's done, I did something to benefit myself". I cleaned the top of the oven, the kitchen sink, did some sweeping, cleaned up stuff from my desk, and cleaned the bathroom some. That's enough for now, tired. The main things I deal with in the house are reasonably clean. I had been looking at the messy state they were in and it was sending a message to myself that I was just existing and letting things go. Even though it's a household chore, now I have a sense of having done something positive for myself. I feel somewhat better. Here's hoping the feeling stays.

Thursday

Woke up exhausted. I don't have anything in particular to do for work today, but the thought of going in to work panics me. Mainly, I am so tired, I feel as if I don't have the energy to walk out to my car, drive to work, and walk in to my office.

Made it through Wednesday

Tuesday was a two Xanax day (my prescription is up to three a day as needed, I've never taken three in a day). I did surprisingly well. Maybe it was the very early bedtime Monday, maybe it was the Xanax. Two and I usually feel calm all day.

Today I only took one. The main reason being that over the past ten days or so I'd taken two on several days with all the things I had going on, and I don't want to get in the mindset of needing to take two. I could have. I wanted to. One very messed up six way intersection under construction in the morning and a lot of requests once I got in to the office, I was anxious all day. My chest was tight. I was exhausted all day. But I didn't take a second Xanax.

I'm home, I took a warm shower, I'm fed. I should be relaxed, but I'm not. I don't know how I slept last night, I forgot to turn on the snoring app on my phone. Early to bed tonight, it's not quite 8:30pm. I'm so tired.

Positive stuff:
My phone's walking app says my 2300 steps today are the low for the past week, and I have two days over 4100. The past seven days is a bit over 21,000 steps, and is probably my best weekly total since September last year.

No pending work requests for tomorrow. Hopefully it will be slow.

Continued problems

Last week I was anxious all week about the cats and the vet, which turned out as expected when I had to flip the bed against the wall at 7 in the morning to get to the cat who does not approve of being put in the carrier to go to the vet.

Saturday I had to take my car in for recall service, and wait for it to be fixed, and the dealer still has it because it has about $1500 worth of other stuff that needed to be fixed (suspension etc). I have a loaner car until tomorrow.

Work last week was a lot of "need it now" stuff as well, and things not working when they were both simple and should have worked. My anxiety levels are high from all three of these.

My sleep quality continues to be poor, and I continue to be exhausted. Saturday night my downstairs tenants had guests over, and they were loud until past midnight. Wouldn't have been so bad if I haven't had all the other things going on.

This morning I was nauseous. I slept right through the night, but only for seven hours as it took me a long time to fall asleep even after a Xanax. I need more sleep than that even when I feel fine. I almost called in sick, and the reason I went in was because there were some work issues from last week that really needed to get resolved. All that made today miserable. At least one of last week's work issues got resolved, which calmed me a bit, but most of the workday I was a complete mess.

I need to get through tomorrow, my two hour trip to the remote factory and then come back to get my car from the dealer. Last week as I was going on my drive for work at the factory I started having panic as I got to the tollways, there are few exits so it's a trapped feeling of not being able to turn around and come home whenever I want. Tomorrow I get to make that drive in the dealer loaner car, the loaner is nicer than my car, but it's not "my car", just like a hotel bed is not your bed, it may be nicer but it's not as comfortable.

Right now, if anything, I feel worse than I did six weeks/two months ago, and that's my normal low point for the year. I'm going to be in bed tonight before it's dark, haven't done that in quite some time.

Get through tomorrow, that's the goal.

Four nights of bad sleep = problems.

After four nights of poor quality sleep, tossing and turning, waking up at 4am unable to fall back asleep, I was in a bad state yesterday. I took a Xanax in the evening, my first in six or seven days, it calmed me down. I did finally have some dreams last night, but I was dreaming I was at some kind of camp, but I was the only one there, there was no food, and I was going to have to walk miles to get anywhere to get food. That was not a comforting dream.

Last night I also slept oddly on my side, and my left side hurts enough to interfere with my breathing. Pain in the chest area and the breathing is not good for my anxiety. I considered calling in sick, but I'm going to stick with it and go to work.

On the other hand the weather is now above freezing, so all the snow is melting. This should be good, but instead since the weather's warmed up I've been miserable.

Thursday I have to wrangle my cats into their carrier to take them to the vet to have their teeth cleaned. Saturday I have to take my car in to the dealer for a recall, and I know the service is going to be about two hours. Both things are on my anxiety causing list, as in doing them has caused anxiety before. With the way I feel today I am not looking forward to this week. One day at a time. It can be easier to tell myself this than do it.

March on

I downloaded a sleep recording app for my phone, to record my snoring. I know I snore some from having two sleep tests done during the early years of my depression to sleep if my exhaustion was being caused by sleep issues. Those tests both came back with some snoring, but no real issues. Anyway, I wanted to get at least some idea of how much I snore versus how I feel the next day.

There is some definite correlation, I am more tired and more anxious when I snore more. But it's not a one to one correlation. For instance today I felt bad, at one point getting near panic attack despite my taking a Xanax earlier today.

Also quite tired today, and according to the sleep app I didn't snore very much, less than 5% of the night. On the positive side, I got out and went to the bank to deposit a check, went and put gas in my car, went to the pharmacy twice (once to drop off my prescription, once later to pick up since the wait was going to be 30+ minutes when I dropped off), dealt with the dryer repair person who was here to repair my dryer (the dryer has been broken for 2+ months, I kept meaning to call him but would never get around to it, and I could hang my clothes in my house to dry them), and have done about 12-14 flights of stairs today with all my trips out of the house and to do laundry (it's in the basement and I live on the second floor) now that I have a working dryer I can use to wash and dry large things like comforters. As you can guess, I'm writing these all down so I can tell myself how much I got accomplished today despite being very tired. It's just past 6pm, and I want to go to bed already.

The weather is starting to warm up, finally. So tired of the cold and snow. My weight went up over the winter. I tried to keep my step count on my phone app up, but it's harder in the winter when it's so cold you don't want to step outside. Also hard to get walking in when I'm tired and anxious. Hopefully spring and summer will let me lose it.

I bought myself some new work clothes yesterday, online so I didn't have to go out to the stores and be limited by the few things they have in my size (I'm tall, and those extra winter pounds didn't help). There's so little I like in stores for so long that comes in my size that it's just much easier to shop online. If I  find one thing I like well enough, I tend to just buy several of them in different colors. I needed some new work clothes, I've been wearing the same few things for a year.

Another good thing to write down here: I did not need to take any days off this past year due to depression/anxiety. Oh I certainly wanted to, but forced myself through with the help of Xanax when I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. Having an office with a door helps a lot some days. Because of the nature of my contract work, I used some of my vacation days to match the clients vacation days, and I was even able to use my two remaining days for a few days off in February. I didn't go anywhere or do anything, it was far too cold for that, but the important thing is I was able to take some days off because I didn't have to use them all up for depression/anxiety.