Hiya friends, welcome back. I am forever apologizing for my absence, but I’m going to explain why. You might want a snack, and maybe a drink, shit’s about to get real. It’s also gonna be a long one, again, I apologize.
Since I started this blog thing, I’ve tried to be as open and honest as I could be about my life and dealing with anxiety and panic disorders. I have to admit, while I would discuss any of it, what I wouldn’t talk about was just how bad it had gotten. I tend to downplay the struggle because I don’t like to come across as whiny or weak.
For the better part of seven years, I’ve worn this mask of the funny girl, who gets awkward when she’s anxious and makes silly jokes to keep people from seeing the fear and pain that hide in her brain. I’ve lied and said I’m fine more times than I care to count. I’ve smiled and laughed when in actuality I just wanted to hide and cry. I never wanted people to look at me and see the broken, hurt, fear, or lonely. I wanted to be tough, and brave, I needed to be the one who fixed everyone else’s problems so I could be proud and feel useful, but I was really just running from my own baggage and the emotions that came with it.
Around the tail end of last year, my mask started to slip. It became increasingly difficult to play my role when inside I was just in fucking tatters. I knew that something had to give, I’d come to a crossroad and a decision had to be made. Essentially the door in my Memory Warehouse, behind which I store all the shitty things I don’t want to deal with or think about, had broken (shitty craftsmanship on my part) and the Asshole was in there having a fucking field day. I had run out of duct tape and wood. I dealt with it as best I could, and all but crawled my way through the holidays and the new year. I wrote my cookie cutter blogs about happier things and tried to fake my way through.
I think those closest to me had some inclination that something wasn’t right, but I also think they were too afraid to tell me they could see behind the mask. I tend to get a bit snippy when people ask if I’m okay, especially if I’m not. It meant people were seeing me for what I was, an anxious and panicky mess.
Cut to April. The happy blogs had stopped, and so had I. My days were just a roller coaster of anxiety and panic. I was having trouble sleeping, and when I did it was not very restful. I came to the realization that I’ve been fighting this battle solo for a very long time, I was drowning and it was time to ask for some help.
The next day, I made an appointment with my GP and from there she put me in touch with a woman in the practice who could help. After an appointment with the behavioral health specialist, she gave me the number of a therapist that she thought could help. I called him that day and scheduled an appointment.
It’s been about six weeks since I started seeing the Brain Wrangler (hereby 
known as Doc), and I feel like I can breathe a bit easier now. It’s a slow process, but I’m working through it and this time I’m not alone. Doc thinks it’s time to dismantle the door and clear out the infection. I am about to stand toe-to-toe with every shitty piece of my past, and I’d be lying if I said this didn’t petrify me. Just thinking about reliving some of this shit makes me want to run and hide, but I know it has to happen. I know the only way I can find peace, and the elusive beast that is actual happiness is to do this. I know I’ll never be “cured,” I’ll deal with anxiety and panic forever, but I can find some relief. I deserve it.
Well, there you have it, the truth about where I’ve been. I plan on writing some more about this, so if that sounds like something you’d be interested in…stick around. If not, I totally get it, looking inside someone’s brain isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Until next time…
room is a color called “Salamander” but seriously, it’s basically Link’s Tunic Green (not really shocking if you know Hobbs). The other colors were chosen, I suspect, for their names more than the actual hue. They all have space-related names, Hobbs is a nerd for space. Needless to say, the new paint made the house feel more like us. Also, as I write this I’m pricing out new dishwashers because ours shit the bed. Buying a house was a dream of ours, but man we were NOT prepared for how much money we were about to sink into it.
let me tell you…I nailed it!) Honestly, I enjoyed having my whole family here, and it wasn’t as horrible as I initially thought it would be. I might even consider doing it again next year…don’t hold me to that though. Oh, before I forget, two honorable mentions for this section of my life…both my oldest nephew and my brother got engaged in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, I get a new sister-in-law, and a new niece-in-law (is that even a thing?). Also shocking…I like them both.
