Saturday, October 11, 2014

Psychomotor Agitation

The only way I can sit down to write this right now is because of Xanax.

There are periods where I just can’t stay still. I have to constantly be moving; whether it is walking around, clapping my hands, or wiggling my fingers. I just have to be moving. I cannot control myself. I have a very hard time trying to explain what it is like, but for the first time I looked into these symptoms. I came across Psychomotor Agitation. It usually appears with a depressed or manic/hypomanic episode. I found this on natashatracy.com

If you’ve ever suffered from psychomotor agitation you can attest to the fact that it is very unpleasant. Psychomotor agitation feels like a grinding of sandpaper against your bones that produces a need for useless movement such as hand-wringing, pacing or toe-tapping. It is annoyance in its highest form. It’s something that cannot be ignored or denied. Psychomotor agitation really takes over the consciousness when it’s pronounced. You can’t rest when psychomotor agitation is present. Your body and mind just can’t seem to calm themselves”

This is how I’ve felt for the past two days. It was bad yesterday afternoon while I was at work. I don’t know what started first, the restlessness or anxiety, but I just working myself up and was really uncomfortable. When I got home I had a Xanax which worked for a while, then around 9pm I took a 2nd and was able to fall asleep.

Today I got through work pretty well, I think because it was busy so I was focusing on something else. But it’s started to get worse when I got home. I had a Xanax a little while ago which helped enough to be able to sit down. However, my legs are bouncing around and I can’t stop moving my jaw. I can’t look in one direction, I have to keep moving my head around. It’s uncomfortable.

This is different than just having a lot of energy. When I have a lot of energy I’m busy, getting things done, like housework. I keep trying to do things like cleaning or laundry but I can’t even focus my energy on something like that. The only think I can think about doing is walking around the apartment in circles. And that doesn’t even feel like enough.

**I don't know why this post came out funny. I couldn't figure out how to change it back to normal.


  

1 comment:

  1. This is quite interesting. I've never heard of this before. Although, I don't think I've ever talked to a therapist about it either. When I go through deep depressive episodes, like now, I tend to move more.... just pace, i wiggle my fingers a lot, i tap my foot and even sometimes get stuck on a phrase and I'll either say it out loud too many times or in my head. X has caught on to that one, real quick! It's like very inch of me is crawling and I need to move to not feel it.

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