My husband, Tom, and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary in September. He’s been very supportive of me in my struggle with schizoaffective disorder and anxiety every step of the way since we met. Today, I'd like to celebrate my husband.

A lot of worrying comes with my schizoaffective anxiety. I am constantly worrying—ask anyone who knows me. Even someone who doesn’t know me that well knows that I worry all the time. And to top it all off, I blame myself for my worrying, even though it's anxiety-related. Here’s what it’s like.

I have an extreme case of schizoaffective anxiety, and I’m preparing for major surgery. I’m getting knee replacements in both knees--one at a time. This anxiety spike about surgery is multi-faceted.

Support groups have helped me a lot with my schizoaffective disorder over the years. Here are some ways support groups have been beneficial. (Note: this post contains a trigger warning.)

I formerly used earplugs to drown out the noise and chatter in restaurants and some other public places, but now I’ve switched to noise-canceling headphones to deal with the anxiety those noises cause. Let me tell you about them and about why I need noise-canceling headphones for anxiety in the first place.

Which is worse, having really bad arthritis in my knees or hearing voices? I don’t know. They both stink, and I’ve suffered from both. Not that rank needs to be pulled, but maybe I’ll figure out which one is worse--or which one I can cope with better--by writing about hearing voices versus arthritis.

Yesterday, I noticed an eyelash on my finger. I asked my husband Tom if wishing on eyelashes amounted to magical thinking, even though I already knew it did. I just wiped the eyelash away instead of wishing on it. I am trying to stop most forms of magical thinking.

Today I'd like to share the challenges I face balancing weight loss and avoiding becoming "hangry" (hungry plus angry) with schizoaffective disorder.

My medications for schizoaffective disorder cause a lot of weight gain, as readers of this blog well know. So, when I developed osteoarthritis in my knees at age 42, I started going to a nutritionist. I wanted to lose weight to take pressure off my knees. After a while, my nutritionist put me on a popular medication to support weight loss. At first, it was working really well. But then terrible side effects set in, including unbearable nausea, so I had to stop taking it.

I have a tool in my toolbox for schizoaffective disorder that I haven’t written about before. The tool is earplugs.