Anxiety - A National Pastime

Are you excited for the vaccine?  I can't tell you how much I look forward to being invited to partake of it, not once but twice apparently.  I've heard through the grapevine that one of my sisters in law will refuse to take it, she is anxious about it apparently.  She has two grandchildren with autism.  Both her son and his wife, we all believe, are on the scale of autism too though its never been discussed in the family so we're not sure if s.i.l. realises it.  We're pretty sure she's refusing the vaccine on the grounds of the conspiracy that surrounds autism and the MMR vaccine.  I don't know enough about either autism or MMR to comment but I do know that vaccines on the whole do more good than harm.  Yes there have been terrible consequences in the past and I realise that could easily happen again but I think it's a judgement call we all have to make and mine is that I and my family will be safer if the vaccine means we would only get a mild case of Covid because of it, should we catch it.  I also think a lot of countries will demand to see proof you've had it to travel for the foreseeable future so her love of going on holiday to Europe may be curtailed too.  That said, Brexit might do that anyway!

I've been feeling a bit anxious myself lately.  I know I'm anxious when my tongue starts to burn!  Many years ago my tongue was giving me a lot of bother.  It felt the way it does when you eat something too hot and your tongue burns for ages afterwards.  I couldn't understand it.  The doctor couldn't understand it.  I was convinced it was cancer or some other horror on my tongue.  After much toing and froing to the doctor, she eventually referred me to a consultant at the dental hospital.  He took one look at it and said 'are you feeling anxious or depressed'  I wasn't depressed but I was under a lot of pressure at the time and there was a lot of stress about it and of course having a sore tongue was making me anxious too so 'yes' I replied and he said, that's what's wrong!  He told me when you're stressed you have a tendancy to hold your tongue tightly pressed against the roof of your mouth.  That, over a period of time, makes the tongue sore and then it takes a while to settle down again.  He said he could prescribe some anti depressants which would help but I said no thanks, now that I know whats going on I'll try to deal with it myself and I did.  However to this day, when I'm anxious or worried I get a sore and tingling tongue and it about drives me nuts!  At the moment its a double whammy.  My tongue is burning but I also have a small spot on the tip of it and of course can I leave it alone with my tongue - NO!!  

Part of my anxiety is to do with my mum.   She and I are constantly arguing at the moment.  We're not used to speaking to each other on a daily basis (at least we weren't!)  I used to phone her about twice a week and visit with her once a week, or more if she needed anything.  However, when my dad died last year I took to phoning her more often to check on her and just as that was easing a bit it was Christmas and New year, hard times to deal with when you've lost someone so I was back to phoning her daily again and of course we'd just eased off on that when the first lockdown came along and it was back to daily phonecalls.   This time it's continued as she's now convinced she'll die and no one will know if I don't phone her!  She seems to think if I don't phone her to check she's alive she'll somehow lie dead or dying for days!!  There is no logic to this as she has many kind neighbours, my brother speaks to her all the time and has her for dinner three times a week, my cousins phone her about once a week, her own brother phones her from Australia once a week.  Yet, I'm charged with phoning her daily even though I can't do right for doing wrong!  It's stressing me yet I know I have to keep doing it.  I don't want to fall out with her, but I can't help but bite the bait.  Hubby says to count to ten and carry on like nothing happened but it's not in my nature.  I don't know what she wants from me, but I have to find a way to deal with this that won't make my tongue sore!  

I need to go now and make some tea.  It's almost bedtime for me.  I was going through a phase of sleeping very badly.  Waking really early and not being able to get back to sleep but it seems to be righting itself again thank goodness.  I hate not being able to get to sleep or waking really early unable to get back over to sleep.  I am very grateful that it's not something I have to worry about very often.

Wishing you all a good nights sleep.  Take care. xx