This year I refuse to make resolutions, mainly because I never fucking keep them. In place of hastily made resolutions, I’ve decided to implement some simple, yet well-placed, changes. Firstly, I’m gonna work on taking care of myself better, not just physically but mentally as well. To be fair, my mental health has taken a backseat and I think I’ve gotten myself as far as I can on my own. I’m taking my own advice and calling in some reinforcements. Wish me luck. Next, it’s time to get my shit together. The plan is to get myself on a schedule, that way I have time to write. I miss writing. I need to write more. I just want to have time to sit here and be creative without worrying over what’s not getting done. Lastly, Hobbs and I have made the decision that it’s time to start the family plan. We’ve been married 7 years and together almost 11, and we’ve been putting off the kids because there were things we wanted to do first (namely, buy a fucking house). Well, we’ve gone and done that, so let’s add tiny Hobbs and Biblios.
I was a little anxious today. On the scale, I’d say I was probably coming in at a 7 or 8. What made it really annoying was that I really couldn’t figure out why. It probably didn’t help that Panic showed up at around noon and decided we were having a day together. Sometimes, I think I can handle both, anxiety and panic, really well when they’re separate, but when they decide to gang up on me? Yeah, fucking forget it.
the house (ours is only a 100 amp, and that means no running the stove and the dryer at the same time. Buy a house, they said. It’ll be fun, they said…). A trip to Lowe’s meant that I needed to shut the Asshole and panic down so I could get my shit done, and that’s exactly what I did. I even went out to dinner, granted by the end of the meal, I was crawling out of my skin to get home, but still.
Have you ever just felt off? That’s how I felt all day on Monday. I honestly don’t know if it was due to the lack of sleep or the Asshole just hanging around. It almost felt like I couldn’t get my brain and body on the same page. All. Damn. Day.
complete with barbed wire walls and lego floors (he really hates it and that gives me some sort of sick pleasure).
people, there are things on our walls now – about fucking time, to be honest. I was super proud of myself, I drilled and hammered like a boss (did anyone else’s brain take a trip in the gutter? No? Just mine then?). Hobbs was the ever present moral support, helping me decide where things went but other than that I was on my own for the actual hanging.
guess he decided it was game time. I spent a lot of the night battling and trying to get caught up on my blog. I don’t even know why he showed up, honestly. I did some thinking about it, and it could be a number of things, from preparing for our guests to worrying about this job I applied for. I’m basically too tired to fight him tonight, so I’m just going to attempt to sleep this away. Wish me luck!
four, and I felt I could take on the world. This feeling happens so few and far between that when it does I fucking revel in it.
my anxiety and panic. Which inevitably reminded me that, in that time, I never thought I’d come out on the other side. Whenever Hobbs and I discuss this period of time, we just call it ‘The Dark Time’. Obviously, it’s not really my favorite thing in the world to talk about. I mean, I’d much rather talk about my family and friends, or my pets. Actually, I’d really rather poke hot nails into my eyes, then go back there again, which is exactly why I’ve decided to talk about it now. I feel this need to tell people about how bad it can get, how bad I can get.
the vest is because people look at you differently the second you tell them. There is a moment after the words come out, that you notice the look in their eyes changes. You are no longer what they thought you once were, and instead they now know all the darkness that lives inside you.
are reasons people tell you to not live with relatives, there really are. I was still rather new in my dealings with anxiety and panic, and I’ve said before, I was struggling. The only way I can describe the struggle that I was dealing with is like this: have you ever felt like you were doing everything in your power to keep your head above water, and yet you know that it’s futile? That there is something dragging you to the depths? This is how I felt everyday when I woke up. I never had four days then, and looking back on it, I was certain I never would have a good day again. Between the anxiety/panic and living with people who were constantly finding ways to belittle me, I was drowning, and I knew it.
