Reasons I Can't Sleep #476

I used to have a fairly good sleep schedule down. Asleep by 20:30, awake at 04:30. Get up, have coffee, work on my gratitude journal, positive affirmations, etc before my little dude woke up. It was really nice. I was sleeping. I was waking up feeling pretty refreshed. And now, I'm back to staying up way too late, and waking up too late and rushing around (hello anxiety trigger.) 

People who don't have anxiety truly don't understand what it can be like at night. They tell us "just lay down and relax" or "close your eyes, you'll fall asleep." Yes, thank you Yoda. Wise, you are. That doesn't work when you have anxiety. Thoughts go into overdrive. Past failures. Past conversations where you said something stupid. Past moments of embarrassment. Past screw ups at work. Everything you did in 2009 that could possibly have upset your dead grandmother enough to flip over in her grave. I can lay there literally all night with my thoughts racing. I can work myself into panic attacks over crap that happened in middle school. I can't go back and change time. I can't change what I said to Becky from Mrs. T's class after she tripped me and called me Piggy the Trash Digger. Yet it sticks in my mind on a freaking loop for hours while I agonize over every possible outcome that could have happened. I can even tell you what color shirt Mrs. T was wearing that day, and that Becky was wearing a tacky black choker with little pink beads. She probably likes being handcuffed now. Anyway, I digress. The point is, the night can be...rough. 

I went for a walk today with my friend. It wasn't a super long walk, but it felt nice to get out and exercise. I felt good about myself for the first time in a long time because I actually went out and was active, and I avoided junk food.For me, that is huge. I came home and worked on my Motivation Wall. I put motivational quotes and positive affirmations on Post-Its and put them randomly throughout the house so I can see them, read them, and try to internalize and believe them. I started looking at some fun indoor workouts I could do, and came across a picture. It was a woman who had a ton of excess skin from losing weight. 

Cue panic. And I DO. MEAN. PANIC. 

Want to know why I can't sleep tonight? Because I'm worried that I will lose weight, not stay hydrated enough, not tone enough, and I will have pounds of excess, saggy, droopy skin that I will have to tuck into tights that will be worn under jeans. Ridiculous. I'm literally on day one of my journey and this is what my brain is doing. Trying to sabotage my progress on day one! Anything that is remotely out of my comfort zone is immediately attacked. I absolutely hate it. I HATE IT!!!

I am sitting on my couch, crying, because I am worried that I might possibly have loose skin after losing weight. At midnight. And it is making me feel sick to my stomach. It is making me feel like no man will find me desirable. Who would want to see all of that. And I don't say that to body shame the men and women with loose skin. Because they have worked their ass off for every bit of that. And I know that if I end up with loose skin, I will feel pride knowing I worked mine off as well. It's the mere THOUGHT of POSSIBLY disliking what I see more than what I already do. It makes me question whether it's even worth it. Well, of course it is, and I know that. It makes me hate my body even more than I do right now because if I wouldn't have let myself get to this point, I wouldn't even have to be worrying about loose skin, that I don't have, from weight I haven't lost, on day one of my journey, at MIDNIGHT. Jesus Christ. 

Do you see how annoying this is yet? I know it's nothing to worry about. I know it's nothing to stress about. I definitely know it's nothing to have chest pains and nausea about. I just can't shut my brain up long enough to convince it of that fact. 

I'm not sure why I'm posting this. Maybe just to give a little insight into what it's like to be stuck in this continual state of useless, baseless, and senseless anxiety/panic. And it kind of helps to barf it out of my brain to process it in written form vs thought form. Either way, my panic is starting to subside, so I believe I'll lay back and enjoy another episode of The Dead Files. 

Goodnight
-Slips-