Although there are a few stray spots, my period is finally ending. It wasn’t a heavy one but it sure was a long one. I’m less anxious today too, but it is picking up now. It seems to do this 4-5 hours into my day.

I didn’t know this but it turns out that they make this stuff that dissolves hair dye. I guess it restores it back to its natural color, which means I would have brunette sprinkled with gray. That would be great because then I wouldn’t have to wait for the shit to grow/fade out.

They also make temporary dye, so I see, if you want to play around with some colors short-term and be a little wild for a few days.

For our anniversary Tom’s getting me two new sets of decorative curtains. One’s a scene of a gothic woman on a wooden raft in a swampy forest at night. The scene is mostly dark save for the glowing lantern she holds. The other scene is of three horses, each a different color, in a field. There are red poppies in front of them. Behind them, you see mountains in the distance.

We talked about getting me a tablet to use to listen to music on that I would hook to the stereo. Instead, I’m going to be using my phone and he’s going to write a program for a music player that has features I like.

Later…

My anxiety was the worst yesterday. The two days before it the lorazepam at least helped a little and took the edge off of it, then I would feel even better when he got up. Not yesterday, though. Yesterday I felt progressively worse throughout my day. It came to a head about a half-hour before he left for work and went on for a few hours. Again I wonder… if I hadn’t had the EMDR, would I have panicked? I sure was damn close! It was a little scary. I was going from hot to cold, my heart was pounding, my number twos were on a roll, and I was afraid to move a muscle for fear of making my heart pump even faster. Where some people find it best to keep busy when they’re anxious, I find that I not only have trouble focusing, but that can actually make it worse for me. If your heart is racing and you do something that can speed it up, you’re just adding to the problem. Even just sitting up in a chair can take more energy than when you’re lying down, so in my case, it’s best that I just lie still, take deep breaths, and wait till the storm passes. I do get up and do some things, but I do it in spurts. Exercise is said to help some people, but I think last night’s run may’ve made things worse.

Tom thinks some of this is me being anxious about going to the lab and what my numbers may be, and not just the perimenopause. We agreed I would skip my thyroid meds today because even if they’re not the cause (God, I hope my TSH hasn’t slipped too low or that I’m pocket-flaring), they could at least be fueling the problem since the medication is a stimulant. Well, I’m stimulated enough, thank you, so I may skip a few doses just like I did the last time I was this anxious. Skipping a few doses every now and then can’t hurt me. It’s going a few months that could put me at risk. As I assured Tammy, who I called yesterday, I’m not going to make any drastic changes with my meds and I’m not going to quit them either.

She suggested the disease itself could make me anxious, but I think it’s unlikely because it’s treated. If that were the case I would think I would’ve felt this way pretty consistently before treatment when my TSH was up in the 30s. The problem is that there are numerous things that cause the same symptoms. I’m anxious and I’m bordering on having the runs, which points to both perimenopause and accumulation of my medication, but I’m not losing weight uncontrollably or trembling, which are also signs of being overmedicated. No lung tightness either, one of the first warning signs.

The usual hacks haven’t been helping. Not the EFT, the acupressure, etc. Sometimes I feel like something up there wants me to suffer. Like it’s really fucking funny or something. But hey, with all the innocent children out there who get abused or die of cancer, why should it care about little old me and my anxiety?

And if I could ever learn to count and my math wasn’t as shitty as my language learning ability is good, I would know that it’s been closer to 3 years and not 4. I just got the number 4 stuck in my head because next month we will have lived here for 4 years. I’ve been suffering on and off for the last 3 years (which feels like a decade), but I think it started more with them adjusting me to the medication than the perimenopause. It’s hard to gauge exactly when the perimenopause started. I think I was 48, almost 49 years old. The thought of possibly having many years to go where I’m tortured every few months makes me want to slam my fucking head in the wall so damn hard. The thing is that I can never know how much of this is related to my medication until I actually hit menopause. Then there’s my worst fear, which I try not to think about. Yeah, the ultimate fear… what if I’m destined to be this way for the rest of my life no matter what? I don’t even want to go there, but sometimes my mind wanders in that direction and goes “what-iffing.”

But this shit really does have to end someday, right? Nothing lasts forever, right?

I have more to write about, but like I said, it’s best for me to do things in spurts.