Around the same time that I downloaded the Dreaming App, I also downloaded a Symptom Tracker app.
I had downloaded about three or four before finding one made by someone named Adam Cziko.
The Cziko one works best for me, because there are (for now) seemingly unlimited symptoms and treatment slots. Plus, you get to write in your own terms vs. choosing from a list.
I have some weird symptom, so I really did not like that some of the other apps tried to fit my weird symptoms into a neat little rigid box. And/Or limited the number of symptoms I can list. Because I got lots.
My only worry about the Adam Cziko app is that it tells me to upload to premium for unlimited symptoms and treatments. I'm open to uploading to premium. But when I click on upgrade to Premium, I get this:
That would all make a bit of sense if this was a paid promotional post or another kind of arranged promotional post. But it's not. The only logical explanation is that Adam Cziko is psychic and knew I was going to write this post eventually.
Or maybe it's a lucky glitch.
My worry is that I'm going to become very dependent on the app; then suddenly get a message that my freebie days are over. That won't be so bad if it's reasonably priced like the lucid dreaming app. But what if the symptom app is $6 a month rather than $6 dollars a year? Or what if it's $25 a month? Or even higher than that?
I shall also have to make sure that something sneaky doesn't happen—that my promotional access doesn't quietly end without my realizing it and suddenly I've somehow renewed the subscription.
Anyway....onto what I actually meant to talk about.
So...on the app, I have added various physical/neurological type symptoms. And I also have seven mental health symptoms. I keep adding more. I added one today. It's not as if the added symptoms are new. It's more like I thought I could just stick the symptom under another category but then realized it's better to have a separate thing. Or in some cases, maybe I feel kind of....something? I'm not sure the feeling. But I feel reluctant to add new symptoms.
Maybe it's like I feel I'm being greedy.
So....
The first symptom I added was anxiety. It's all that dreadful worrying.
I'd say about 10% of my worrying comes from known imminent threats and the other 90% comes from being in touch with reality. I mean bad things DO happen. I'm not going to sit here and say my anxiety is irrational. If I worried that a Great White Shark was going to come through the toilet and bite off my ass, THAT would be irrational. But there's a lot of bad shit that happens in the world. I worry about bad things happening, and I worry about people I love being hurt or feeling super hurt.
I also worry about things that other people would see as small stuff. Like vomiting. Because it's a phobia of mine. Or I worry about how people are going to react to a text I sent. I have a fair bit of social anxiety...or probably more precisely communication anxiety. It's this worry that I may have accidentally wrote the wrong thing....like an offensive Freudian slip. Or that I said what I meant to say but now I've made someone horribly mad.
On the symptom app, you get to mark the symptom each day as being none, mild, moderate, or severe. Well...none is actually marked by default. Otherwise, that would be a pain to have to go through and mark every single thing. But anyway...this allows you to see how often and how strong the symptom is for you.
I have anxiety a lot: 5 none days. 14 mild. 17 moderate.
The next symptom I added was insomnia. There I'm doing pretty well: 28 none. 6 mild. And 2 moderates. I should add, though, that I often take Benadryl or Melatonin...and now I also have the Lucid Dreaming blue pill to add to my repertoire.
I added overstimulated at some point. This is where I feel hyper inside. I get overexcited...often over-socially-active. I'll get really into posting and interacting on Instagram or I'll become a chatterbox in the family text streams. I guess it's maybe sort of like being manic?
It can probably be a good thing if I'm out at an actual social event...or if my family is actually enjoying me being talkative. But then when I want it to stop, it's hard for me to do so. Why do I want it to stop? Well, because even though, in a way, I'm having fun....at the same time, I don't like the feeling. It's overwhelming. I feel out of control. And maybe there's also the fact that though I'm sort of enjoying myself at the time, there will likely be ramifications later. Such as....feeling stupid, pathetic, or embarrassed for what I said or did during that hyper period. (more on that later).
On top of all that, if I'm busy being social or my mind is racing to the point I can't concentrate, it's a struggle for me to finish what I had planned to get done that day.
All that being said...I've not had many days of the overstimulated feeling: 26 none, 6 mild, and 3 moderate.
Next on the list is self-doubt. This is the only symptom that I've marked a day as severe. Outside of that, I have 4 nones, 15 mild, 15 moderate.
Severe for me usually equals me feeling I should make my blog private.
I know the worst for some people would equal attempting suicide. I'm not suicidal. I DO sometimes wish to be dead. But that actually rarely comes out of self-doubt/self-esteem issues or depression. For me, it's the anxiety, OCD issues, and hyper-empathy that makes me grateful that death exists for all of us. Sometimes I get overwhelmed worrying about things and just want it all to be over. Or I imagine one day encountering a vomit disaster and think when I'm dead, I won't have to worry about such gross things anymore. And I've actually had times where I am so horribly sad for someone that I feel I can't take it anymore. The craziest thing about the latter is that often I don't actually know or have any real evidence that the person, on my mind, is actually experiencing the dreadful emotions I'm imagining them feeling.
Okay...I've digressed a bit again.
Back to self-doubt. It's really just self-esteem issues. It's often about my lack of success and employment....which can worsen into feeling that I have no talent or worth.
There's also the imposter syndrome. Am I REALLY autistic? Am I totally ridiculous for thinking that I probably have epilepsy? Do I dare consider myself a novelist or screenwriter? Do I dare say I've experienced childhood trauma?
