Cloudy Day in Seattle

As the title implies - it is overcast in Seattle and I want to sing. In the summer an overcast day is like Christmas to me! I can be outdoors, stroll through the neighborhood, walk into my open (usually sunny) kitchen and function almost like what I consider a normal person. What a break!

The last thing I blogged about was accommodation in the workplace and I have to tell you that I've had symptoms that I haven't felt for a while. Back when I was working full time in what I consider to be a pretty stressful job/environment, I used to:

1) Have a hard time staying asleep - waking up at 3:00am pretty much every morning no matter what time I went to bed, what I ate/drank, etc. This has happened the last two mornings and the head pain has been pretty bad upon waking. I used to get so anxious about this because I need to get at least 7 hours of sleep to function and the more I was anxious - the less I could get back to sleep. It is a vicious cycle that often ended up in a severe migraine attack and the inability to even get out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:00am.

I've tried melatonin, loved Ambien and Zoloft (but get pretty addicted to them and don't want to use these types of products - I think they also increase the frequency and severity of the really bad migraine days), tried some anti-anxiety meds but didn't tolerate them...right now I am working on just managing fear and stress, but these old habits are creeping up on me and I need to figure something out if I am going to get back to living and working.

2) Get really agitated all the time. Pain, migraines and other symptoms that I can't control as much as I would like lead to fear, doubt and shame. These negative feelings lead me to feel like life is living me and not the other way around and I get so aggravated. I have a wonderful husband and we communicate openly and candidly when I feel this way and it helps, but I know these types of emotions only contribute back to my pain and headaches so I need to find a better way to stop the cycle when it starts before it gets out of control.

So to sum it up - just working through what types of accommodations and limitations I have over the last few days brings up all this history and fear around migraines. I didn't know how deeply rooted some of these feelings were and how much work I have to do within myself to free me from these self-defeating cycles.