I did it!

It's nice to sit down, take a big breath and say I did it.  I pulled off hosting a 50th birthday party which is something I certainly wanted to do but wondered how I would manage.  I had moments Thursday through Saturday when honestly I wanted to crawl into my bed and go to sleep.  I wondered how I would get through the organising, the cleaning, the timing, the baking and all the preparations that go into such an occasion.  I knew I was capable because in the past I organised my own 40th, did all the catering etc.  I've hosted 16th and 18th birthday parties too but perhaps at those times I was in a slightly different frame of mind.

So what did I do?  There was an incredible amount of self talk going on in my head.  You can do it, one step at a time, concentrate on doing one thing at a time, check your list.  The other thing I did was take regular small breaks, you might say it was a kind of reward I gave myself for achieving tasks on the list.  I had my laptop on so I could do a bit of a browse through blog land while I had a cuppa.  It seemed to do the trick.

Saturday morning was probably my most difficult time as I had such a lot to do.  There was a point where I felt myself teetering on the edge of extreme anxiety so I sat myself down on the bed (didn't crawl in, yay) and did my best to do some yoga breathing and meditation for ten minutes.  The small mental break was quite helpful and I was able to get on with it.

We all had a wonderful evening and I was so happy to see everyone enjoying themselves and my cooking.  :-)  Getting through those moments of anxiety was an achievement and gave me a bit of confidence that I can use strategies to get through.

In a future post I want to talk about anxiety and panic attacks as they seem to go hand in hand with my depressive episodes. I'm wondering if other people suffer this too and and how they handle it.  But right now it's time for some Zzzzzz.