There's also the feeling that I'm a bad mom, a bad wife, a bad family member...a bad person who deserves all the rejection that I've received.
I feel like a stalker sometimes...worrying that I commented too often on a influencer/podcaster's post. Or if not a stalker at least a pest. *
There's that worry that people are nice to me, because they feel bad for me or because they are simply polite; but secretly they are actually disgusted by me.
I am making this all sound very bad. And it actually is. But...it's not the worst, because I'm not feeling it constantly. At times I feel okay about myself. Sometimes I feel very good about myself. Often I'm feeling the good and bad feelings at the same time....like with writing this post. A part of me thinks I'm writing something that will be interesting, relatable...raw and honest. Valuable. Another part of me is feeling this post is shamefully self-indulgent and boring.
The next emotion symptom I added was stress. For this I have 13 nones, 17 mild, and 3 moderates. There are lots of nones not because I have great coping methods but because I have a pretty low level of stress in my life...compared to many others. See above: self-doubt.
It could be that I sometimes mark stress under anxiety.
I've been using the stress symptom for times that I worry I won't be able to finish all that I planned to do that day. I'm very rigid about that. I have this set things of things I want to get done....most of it is hobby stuff. If I get the idea I won't finish it all, I start getting stressed.
The other thing that REALLY stresses me out (but maybe I've put it under anxiety?) is medical appointments. I'm past due for blood tests and the dentist. I'm very much due for a dermatology test. I think I've had one of those my whole life....probably decades ago. It will soon be time for me to have a colonoscopy, and I should start getting the yearly mammograms. Plus I probably need a general check up for menopause.
Oh...and I should probably also eventually continue with the neurological diagnosing stuff.
I've been handling all these shoulds with procrastination. When I think of ending the procrastination, I get overwhelmed with the number of medical appointment things I should do.
Wait. I forgot something. I should also maybe see a doctor about my frozen shoulder injury thing.
So yeah. I get overwhelmed and very stressed. Plus...as a member of the United States, it's not just the hatred of being at the doctor's office, interrupting my routine, etc...but the financial implications.
Besides procrastinating, my other technique to appease my lack of doctor-visits is to remember what I HAVE recently accomplished appointment-wise. A few months ago, I finally went to an eye doctor, for the first time in my life, and got prescription glasses, and I'm doing the autism-diagnosis-adventure. So that's something.
Onto the next thing.
OCD stress. I'm not officially diagnosed with OCD yet, but I'm not making light of the word. I know people get very uptight about that.
I am pretty sure I have contamination style OCD. This means I get grossed out by the idea of being contaminated by certain things—vomit, feces, urine, garbage, etc. I do a lot of hand-washing, a lot of wiping things down, a lot of pestering Tim about whether he washed his hands or wiped things down.
You know when Seinfeld threw his belt away, because it touched the toilet? That is VERY MUCH me.
Today I took a shower much earlier than I expected to, because when I went to try to wipe up some toilet cleaner that had dripped on the floor, my hair touched the toilet lid.
Now I wouldn't count the shower as the OCD stress. If I can take an action to alleviate the feelings of stress, than I don't really count it. When I would count it is if after taking a shower, I still felt contaminated. Or if I didn't have time to take a shower or I had already taken a shower that day, or it wasn't supposed to be my shower day, and I felt plagued by the feelings of contamination.
Being grossed out by hair touching the toilet lid might not be incredibly unusual. But I've also been plagued by things that other people would see as very common and unconcerning. Sometimes I can manage to ignore these things Other times I become stressed until I do something like change my shirt or wash my hands again or wipe something down once more.
For the OCD stress stats: 9 none, 10 mild, and 3 moderates.
If you're into counting and you notice all these numbers don't add up to the same total, that's because I added the symptoms on different days.
The symptom I added today is despair.
Today is definitely NOT the first time I've felt despair. And I've mentioned these dark feelings on my blog at various times.
I don't know why it took me this long to add it to my list. It might have been because I didn't know what word to use. It seems people are wanting the word depression reserved for something that is long term, diagnosed, and pervasive. So, I didn't want to use that.
But then.....
Today I decided to add it after the feeling randomly hit me. Like it often does, it came on as a sudden wave.
I Googled melancholy and despair to see which would fit better. Despair definitely seems like the more appropriate term. It feels very much like a Dementor has suddenly passed over our home.
I feel very fortunate in that the feeling doesn't often last long. But it's a bad enough feeling that even a few minutes is really shitty.
Despair is feeling that there's this dark cloud over everything, and it's going to get worse and worse. Really bad things are going to happen. Nothing good is going to ever happen again. And even if good things do happen, I'm not going to have the capability to be happy about them. When they come on quickly and then go away quickly, it makes me wonder if they're some kind of seizure.
Anyway...that's it for now. If you're like me and have lots of symptoms and are wanting to keep track. of them.. I tentatively, highly recommend the app. If it ends up being expensive, I may take back the recommendation....especially if it's in a sneaky way. Since they don't openly reveal what the price is, if it IS expensive, I will see that as being sneaky.
*-Wanted to add that rationally speaking, I don't think I'm overly pesty or a stalker when it comes to popular people on social media. I probably comment a reasonable amount. I think what's really going on is I secretly wish to be noticed by them, accepted, liked, brought into their inner circle, etc....become successful like them, etc. These feelings sometime lead to me feeling pathetic...or if they don't respond as much as I wished, I feel rejected. And feeling rejected over that makes me feel guilty and pathetic.
How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?
The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts
