Zero Visibility

Ever driven in a swirling snowstorm? On a thick foggy day? During a heavy pounding downpour of rain? There’s that agitation and panic when you realize you can’t see where you are going. You become disoriented. Do you pull over? CAN you pull over or is there a car next or coming up that you’re gonna smash into? You just white knuckle the steering wheel and try to keep the car on the road at a slow speed and PRAY you make it out alive and accident free. Because there is zero visibility.

Well, that’s what my mind is like lately. I am filled with panic, racing thoughts, pounding heart, sweaty palms, shaking limbs, and an indecisiveness that is terrifying. The best I can do is get the bare minimum done, always with my kid’s needs first and foremost, and everything else…I just don’t have the mental resources for that stuff. I am doing my very best but with a cluttered unclear mind, it seems impossible to focus on any one thing. Only through stubborn willpower and nightmares where people tell me I’m neglecting my daughter if I let my panic and depression put her second, only that desperation keeps me on track with her needs. And I gotta be honest, there have been long stretches of time where I could not pick up a phone to make her well care dental or physical check ups so months would pass and I’d feel neglectful but guilt and self flogging don’t change panic or depression. This year I have managed to get her into all the appropriate appointments, meds, procedures, etc, but the cost of running myself into the ground to meet this ‘good parent’ expectation others have has left me so exhausted in every way, so lacking in clarity, so paralyzed like a deer caught in the headlights. My mind screams MOVE! but I am frozen.

When you are thus ground down, it makes sense that many things are going to go undone, pile up, and overwhelm. Because your brain is screaming MOVE! but your disorders have you paralyzed. I am terrified of what balls I am dropping in this juggling act trying to be a good parent. Which I only succeed on half way because apparently, ‘good’ parents keep the house immaculate. repairs are made, laundry is always done promptly and folded and put away and every surface is clean and nothing is ‘let go’. I wish I had the capacity to make all the fluffery important to me, but I am juggling and multi tasking best I can and I still feel like I am going under, sinking down into thick murky water and I can’t pull myself to the surface. It’s like drowning, not getting oxygen to the brain, and yet everyone expects you to perform optimally. Honestly, just getting my kid to summer camp and keeping my promises to her to participate in activities that otherwise terrified me…I slept ten solid hours last night, it took so much out of me. I was owed sleep, after how little I’d gotten all week.

But the sleep didn’t bring clarity or visibility. I need time to let this new med kick in (all the while she yanks me off my secondary antidepressant, which is as good as shooting me in the head cos monotherapy NEVER works for me and she won’t back down off her single therapy approach.) Well, time is not something I have the luxury of. I can’t put off things much longer so I keep doing the bare minimum and nothing seems to improve and I WANT to care but I…I’m in the jaws of the depression and anxiety and paranoia and I feel so helpless and hopeless. Only my love for my daughter has kept me from signing myself into a psych ward. That and the fact that the psych care here even in patient is ‘herd them through with a script within 3 days as long as you ‘think’ they aren’t suicidal or homicidal’. I’d havre called this BS if I had not witnessed it with my sister’s family member last year. They kept him 3 days, let him out with a script he couldn’t pay to fill, and he hung himself less than 36 hours later. Dead before age 50. THAT is how great the psych care here is. I don’t want to go from bad to worse and come out labeled a looney bit resident and then off myself because it’s gotten so bad even with hospitalization.

I’ve been plodding along on my own for my whole life. I can survive this. I WANT to survive this.

But right now I can’t even muster up the clarity to fix my kid an omelet. I went two days without feeding myself but a lot of that was indecisveness, anxious stomach aches, and just exhaustion.

There is just zero visibility in my mind right now and no one knows just how bad it is because no one wants to know. They just want to criticize and judge because they don’t ‘believe in’ mental illness. It’s a lonely feeling when your only real support system is your kid. She doesn;t quite understand all of mom’s issues, but she tries to be kind and do things to try to make me smile. That’s more than any adult in my life, including professionals, can be bothered to do. It seems unfair that she should be in that position but would people view it that way if I had physical problems and my kid gave me a hug and told me to feel better?

Until the world recognizes that depression and anxiety are SERIOUS ILLNESSES THAT DISABLE YOU….this culture of stigma against the mentally ill is going to add to the lack of clarity and I am going to remain blinded in this storm in my mind, too scared to stop, too scared to go, too scared to do anything but…not do anything. I’d give anything to change it but depression does not work that way.

I just want some clarity, some visibility, and a respite from the storm in my own head.

Advertisements

The Fall After The Function: Vulnerability

All my life people have opted to focus on when I am functional, or half functional. They don’t want to know the reality so I appease them by putting on the happy face and feigning my way through it. It is excrutiating.

In my previous post, I spoke of a sense of foreboding that something was going to go wrong.

People scoff and tell me I am being ridiculous.

The dryer isn’t working. And I am not bright enough, or brave enough, to discern if it’s a simple blown fuse or something far worse. And it’s not like I can have people come in and look at it and see my dust bunnies and smudged walls and cobwebs. I try to get them all but inevitably, I miss stuff. And then comes the judgement and disgust. So I don’t like inviting even family in.

I just knew something was going to go wrong.

Now you would think it would be as simple as tidy up then get someone in to check out the problem.

I am afraid after a many months long depression and doing the bare minimum it’s going to take a major overhaul before I feel comfortable letting people see the worst of it. I know this does not speak highly of me but it is what it is. My kid has clean dishes to eat from, clean clothes to wear, she has food in the cabinet and fridge, she gets bathed and her social and educational needs are met. An unwaxed floor just doesn’t seem all that important to me. Except three months of spot mopping has, well, turned it into a hands and knees scrubbing situation.

