Scarleteen

Hello Scarleteen once again, I feel like I bother you guys so much but I am appreciative that you guys always respond and are always kind. I made a post last year about going to six flags and leaving my pills in the locker and if they were okay. Well earlier this month on the 4th day of my new pill pack I went out with my family to visit the cemetery because it was a family member’s passing anniversary. The whole trip was 2 hours long for which an hour and a half was spent in the caR and then 30 minutes at the cemetery. I took my pills with me because I want to take them on time and be a good pill taker and while we were at the cemetery my mom parked the car under shade and I left my bag inside with my pills in the bag. It was like 84 degrees outside but we got home and I took my pill at home because the trip ended before my pill time and I looked at my pills and they were fine and didn’t have any discoloration. I remember that last year when this happened Sam replies with “if the pills look fine then you can assume they were not damaged by the heat” does this statement still stand? Are my pills still fine? They were not in any direct sunlight they were in my bag on the ground in the car.

Hi there!

Indeed, as far as I'm aware, the nature of chemistry and the universal laws of physics have not changed since last year!

Seeing as you already had the answer to this question I think it might be worth reminding yourself that when we find ourselves asking the sorts of questions which know the answers to (or which can't be satisfied with an answer) that they are probably part of anxiety.

Anxiety is not something you can deal with by trying to answer unanswerable questions, or re-ask questions whose answers obviously don't take away the stress.

My anxiety is related to social things, but the concept is simillar: I feel something like 'guilt' and I start asking "Who have I hurt? Who is angry at me? Who dislikes me? What have I done wrong?"... Usually the answer is nobody and nothing but that doesn't make the feeling go away, so my instinct is to keep asking and keep digging through all my memories.

What I do now is I recognise that that I'm asking unanswerable questions because the 'feeling' came first. So it can be better to treat it like a physical injury. So rest, sit down, notice what parts of my body are tense, meditate, try to count my breaths and talk myself down by saying kind things like "It's ok to be stressed, you don't need to solve it, you're ok".

Going to a cemetry, being with family on a 2 hour car journey, the aniversary of a family death, standing in the heat, are all things that can bring us stress, and for anxious people stress can set us off to anxious thoughts. Do you think some of that was happening for you?

What would you think to treating this 'question asking' as anxiety? And maybe looking for ways to calm yourself aside from answering the question?