Awake

Originally posted on October 17, 2014 

I remember a day when being awake in the middle of the night was a normal part of who I was. Of course, there was usually alcohol or cocaine, or both, involved and I was much younger. I also thought I was immortal, could scale walls, and nothing in the world could touch me.

This night, some thirty years later, when I am up at this hour (which happens to be 2:30 am) it’s due to short term insomnia and anxiety. I suppose at this moment I should be thrilled I didn’t wake in the throes of one of my more vicious enemies, the 3 a.m. panic attack.

My heart isn’t pounding, I’m not fighting to breathe or drenched in cold sweat. But something is bothering me and it is enough the keep me awake tonight.

Did I mention that I hate to be awake in the middle of the night?

It brings reminders of days I would much rather forget. Sure, the house isn’t full of people talking over each other in a drug induced certainty that we know all the world’s issues AND how to solve each and every one, not realizing in the morning that we will just be paranoid, sleep deprived idiots lucky enough not to have killed ourselves this time.

This night, still some thirty years later, finds me in my corner of the couch already drinking coffee since I know I won’t be going back to sleep. I am writing this post in hopes of expelling, at least temporarily, the demons that I fight even in slumber. At least this time they haven’t crippled me to the point where I am struggling not to wake my husband, begging him to make it go away or considering calling 911 because I’m convinced this is the heart attack I’ve been waiting to happen for years now. My children sleep in their rooms, still hours to go before they need to wipe the sleep from their own eyes and get about their days.

So I sit where I find comfort, in the ‘worn to the shape of my butt’ corner of the leather La-Z-Boy couch and I write words for whoever might be listening and hope that someone will say, ‘Me too.’

Not because I want someone else to feel this same lack of control over their own thoughts and feelings or because I want them to be lying awake perpetuating the cycle considering all the things that will be wrong today because they didn’t get enough sleep.

I just don’t want to be alone. I despise my own company in the middle of the night. I catastrophize. Seriously….we are out of pickles and hand soap.

I wish I could anticipate these issues. In reality I should have. We have had sickness in the house, the flu or another virus running the course of our house, touching everyone in its wake and has had two kids home from school for days at a time, Jeff is leaving again today for the fourth time in as many weeks. I’ve been sick and behind on all things which are piling up to become the mountains I loathe. (Actually they are hills. Tiny mounds really. But perhaps you know). It’s the lack of control, the disorder of things normally ordered and routine.

I’m certainly not solving any world problems, or local ones for that matter, tonight. I’m also apparently not sleeping since it’s time for me to wake my husband so he can get on the road. Again.

In the light of the day I will be able find the patience I need to claim my rational, sane side once more and I will likely forget this happened.

Until next time.

photo credit: Victor Porof via photopin cc

Emotional Chaos

Originally posted on July 17, 2014

I know when the emotional chaos of panic and depression is coming. I am well aware of this mayhem peeking up over the horizon of my mind. There is a shift that I can’t explain.

It begins when I  wake up in the very early morning hours, disoriented and in the throes of panic. My heart is pounding and I am disoriented. At times I can’t feel my limbs and find myself unable to swallow and gasping for air. I have no idea why it happens in the middle of the night. There are worse feelings than waking from a dead sleep in the middle of a panic attack but at the time I would be hard pressed to name one.

During the next couple of days, I will know there was an episode of anxiety but it is cloudy. My mind only allows me a vague memory. It’s just a short reprieve for the real fun that’s about to begin.

It usually takes a couple of days before the depression takes hold. When it does, I feel completely powerless. The rational part of me tells me that all I need to do is take a bike ride or a shower, do something normal and keep putting one foot in front of the other and my thinking will return to normal. I can resume my life.

Sadly, the irrational demon that lives within me has other plans.

These days between the panic and the depression are as normal as any other and I function as such. I will regale my husband with tales of the day with exaggerated, yet genuine, vigor. I will have seemingly boundless energy. I will laugh loud and love hard.

Then the agitation begins. The smallest of things will irritate me. Social media becomes an enemy. I can’t read status updates without feeling an anger that sometimes borders on rage.

Writing is impossible since I can’t keep a coherent thought in my head and everything is tainted with and edge of anger and resentment.

My patience with my kids hits a low and even a goodnight kiss that feels like the flick of butterfly wings on my cheek makes me shudder. Anything my husband does makes me clench my jaw and bite back hateful words that aren’t a true reflection of my feelings, just the beast trying to create a foe, provoke a fight.

I will stop in the middle of flipping through the mail and slide to the kitchen floor because suddenly I am terrified and it feels like a safe place to be.

A drive to the grocery store because I am out of coffee seems to take Herculean effort and everyone in my path irritates me. I hurry, needing this chore to be over because those few moments exhaust me beyond reason.

I feel an overwhelming urge to cry. Let me release the havoc. Please!

But I can’t. Not a tear will come.

I want to give in and give up. These are the days I want to get in my car, drive away, never look back. I want to walk away from everyone and everything. I don’t answer my phone. I don’t interact. I simply shut down, going through the motions of every day life with no enthusiasm and forced interest.

I just want the peace to come.

Finally, thankfully, it does come and there are no casualties. Unless, of course, I count the part of my soul that has been beaten to a pulp and is now cowering in the corner, licking its wounds, waiting for the next round.

I am grateful to be strong enough to know that this is a war I may never win but that the battles eventually end. I used to self medicate with alcohol but that is on longer an option for me. By the grace of God, I don’t even consider it when the demon comes to call.

