When Anxiety Attacks

Yesterday I had to leave work early because of a major anxiety attack. My coworkers are all aware of my struggles with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, so I don’t think it really surprised any of them when I said I was heading home at lunch. One of my newest employees even said that he knew something was wrong when I was rubbing my face while looking at something that should have been fairly easy to decipher.

I have dealt with generalized anxiety disorder for most of my adult life. In fact, trying to deal with panic attacks in college was what led me to learn to crochet and knit. I will always remember the day that I met my friend Kim in Spanish class and asked her about the scarf she was working on and if she would teach me.

Some days, the disease wins. Some days, I can tame down the beast with tricks and distractions. Yesterday was a combination of both. You can see from the picture above that I was pulling out several tricks for this one. I put on a very heavy weighted blanket, pulled out the knitting, and had a cat join me for the afternoon. That didn’t work for this one. I got about two rows done, then ended up taking the weighted blanket with me to the bedroom and lay down and curled up. After about three hours, I started coming down from the waves of anxiety.

When you are someone who is very logical, it can be frustrating to deal with an anxiety attack when you can’t pinpoint what could have been the trigger. Sometimes, it’s just one of those days. And that’s why I have an arsenal of tools ready to go when it is one of those days. After I started calming down, I did get about ten more rows worked on my Tudor Windows cabled cardigan. It’s about three or four inches long now and I’m enjoying working with the Upcycle Alpaca Blend yarn from KnitPicks. Upcycle isn’t as soft as a 100% alpaca yarn would be, but it also doesn’t have the halo and the splitty nature that you would get with a 100% alpaca yarn. Upcycle is a good utilitarian yarn, plus, it feels nice knowing that all the mill ends from production of the other yarns are used up to create this yarn, so it helps to add to a zero waste production line.

Stay crafty!