do with me. In that time, I was seeing my life in shades of grey; nothing made me happy. I knew on some level this was happening because I was actually believing the words I was hearing, but I couldn’t drag myself out of it. I tried not to listen to them and to block them out, but nothing worked. I was constantly hearing how horrible I was, stupid, fat, worthless (I actually described myself that way to my mother one night and I’m positive she was trying to climb through the phone to throttle me).
greeted the depression. I knew something was different. I went through the day like I usually would, cleaning, laundry, cooking. Later in the day, after Hobbs came home, I stepped onto the porch for something and I heard some of his family talking about me. “The girl is no good, she’s just dragging him down.” The last things I heard were “white trash,” and that was it. I was done. I knew I couldn’t face these people anymore. I couldn’t even stand to look at myself in a mirror then. I remember sitting down to dinner with Hobbs and really giving it my all, he actually said, “You seem better today, that’s amazing.” I wasn’t better, I was gone. I drank my face off that night, I needed the liquid courage.
got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I wasn’t even crying, I just felt numb. I don’t know if any of you have ever felt that but god, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I opened the cabinet near the sink and searched for the pills, they weren’t there. Now I know that Hobbs has gotten rid of them without knowing what I had planned. I was fucking angry, and I took the fact that I couldn’t find them to mean I needed another way out. I thought about breaking the mirror, I mean, they do that in movies all the time, it can’t be that hard. My next thought was how I didn’t want Hobbs to have to wake up to that. It would be much better for him if it looked like I just went to sleep, no gore, he didn’t deserve that.
floor that night, trying to figure out how I was going to do this. One half of me was begging for the calm that would follow, while the other was telling me to fight. It wasn’t until Hobbs walked into the living room and asked why I was still awake that I realized I had stayed up all night fighting with myself. In that moment, I looked at him and just knew I couldn’t go through with it.
I started seeing a new therapist within the week, on Hobbs insistence. We also started looking at new places. It took a little while, but we found a new place. We never told them we were leaving, just started packing and one weekend, moved out. It wasn’t until we had moved into the new apartment that he finally got the courage to say, “You were going to take them if you found them, weren’t you?” I gave him the only answer I could, “Yes.”
adn’t ever been to that place before, and thankfully, I’ve not been back since. I know that talking about it helped me, and I’m not saying that’s all it took, but it helped. If you are, or you know someone who is, in that place right now…reach out. Reach out to anyone, I don’t care if it’s a significant other, a friend, or a fucking stranger, no one deserves to go through that alone. The dark is scary when you’re alone. Sometimes it helps to ask a friend for a flashlight. I’ve got one if someone needs it.
Usually, I do not leave the house without my security blanket – otherwise known as Hobbs. (He tends to act as a buffer between me and the world…actually it’s more like he keeps me anchored so I don’t drown in the anxiety or panic.) As we all know, he has been home this week because he’s sick, so he couldn’t very well go to the store with me, could he? Unfortunately, his not being able to go didn’t change the fact that we needed shit from said store, so I had to suck it up and go buy said shit.
panic attacks in public. I can usually keep the Asshole at bay long enough to pop in someplace and grab a few things; I mean, he talks shit the whole time, but generally, I can control it for a bit. (Side note: if anyone could see inside my memory warehouse they would laugh at the scene. It’s basically just the Asshole and I having a Mortal Kombat style face off, with the warehouse employees shouting “finish him.”) It’s really just the panic attacks that come out of fucking nowhere that ruins the real world for me. For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to risk it; it wasn’t worth it. Y’know when people say the risk is worth the reward? Yeah, not here. I have seen enough brain wranglers to know that I was dealing with a mild form of agoraphobia.
Up until a few months ago, I avoided leaving the house at all cost.
that, even when shit goes sideways, I’m not doing too bad. What’s that saying, “it’s a bad day, not a bad life”? I’m gonna get that shit embroidered on a pillow, and put it where I can see it every day to remind myself. (For those wondering, an embroidered pillow with the saying of your choice, is anywhere from $18.99 to $ 32.99. That’s vaguely affordable if you ask me.) Alright, it’s almost tomorrow now, so I should probably try to unwind and get to sleep before 3 am.