I am grateful that the episodes are sporadic and short-lived.

I’m grateful that my husband recognizes these moments and is quiet, but present. He knows and surely it irritates him to lose me during these days, perhaps even makes him a little sad though that isn’t his nature. On the rare occasion I take a step or three too far he doesn’t hesitate to let me know it is enough.

I have come to realize in the past year that writing can work much like therapy. I have met other bloggers that deal with depression and other mental health issues and do so bravely. We seek interaction, validation, and support….and find it.

I know that someone will read this and understand it. Still someone else will read this, see themselves and feel less alone.

While I have written about my anxiety and panic, this is the first time I have ever written about my battle with depression. As a recovering alcoholic and addict, I am well aware of what it is and why it comes and I accept that.

Alcoholism and addiction tried to destroy me. They didn’t. Panic and depression won’t either. These things are part of me but……

they are not all of me.

 

 

Photo credit: Zahira via photopin

Learning to Fly

As you read this I am likely on a plane, medicated and trying desperately to focus on the destination.

I’m not a good flyer. I never used to be afraid to board an airplane. I loved everything about traveling. Well, not the packing. That just sucks. I can never get all the shoes I want to take to fit in the suitcase. And as I type that I realize that not one of you cares about that first world problem.

I remember in days gone by loving the whole experience; arriving to the airport, schlepping bags in, managing through security, and finally…finding enough time to grab bags of peanut M&Ms and a few useless, trashy tabloids to wade through on the plane. Never in the terminal. No. That was reserved for Starbucks and people watching.

Today, I am terrified and I have been for days. I have been a raging banshee despite my resolution (and failed attempts) not to be. My family probably hates me a little right now.

But they’ll get over it.

Won’t they?

The last time I flew, which was this same time last year, I had a god-awful panic attack mid-air that had tears streaming down my face and an absolute conviction that I couldn’t swallow or breathe. I was wild-eyed and convinced at any moment that I would fly out of my seat and scream for someone to let me out, let me out, LET ME OUT!

At 30,000 feet.

I never left my seat and I am really hoping that won’t happen today and have taken steps to insure my sanity stays intact.

In all honesty, I had this exact same reaction on the monorail at Disney when it stopped on the raised tracks for ten minutes so my uneducated guess is it is not only flying……it’s being stuck in a tin can full of people. 

Wish me us all luck.

So, having said all of that, I have put up a couple of recycled posts for the coming week. Some of you wonderful folks who followed me here from my first blog have already read them. I do notice that  I have a few new people who have joined the ranks (for which I am incredible grateful) and these may give you a deeper look into my psyche.

Have a wonderful week, friends.

Aloha!

 

Photo credit: Liane Metzler/unsplash.com

 

Kryptonite

And I’ll let it be known
At times I have shown
Signs of all my weakness
But somewhere in me
There is strength    –    Relient K

It happens every time I am getting ready to leave on a trip far from home. Something in my mind just trips the switch and I get crazy. Angry crazy. Stupid crazy. Irrational crazy. Paralyzing crazy.

My perfectionism, my need for control, my need for all people and all things to be in all their right places, and my ability find and throw a monkey wrench into every aspect of a plan……

These things are my kryptonite.

As an introvert, I don’t stray far from home. But every once in a while, as a member of a family who craves adventure and amazing new sights I must leave the safe confines of my home and my five mile radius. I love the idea of going somewhere new; seeing lovely sights, eating decadent and different foods, seeing wonders not in the above mentioned five mile radius and making memories with my husband and children. The actual doing is a whole different animal.

I am weak. I am afraid. Of what?

Outside these walls, I have no control. Without it, my imperfections are visible and I am vulnerable, a state I find most unpleasant and completely unacceptable.

While the ‘suck it up’ and ‘never let ‘em see how you really feel’ mentality I grew up in has its advantages at times, it has done nothing to serve me in learning how to deal with uncertainty and how to take risks. Sure, I do both of these things. But I don’t do them well. At least not on the inside. You see the smile in the photos, maybe even a little campiness. The internal picture is much different.

It is a fight. Each and every time.

I realize that this need for perfection is limiting. It causes anxiety, depression, and isolation. I manage to make it through most situations with an attitude of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ but the cost is immense. I feel like I have gone five rounds in the octagon and afterward I am spent and suffer true post-traumatic stress.

This makes me sound insane.

Mostly, it makes me angry.

These ridiculous issues have the capability of stopping me from enjoying every moment of a life that is likely half over. I spent the first half standing up against the wall declining nearly all offers to dance, rarely stepping into the arena. I don’t want to live like this anymore.

I want to be all in. I want to know that I can do things and if I fail, I have failed triumphantly. I don’t want to care what other people think of me because in reality, it is none of my business. I want the smile to be genuine and the laughter to be so lengthy and strong that the muscles of my belly rebel. I want my children to look back on the photos one day and say, ‘That was the greatest trip ever.’

About every single one of them.

My perfectionism, control, and cynicism? It’s all shield and armor.

From fear.

Fear of failing.

Fear of never trying.

Fear of regret.

Fear of death.

Fear of life.

Today I am making a conscious decision to wield my sword and smash the bloody kryptonite. I will run and leap into the arena and should I stumble and fall, I will get up, dust myself off and leap again.

I am not fool enough to think that I can smash what has been building up for years upon years in one fell swoop. I may only take out a chink or two.

But, oh, what if I can?