Is it just me that have some moments of clarity? Anxiety never completely vanishes, but it's just enough so I can see clearly my situation, and see that this isn't who I am. And then, I realize: omg, I stopped worrying! But shouldn't I be trying to solve this? And then BAM! Anxiety kicks in again, and I'm no longer able to discern my thoughts, and I keep worrying if they're true, like those moments of clarity meant nothing or didn't happen at all.

The past month or so I have been in and out of OCD spirals. I’ll have a couple days of spiraling and then a couple days of being better. Then a couple days spiraling and then a couple days doing better. Today is one of those days where I can feel the anxiety under the surface and where I am monitoring it to see/keep it in check. Yesterday I was good, I had good dialogue in my mind, I was content with making mistakes in the past, but being a better human and person these days going forward. I can feel the ebb and flow of it today where the anxiety spikes, my internal dialogue say “am I going to freak out”, “confess this”, “say that”, “don’t say that”, “I’m a bad person”, “I’m a good person that is learning and growing every day” etc etc. Then the anxiety comes down, my mind feels clearer, less noisy and less physical feeling, and I feel like I don’t care about the OCD and me as much. Just been feeling the ebbs and flows of OCD over the course of months and days, and even within the day itself.

Like to the point of your mind being yours? And not being anxious or harassed by your thoughts 24/7? I just wanna know if escape is possible?

I had my first serious anxiety related episode back in April and then once in May. My husband had lost his job due to health reasons and spent six weeks looking for work before he finally found something. It was up to me delivering for spark to make the bills. The stress built up and in May I had a panic attack that put me in the hospital. I started Sertraline, had some rough side effects but still noticed a positive change in the anxiety. I still felt crappy every day, but less and less crappy, if that makes sense. (Nausea, heart palpitations, weak, anxious). The month of June was great, no huge panic moments, no racing heart, etc. In one day I went out of town by myself, drove on the interstate, (that’s always scared me), went to the dentist and took my son out to lunch and dined in. It was great. The next day, I argued with my teen all day, it exhausted me and I was dreading spending an hour that evening talking to my therapist. I was just too tired, you know? About twenty minutes before the appointment my anxiety ramped up. Racing heart, trembling, feelings of dread. Normally I can get it under control with breathing techniques but I didn’t have time to before my appointment. Luckily my therapist had overbooked and called me to cancel, so I just rested for the rest of the night, but that’s been six days ago and I’ve struggled ever since. The day after that I was weak and shaky and could feel my heart beat, the day after that I was tired and really beating myself up for what felt like a failure to me, and the last couple days it’s been on and off heart palpitations (my heart rate isn’t going up high, I’m just super aware of my heart beat) and it’s very uncomfortable. My family keeps telling me it’s because I’m stuck in my head and I know that’s true because I spent hours outside in the heat doing garden work yesterday and instead of feeling even worse I felt amazing for the rest of the night and I’ve felt pretty good for most of today. So I know in my head that anxiety recovery isn’t linear and that anxiety hangovers are a real thing and that i just have to be patient for a few days after an attack, but sometimes it’s so hard to think like that when I’m in the middle of feeling so crappy and shaky and weak. Does anyone else feel discouraged like this sometimes? Is what I just described similar to anything anyone else has experienced? If so, what were some coping techniques you used?