I wish I'd learn to listen to myself.

Over the years I've really struggled with drinking caffeinated pop. A lot. Daily. As in a 2-liter bottle every single day. A few years ago, I stopped drinking it, and I stayed away from it for 3.5 years. Then I started drinking it again, because the caffeine helped with my asthma. I eventually stopped again, because the caffeine was bothering the neuropathy associated with the fibromyalgia. It felt like I was being used as a pin cushion from the inside out, and it just wasn't worth the pain. 


I'd been off it for right at a year again when Hopper broke her leg last summer and ended up in the hospital for 10 days following surgery. I felt like I couldn't keep up with the physical demands of going back and forth from home to the hospital every day, because I was ready to drop from exhaustion. It at least gave me the energy to make it through each day. 


But then life sort of exploded, and I figured I'd just stop drinking the 2 to 4 cans of soda I was drinking each day when things settled down. Except that they didn't really settle down. In fact, they got worse, and I started struggling with anxiety like I've never experienced before.


I started anxiety meds several months ago, and although they're helping me, I'm needing another dosage increase. It's getting rather frustrating. I don't know, if the caffeine is adding to the anxiety or not, but I'm giving it up again, anyway. 


I'm on day 3 of withdrawal. 


Again. 


For the umpteenthed, and hopefully final, time in my life.