There was no anxiety when I was a child, as a pre-teen it was slight, and a teen, barely noticeable. As a young adult anxiety existed, but I was able to manage it. After the fibromyalgia hit it became uncontrollable. I used to blame it on the trauma I experienced, but over time I noticed how much the fibro affects it.
When the fibro is not flaring I have excellent control over my anxiety, often not even noticing it until I’ve been out in a crowd for too many hours. As long as I can remember I was only able to handle large crowds for so long, if a friend was with me I was able to last much longer. Even places like super markets and large home improvement stores would eventually overwhelm me, if I was alone. I rarely went out alone, it was not until I started going out alone that I noticed that something was wrong. To work around the “weirdness”, I made sure to never go out alone.
Fast forward to the fibro flareups that began in 2011, then the trauma of 2012 which worsened the intensity of the fibro. Beginning in 2011 I only went out with friends to events and gatherings, or alone to the grocer on the way home from work or early on the weekends. Depending on the day of the week and the intensity of the pain I would not go out at all. After the trauma, I began having multiple panic attacks per day. It was not fun and the flareups correlated with the worst of the attacks.
The anxiety has faded heavily over the past few years, but I panic easily, and anxiety is a primarily a daily annoyance. Over the past couple of years I noticed that on the rare day where the fibro was not affecting me, the anxiety was also easy to manage. Exercise and the rare days where I have the exactly correct mix of meds, I have complete control over my anxiety. I still feel the anxiety, except it is completely managed.
The problem is that I am in a flareup more often than not. In my opinion it sucks a lot, never knowing if tomorrow is going to be one of those rare good days. Each month it is easier to control the anxiety, although at this point the improvements are lesser and lesser.
Living with anxiety is mostly manageable: make time for extra (useless) bathroom trips, avoid stores and bars during peak hours, and avoid any large crowds. The bathroom trips are easy to deal with, it is avoiding people that is hard. Living in a vacation destination makes it hard to avoid people. This past summer tourism records were broken, and my anxiety noticed it. The more time I spend around people, the worst my anxiety gets. When I avoid people, stay in for a few days, it becomes much easier to go out, although it fades quickly. I really look forward to the days where the fibro doesn’t flare.
Anxiety does more than trigger bathroom trips and make going out a horrible experience, it also causes muscles to tense, the neck to become painful when turned wrong, and that horrible sensation that everyone out to make my life horrible. Logically I know that the people out in public don’t care about me, but if I do something wrong my mind makes me believe the worst. The best days are those when fibro doesn’t flare, I have zero issues being out in public. Those days don’t trigger any negative or bad thoughts. Getting the fibro under control would be wonderful, it would make life much easier to manage, and with far less restroom breaks. It is something I dream about.