I’ve never been good at being sick. For as long as I can remember, I’ve cried my way through most illnesses. It didn’t really matter if it was something as simple as a cold, I could be found sobbing like a small child. Looking back, I can’t say for certain this wasn’t anxiety, and honestly it would explain a lot, like maybe why I still react this way.
panic is just piggybacking onto the Asshole and my already worn out body and brain. It’s really easy to spiral for me when I’m like this. If I can’t keep righting myself, it becomes almost easier to allow my brain to find the groove in the broken record and continuously replay that one spot. I also have seen enough therapists to know that, more than just illness, death is a massive issue for me. When I’m sick, in my mind, it puts me closer to that and I just lose it.
Maybe I should take the time to explain that anxiety and panic are two completely separate entities. I know that a lot of people seem to think that they are the same thing, but that isn’t true. I mean, one can cause the other, and they can coexist in the samehabitat, but they are different. The easiest way to explain the difference is that panic happens without any trigger, generally when there really isn’t any perceived danger, and can show up out of nowhere. Anxiety happens because you think there is danger, usually triggered by actual real life situations, and for the most part, you can feel it building before it hits.
I guess, the smart way to do this from now on is to just jump into my day. The first good thing I can report is that I had no anxiety last night, I actually fell asleep rather early (1:30am is early, no matter how you look at it). I woke up and did the usual mini check in with myself. In case you’re wondering what a check-in is, let me explain. Within the first couple of minutes after my eyes pop open in the morning, I take a couple seconds to take a mental inventory. I’m basically just seeing where I am along my scale. In all honesty, I try not to spend any more than a minute doing this, only because it can lead to jumping numbers. Example: I wake up at a lovely four, and then spend too long taking inventory and the next thing I know, the Asshole shows up and starts his “Greatest Hits” playlist, and hello ten.
two cents, “What if he doesn’t remember, and doesn’t bring one, then there is no marinade, which means no dinner, which means Hobbs will have blood sugar issues all night, which means he could end up in the hospital…” Logically, I know this isn’t the natural progression of things. IF he did forget, I would have just made an adjustment to dinner and we both would have eaten, no big deal. One of the fun things about anxiety is Spock (geek hint: Spock is highly logical) plays no role in it. I am constantly thinking worst case scenario. It’s pretty safe to say I’m who you want on your apocalypse team; I will make sure you are prepared for everything.
It would have been so helpful to hear just one person say that it was okay if I couldn’t always push through. Sometimes, you just need to live in that feeling for a little while, and that’s okay. Sometimes, you have to retreat inside and engage in mental martial arts with an asshole, and that’s okay. So, I’m going to tell you – the person who can’t just “go through” – what I wish someone would have said to me seven years ago: if you can’t push through today, it does not mean you have failed yourself. Sometimes, you have to take the scenic route to get to the other side, and sometimes…that’s where the prettiest flowers grow. Sometimes, pushing through looks less like smiling through the agony and more like continuously waking up to fight the same battle every day with a tear-stained face. Mental health/illness is not a one size fits all thing, we all have a different journey to take to find the happiness again. I used to think that I was failing, but now I see what I’m really doing – I’m finding my strength through the struggle.
I guess, the best way to start this is to give you my rundown. In case you’re new and don’t know, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and a panic disorder. I think the anxiety and panic was always there growing up, but I was probably just too busy to really focus on it. I wasn’t actually diagnosed, by a real doctor, till about 7 years ago. My life has been a rollercoaster ride of trying to find some semblance of normalcy ever since.
I guess, in a roundabout way, what I am trying to say is that I can only hope that by doing this for the entirety of the month of May, that maybe one person will read something that resonates with them. That being said, here is my promise to you: I will be unflinchingly honest about my mental health. Whether it be good or bad, you will read it. Thrown into the daily posts, I’ll try to talk about the how’s and why’s of mine, what works and doesn’t for me, along with all of the ups and downs I’ve lived after anxiety showed up.
The Biblio Feels 