Tag: anxiety

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Just hold on.

tec

I’m having a moment where I’m trying to remember all our lasts. In case you don’t come back. In case the devastation of that undoes me so irrevocably that I can’t recall a single thing about today. Or yesterday.

I slept on you this morning. It was the best half hour of sleep I’ve had in months and I don’t think I ever actually slept. You kissed me and called me beautiful when I got home from my walk. I don’t want to remember that last tho…because it wasn’t you anymore.

We kissed last night. It felt like you. A glimpse of you between the drinks.

I’m trying to find the hope and the light, but it is currently too far to reach.

Your life doesn’t mean anything to you in this moment and I am now standing here, the girl who doesn’t know which story will be hers. Will I be the girl who loses you forever come morning? Will I be able to honor the me in another universe who got to keep you when I didn’t get to? Is there another me in some other universe who has already gotten the call?

I’ve never been this sick with worry and fear. They say that to keep going, you just have to put one foot in front of the other. I’m doing that, but all I can manage is pacing circles.

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Spinning in your head.

tec

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The voices in my head could shut the fuck up now. This is the least relaxing walk ever.

~~~~~~~

Eta

It was my intention to turn the day around. Just because Chris was on the phone and the girl was sleeping and the boys were doing homework and watching netflix (respectable) didn’t mean I had to lose the last warm weather day. So I took Harley for a walk.

But instead of enjoying the walk and the weather and the outside, I just could not stop the voices in my head. The voices waiting for the argument to ensue. It was like I was trying to protect some future me, in case my walk was misconstrued. And so now I’m back home and the sun is slowing going down and the weather is mild, but verging chilly and…this weekend was no reprieve at all.

I get to practice again tomorrow.

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The sun broke free of the clouds.

tec

A letter to my husband:

He once told you that I feel trapped. And I feel like it’s the biggest disservice he ever did us.

There was never ever going to be me convincing you otherwise because his word was gospel. So while I never argue the point, I never agreed with it either. I know at the time I said I didn’t agree, but any time you’ve brought it up since, I’ve let it be. It felt too big a thing to put my energy against. Because that’s what it was. Energy against. And not energy into.

Pouring energy into something is positive and constructive. Pouring energy against something is just…insanity.

So I let it be.

This morning a wave of depression crashed upon me. Yesterday was more than I could take after last week. Then this morning when the tire pressure light came on again and I was driving on empty it all got really big. I still went about life anyway. Kids needed to be taken to school. Dishes needed to be done. Life goes on.

But just now as I was washing the dishes, a snapshot of a text conversation flashed in my mind. I was in the basement doing laundry. There was a suggestion to do something fun because it was my birthday. The insinuation that I could go elsewhere with elseothers. “Go out and do karaoke.” I would like that, I had replied. “So go now with Chris.” It’s not the same, I replied.

It’s not the same.

That one line. That one line caused someone else to form the belief that I felt trapped.

He told you I felt trapped. The assumption was always that it was about you and our children. That was the lie I haven’t been able to undo.

I see it clearly now. As I stand here with half-washed dishes behind me. Because this just couldn’t wait. I had to type this out right away. Because I couldn’t squander this moment of clarity. This opportunity of having all the right words.

I said it wouldn’t be the same doing karaoke with you. It wasn’t a slight against you. It wasn’t because I felt trapped by you. I felt trapped within myself.

It wasn’t until just right now, while I stood under a shroud of heavy depression that I could better recall that night. A night filled with depression. Months of depression. And when I said I would love to go out, it was the image of escaping me that filled my head.

I would never go somewhere and sing in front of people. That sounds terrible. But I wanted to be the person who could do that and think of it as fun, just so I could get away from me.

I wanted an escape from me, for just a moment. The thought of a physical escape from being trapped inside myself was appealing. Desperately appealing. For just that moment I needed the illusion of escape.

If anything real existed in that illusion, it would break. So, if you–the most real thing in my life–came, it wouldn’t be the same. You would have broken the illusion.

I never felt trapped in this life with you. I felt trapped in my own head. He didn’t think to differentiate.

I’m sorry I didn’t have the words until now. I’m sorry I felt so small and that that conversation gave way to a misunderstanding that was so big. I don’t feel small like that anymore, not even today under the weight of…all the things. I don’t feel trapped inside myself. It would mean everything if you’d believe me that I never felt trapped by you. It would be everything to heal this part.

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Forever your girl.

tec

Three hours ago, it was like this.

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And then the kids came with me to the store! We drove the 12 minutes to Stop #1 and I came to realize I didn’t have my driver’s license or money. So we drove back home and all the while I was thinking, “It’s a really lovely day” even with the kids bickering.

