To those who live in the United States, Happy Independence Day!!

Why, yes, that would be me back on July 4, 1982!

Once again, cats in the sun…

1. Duncan Cross presents the second “Patients for a Moment” blog carnival today.
2. From now until the middle of August, I only have one full week of work.  It all starts with the long holiday weekend followed by a trek back to Wisconsin to see my family and some friends.
3. A week after I return, BlogHer ‘09 and a return to my “home” city of Chicago!  (Yeah, yeah, I grew up in the northwest suburbs so I’m not a true city girl.)
4. Then in August, heading to Pittsburgh for a family wedding with a brief side trip to DC for some sightseeing.
5. Once all that is through, we’ll set up hardwood floors installation and purchase a HDTV.  Just in time for football season!  It’s right around the corner now that I turned the calendar over to July…

Went to fill my prescription for “happy pills”.

Waited 45 minutes to be told that the pharmacy technician was talking with my insurance regarding the way my psychiatrist wrote out the prescription.

Threw me into moments of anxiety.  What if I can’t get my next dose after already starting on the samples she gave me?  What if they want me to go on the generic with more side effects?  Why can’t they accept what she already prescribed, why do they need her to authorize it again tomorrow?  What if?  WHY?

Yeah, it figures.  I ended up having a panic attack at the pharmacy at our preferred grocery store while waiting for my anti-anxiety prescription to be filled. I don’t know if I can step foot in there again.

(Oh wait!  I need to go tomorrow to pick up my “happy pills” if my insurance allows them.)

I keep hearing and reading how June 25, 2009 was “a very bad day for Generation X” with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

While I would argue that days such as January 28, 1986 and April 19, 1995 and September 11, 2001 were the worst days for Generation X (and for many alive at those moments), I cannot deny that my heart has been heavy.

***

I admit that I am a little young to understand the impact of Farrah Fawcett and Charlie’s Angels, however, I don’t think any other celebrity has let themselves be seen as vulnerable as she did in her last months.  Her choice to go public with her battle with cancer showed the world that even celebrities must go through horrendous treatment to fight it.  And that sometimes, they lose, too.

***

My first celebrity crush was on Michael Jackson, at the young age of seven when the Thriller album was released.  The moonwalk, the sparkly white glove, and the voice – it all captivated me and many of my friends.

As we grew older, the stories about Jackson grew stranger and stranger even as he continued to release albums.  Then again, didn’t the stories about what was going on in the world grow stranger and stranger?  The Challenger disaster, the Oklahoma City bombings, and the events of September 11, 2001 – all things we could not have imagined when “We Are the World” came out in 1985.  That song was supposed to unite the world, not divide it.  Bad things simply weren’t supposed to happen and certainly not to a young mother who was supposed to be NASA’s first teacher in space.

Now we know differently.  As we have matured and been exposed to both frightening news events and our own personal disasters, we learned that Michael Jackson was a deeply disturbed man.  Just how disturbed, we may never know for sure.

When I mourn his loss, I mourn the loss of a talented singer and dancer.  One could argue that the man was lost a long time ago and in some sense, I agree.  That doesn’t change the fact that his family and close friends are mourning his loss now.

***

Thursday was a very bad day for anyone who lost a loved one that day.

For many of us who grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Thursday was also a day where a couple of childhood heroes passed away.  A bad day?  Perhaps.  A sad day?  For me, yes.

Athena darling, from March 2005:

Still trying to make sense of this latest round of anxiety.

I know of two things that are true:

1. Strict deadlines make me more anxious.  Since I work in the accounting department of my small company, there are all sorts of deadlines.  While I’ve had to abide by a strict daily deadline for over a year regarding a particular task at work, I was recently given another (more complicated) task that must be done daily.  No ifs, ands, or buts – there’s quite a bit of responsibility riding on it.  Oh, and the first task is one that no one has ever been able to fully understand but me.  And I’m going on vacation in two weeks, and then again in four weeks, and then again in six weeks.  Though I’m confident in my manager’s ability to understand, I’m not confident in my ability to train.  This task is so ingrained into my daily routine that I may not be able to grasp what everyone’s always had difficulty understanding.
2. When I begin having frequent panic attacks like I have had as a result of #1, all the issues I’ve swept aside in the past slowly crawl out from the woodwork. I ask myself, why didn’t I deal with this crap the last time? As the panic attacks become more and more frequent, a sense of hopelessness over not being able to control myself begins to develop into depression.  I start retreating from work responsibilities, from family, from life.

So that’s where I am.  Hopelessly overwhelmed.  It seems I may have found the right doctor this time around, someone who sees me as a partner in getting better rather than a student.  Against my better judgment, I’ve subscribed to “better living through chemistry”.   Let’s face it, I need to stop that depression in its tracks in order to deal with all the crap once and for all.

We had three things in common.

Being female.

Blogging.

Residing in the Denver/Boulder metro area.

And for a couple hours, we met in the back room of a local coffeehouse in preparation for next month’s BlogHer conference in Chicago.  Some of us are attending, some aren’t, and some just found out they made it off the wait list and into the conference.

There are photos to prove I overcame a bit of social anxiety to attend, despite not knowing a soul and despite having hardly followed any of these women’s writings.

So very glad I went, despite some moments of awkwardness.  I have new blogs to read and new audiences to draw.   Now I can’t wait for the big event in July for even more inspiration!

I’m in the midst of hitting a wall that needs to come down once and for all.

Anxiety is that wall.  I don’t remember when there wasn’t some kind of anxiety in my life.  And now frequent panic attacks have been affecting my work, my health, and my life the past few weeks.

I have been avoiding alcohol entirely since early February and have been limiting caffeine the past week or so.  I’m making an effort to get enough sleep and exercise and to limit carbohydrate intake – all things that usually help anxiety issues in addition to aiding in blood sugar control.  Still, the anxiety is there and it’s time to deal with it.

I’m scared because of how psychiatric medication affected me in the past.  However, I’m willing to give anything a try to kick start some sort of relief from the anxiety which plagues me.  So, I’m seeing a new psychiatrist this week.  As far as alternatives, massage helped yesterday and I’m looking into acupuncture for the acute panic attacks.  Counseling is already happening.

Living in constant fear is no way to live.  Trust me on that one.

(Two posts in one day?  WOW.)

Here’s one of Karelia, aka Kari-cat: