I saw the shrink today; we talked a lot about the panics. I'd somehow thought they weren't 'real' panic attacks, because they're chemically induced, but it turns out they're pretty textbook. She told me to keep checking my breathing, because it's easy to get caught in a cycle of panic and hyperventilating.
We also talked about me being off sick. I'd been thinking earlier on that at the moment, just managing the pain and the depression is stretching me to my limit - that's why trying to work was too much, and why being off sick has been such a relief. At the moment, the most pressure I can deal with is deciding whether the pain would be better lying down or sitting up, scheduling pills to make it through the day, and forcing myself to eat, that sort of thing. Even the most untaxing bit of work on top of that, like reading emails or writing a blog pushes me over the edge.
Just the pressure of waking up each day thinking 'can I work or can't I' had become dangerous, and she clearly agreed that it's much better to have simply taken the possibility away for a while.
It helped a lot having her say that, because it gave some weight to my feeling that work at the moment is too much; no matter how bad it gets, deep down I still always gave the niggling feeling that I'm skivving off.
She also reminded me that it's not always about whether doing something will make me feel better, it's just as much whether NOT doing it will make me feel worse. Like eating - I don't feel better for eating, but if I don't, it messes with the pills. So I have to remember to look at things from that angle too.
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