And then I didn’t get stopped by a cop! Because I don’t believe in “it figures”. We made our three stops and I appreciated the luxury of being able to do my own shopping. I drove home safely, while watching the more reckless drivers from a safe distance, wishing them well all the while.

When we got home Harley ran outside to greet us and then wanted to hunt squirrels. I managed to drop my phone and trip over her twice in order to get her into the backyard because it was closer than walking around to the garage. After she was safely inside, L and I walked around to the driveway to be greeted by Harley. Apparently the door to the house was open. And all I could do was laugh at all the follies. Even feeling the creeping blanket of depression today, I can still see all the light.

My super power is my silver-lined optimism.

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I will shelter you.

tec

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Chris has a friend out visiting today. Said friend is bogged with anxiety and intelligence. It’s always difficult to navigate being around him because I am so sensitive to his energy. I never feel calm or chill. That bumps up my anxiety.

On top of that it triggers me when someone constantly–without rest or reprieve–talks like he knows everything, including my life, like he has better firsthand knowledge than I do. It’s not a comfort to me to tell me about my dog or my children. Furthermore, it’s aggravating that if you know allllll about child development, but then laugh in my 3 year old’s face as he’s processing a learning moment, well, fuck, man. That’s lame.

But here’s the thing. That’s his zoo. I have my own zoo. I can’t do anything about his super annoying to me need to comment on all the things all the time. There’s no need to convince or sway or…anything. I can walk away.

Let me be the first to say that this is *not* the easy route. It’s a super sucky route. But it’s the right route. It’s the path that saves me from a further downward cycle of anxiety and rage. And it’s just one moment amid thousands.

If I fight this battle, I’m going to lose the war. My family deserves better. I deserve better. And only I can dictate my choices.

So I’m going to keep telling myself that over and over instead of engaging in any conversation.

This is my safe place.

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The outside turning in.

tec

I haven’t written in a long time. Again. I don’t even want to be writing right now.

I have been actively participating in life. I have been staying on top of responsibilities. Actions that, in the past, have paralyzed me. Phones call to find three different new doctors/specialists for my kids. More phones to set up appointments and preregistrations. More phone calls when something comes up and the doctor needs to reschedule. Filling out paperwork. Going to new appointments. Navigating my daughter’s desire to have nothing to do with me. Navigating my son’s desire to have no confidence in himself whatsoever. (Okay, he probably doesn’t *desire* this…but also…kinda?… He’s a conundrum.) Also add in school supply shopping and orientations. And R’s eye exams and new glasses.

I’ve wanted to tell actual stories about all these things, but after accomplishing all these really hard for me things, I’m just too exhausted to sit and write about them.

And now that I’ve typed all this out I have to navigate the sadness that I haven’t found room to do both act and process. I will need to be gentle with myself as I find a way to balance back out before I burn myself out.

In the meantime, I’m going to sit here with L for the first quiet morning I’ve had in weeks.

 

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Swallow the light from the sun.

tec

It’s like the glass floor beneath my feet has spiderweb’d into a million stray lines that, at any moment, could splinter to their end and fall away completely.

I haven’t written in forever. I post on twitter occasionally, but I didn’t take the time to transfer them here like I had planned to. I didn’t write when life got really amazing and Chris was the embodiment of all I always knew he could be–better than the picture I had in mind even. And I didn’t write when mental illness took him from me–for the weeks of his anxiety at a level I had yet to experience from him, and he hadn’t experienced himself in over a decade; for the endless loop of anger and confrontation I didn’t know was possible to direct at me; for the impatience I didn’t know he could direct at our children; for the revolving anxiety and depression and paranoia and insomnia; for the random moments of cognizance that dripped with apology and hope that he could come back to himself by sheer will.

And then he was himself again. I was cautious, but I could tell I had him back. That it was the real him. For a bit. For a couple days. For a few.

And then yesterday it wasn’t him again. And I cried. And then he took a walk with our son and they had a good time. After they got home, he texted to say it felt like I was upset with him. I told him I felt on edge from our conversation earlier. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. He didn’t text back more because he had gotten very tired (as one would after a long day of hard labor) and he fell asleep.

After he got up, he got almost belligerently, unreasonably upset about his family (his parents and sister) and couldn’t be calmed about it. Then told me he still didn’t know what I was talking about in our text conversation. I recounted our conversation from earlier in the day and he stared at me blankly.

He has no memory of that conversation.

And so here I am now, writing. Because I feel lost and this is how I find me. I love my husband like nobody’s business. I don’t know what to do. He needs to go to the doctor, but I can’t make him. We have vacation coming up in a couple days. I don’t know when the floor under me is going to shatter further. I don’t want to survive him slipping away from me. Yet I’d have no choice.

I am terrified.