And The Anxiety Strikes Back

I am extremely anxious tonight.  Pit of my stomach nerves gone wild!  I'm not entirely sure why, it's actually been quite awhile since I've felt this way.  If you knew me from my old blog, or from my real life in general, you know that anxiety is just "me", but I've been really happy lately to be able to say that I've been much less anxious than I used to be.

I'm trying to come up with the cause of my anxiety, and I'm just not sure what's up.

I have been stupid and I watched parts of a couple of documentaries on The Movie Channel over the past few days.  I shouldn't watch unsolved mystery style documentaries, with the ominous music and creepy storytelling method and camera angles.  They ALWAYS make me overanxious and paranoid, ever since I was a kid when my grandma would watch 20/20 mysteries and I'd have trouble sleeping if I saw any part of it.  Dumb, dumb, dumb!

I've been living at my parents house for the past week and a half, and I've been home alone most of the time (my 22-year-old brother lives here too, but he works long hours and when he's not working he's out with friends and barely stays home).  Being alone in this house is stirring up the old anxiety I used to feel every time I stayed here alone growing up (always hated it as a teenager).  So, combine being home alone with my already anxious and paranoid state from the influence of the TV shows I watched... and it's hard to calm my nerves!

Lastly, I suppose ever since I began thinking about the upcoming school year and how much I still have to do to get ready, I've been feeling a little emotionally dysregulated during any time spent alone with few distractions. 

Otherwise, I don't know what else would be bothering me, because I haven't been drinking coffee so much lately (so it's not a caffeine issue), and it's not horomone 'time of the month' related either.

Living alone in my condo doesn't get me the way being here does.  I think it's because I feel safe being on the eighth floor of my building, in a smaller space (no basement, not so many closets and dark spaces), and knowing there are tons of people beside me and just across the hall from me.  I'm never as paranoid as I get after staying alone here.

I hate when anxiety hits me this way, when it's hard to shake the lightheadedness and nervousness and paranoia from my body.  It makes me feel frozen, like I just want to sit in one place and not move, because I feel so scared and numb.  This is the debilitating type of anxiety that I work so hard to be free of, because I want to live my life and never get to the point where I avoid doing anything because of my nerves.  Fortunately my family returns tomorrow and I get to head home to my condo, and hopefully shake this off and get back to the slightly less anxious person I've been over the past few months.

As usual, it feels better getting to type it out and talk about it.  Time to get up, stretch and shake out my frozen muscles, tell myself that I'm safe, I'm fine, there's no reason to be this nervous, and then get into bed and watch a sitcom or whatever else I can find on TV that's light and breezy.

Hopefully this will pass soon!