2003-07-02 - 1:50 a.m.

I am committed to doing everything in my power to stop having bouts of extreme anxiety. I keep thinking about my heart stopping, to the point that everytime my heart beats a little fast, I get scared I am going to die. I count, I do deep breathing, I pray, and eventually it goes away. It is frightening, especially when it happens while I am in the car.

I quit smoking weed until I get the anxiety totally under control, since the weed seems to trigger bouts of panic. My doctor increased my dosage of my anxiety medication, but it still does not seem like enough. I have an appointment with him next week, and I am going to see about increasing the amount of meds once more. Most importantly, I am trying to lose weight. I think most of the symptoms of the anxiety will go away once I lose a significant amount of weight. I am at the point right now where I am so big that walking from one room to the next increases my pulse rate, and when my pulse rate increases, I get anxiety.

Anyway, I have been thinking about the Other Side a lot lately. I am going to buy myself a John Edwards book. I have been reading Sylvia Brown, and while the Other Side sounds like a wonderful place, I don't think I want to go there any time soon. I was reading yesterday about contacting your spiritual guide. Sylvia says that most of the time when a child has an imaginary friend, it is actually their spiritual guide. If that is true, my spiritual guide is a boy/man named Gongu. It sounds like an Indian or African name, I think. Anyway, Gongu was my imaginary friend as a child. One time I went so far as to tell my Mom that Gongu was having a birthday party. She humored me by looking for his house while we were out driving. Sylvia says that you should encourage children to contact their imaginary playmates, as this is their spiritual guide. I wonder if that is true. Hmmm, I don't know if I will ever figure it out.