After all, aren’t the thoughts helping to protect me? Aren’t they helping me to seek relief from the situation?

Have you ever stepped into the shower, ready to enjoy a few relaxing minutes of warm water, and then spent the entire duration of your shower ruminating about something else?

I was herded along to a blood donation table where I laid down and got comfy. They stuck me with the needle and I watched myself drain into a plastic bag.

How in the world can I begin to dismiss the non-meaningful messages from my body and only focus on the meaningful ones? How can I even tell the difference?!

I tried to pick Zerby up, but by this time, I was no longer his “mom” — I was some mean lady who makes him bleed. He ran off like a little chicken into the living room.

To make the past few days more tolerable, I’ve been hitting up the medicine cabinet — but staying mindful about what I put into my body. Like many other panic sufferers, I’m always a bit nervous when I take any sort of medicine. What if it makes me hyper? What if it makes me nervous? What if it makes me panic?

At 5:30 this morning, I found myself curled up with a bathrobe and a rug.

For the past two or three days, I’ve had a fever, the aches, and a wicked sore throat. As a result, my brain is a worthless pile of mush. For just about everyone, having a cold or the flu is a bummer. But for people with anxiety disorders, it can be extremely unpleasant.

After you ask these questions and receive sufficient answers, there’s a paradigm shift: the doctor no longer puts you on medication. Instead, you choose to accept the doctor’s medication suggestion. (Instead of being sent to camp, you go to camp.)

The cost of Paxil CR multiplied. And I don’t mean by 2x, by 5x, or even by 10x. The cost multiplied by 12x. The cost of a year’s worth of Paxil CR suddenly became the cost of a single month’s worth of pills.