People always ask, why do you let it get so bad?

I ask, why do none of you ever notice how hard I am struggling and offer to come in and help me keep it from getting so bad?

Their answers of course are, we’re too busy, you’re a grown ass woman, grow up,et al.

Their insensitivity to my life long plight is why they are not welcome in my safe zone.

I am feeling very vulnerable tonight. VERY. Like scared and unsure. I keep being told I just need to get a job, it will give me my self esteem back.

Every job rejection is a nail in my self esteem’s coffin.

I can’t look them in the eye and say I am stable because I am not. And above all else, they want a stable employee who will show up rain or shine or panxiety attack or depressive fort blankie moment. That person is not me.

I wish I could feel safe and secure and confident but the panic attacks and paranoia just play hell on every aspect of my life. The depression sucks the joy out of the most basic things that I normally enjoy. I try to force it. I push myself harder and harder. And this is the end result. A week of pushing myself to the breaking point and there are cracks in the facade…and I have no one here to turn to.

Meanwhile a little girl doesn’t understand why mommy is always looking sad or upset, no matter how much I try to explainto her that I had an illness before she was born and I still have it, nothing to do with her. I try to slap on some silliness and interact positively with her. I am with her every moment she’s not at camp, school, or with family. I am doing the best I can, at this time.

Still, the facade continues to crackle and split.

I just feel vulnerable and scared.

And I fucking hate it.

Bedtime Tango

I zonked out at 8:30 p.m. Woke again at 9 ish,then a little after 10. Now even crampy and exhausted,I cannot slow down my brain.

I have so much to get done while Spook is staying tomorrow night at her cousin’s… it is making me toss and turn and get tangled in bedding then I throw off the blankets. Sit up mid panic attack,pissed off,worn out and frustrated.

Like some demented bedtime tango.

I doubt it would have me so bent if it were not for my dad nagging me to clean my shed while the town has dumpsters out til Sunday. I don’t know why he cannot leave me alone and butt out. I even tried to talk to stepmonster about how he is stressing me out and rather than read him the riot act to let me be…she wants to play hey,I know,I have to live with him,I am the poor lil woman who cannot speak up to daddy. Yes,she calls him daddy,soo gross.

Digressing. I try to fight my injustice collecting but that woman is such a fake and everyone knows she is in charge there so her poor victim act where she cannot even speak up to help improve my mental health…she is not my blood,they are not married, she has no legal rights to Spook. Once dad is gone I am gonna remember all the times she could have helped stand up for me and her place in our lives is gonna be tiny.

Fyi I went off on my dad on the shed matter and said I would deal with it. He called FOUR more times to bug me about it and does not a hear a word I say. He reminds me of a fellow 72 year old man child who when disagreed with starts name calling and saying,go to hell. My dad just doesn’t do it on Twitter.

Ok, I vented and it got me through the panic attacks til the meds kicked in. Maybe now I can sleep.

Secondhand Anxiety

As mentioned previously,my daughter has a dentist appointment after school today. No big deal,right?

With anxiety and panic disorders,even things,like this,that are routine and don’t impact me personally,cause nervousness to skyrocket.

I call it second hand anxiety.

Back when I first consorted with the donor and he was looking for work,the mere task of driving him to get an application and return it resulted in me being a nervous wreck. And not just the usual symptoms, I also had stomach aches,jumpiness when the phone rang,trouble sleeping. It was as if I was the one applying for the job. The donor didn’t understand it and frankly he made me feel more moronic than I already did but what can I say? Triggers and second hand anxiety.

Today’s anxiety continues to mount as the appointment nears. I have little doubt this anxiety was why I kept waking during the night and why I’ve been up since before 4 a.m.

I am doing my best not to pass this secondhand anxiety onto my kid by acting cool and nonchalant, reassuring,comforting. Dentists already freak her out without my help. It’s difficult,always faking it,but I keep trying. I am sure once it is over we will both pipe down. Ya know,unless the car runs out of gas driving to or back from town and I have to call dad or stepmonster. In which case I will need 3 mg Xanax,noise dampening headphones to block the lecture,and a rock to crawl under. As if being my age and not having even ten bucks to my name to buy gas isn’t enough humiliation.

Hard to save money when every cent goes toward bills and necessities,not like I blow it on frou-frou shit.

But,digressing…Secondhand anxiety is a real thing and while irrational…

You can’t reason with an anxiety disorder. If you could,none of us with it would take pills and go to therapy.

Living With Panic Disorder

***Disclaimer*** I am going to attempt to make this a less rant-esque post but will likely fail. Anyone who’d like to pay fo my Focalin since insurance won’t can step up and then I will stay on topic and less rant-y.***

Fairly uneventful day but not without challenges to my mental health issues.

Primarily, the generalized anxiety and panic disorders.

I recently watched a show where some ass clown character declared ‘generalized anxiety disorder is crap, grow up, it’s called LIFE.” “But, Morgue, it’s a tv show, FICTION, you do need to grow up!” Except while this particular portrayal was fictional, it is, unfortunately, the norm in widespread societal thinking. “We all have stress, we all have anxiety, hell, I fear public speaking/spiders/snakes, I suck it up.” Sad but true.

The reality is…It’s not a normal level of anxiety. It’s excessive and extreme and crippling 70% of the time, and worse when combined with multiple mental health diagnoses. It does not know reason, it does not respond to bullying by others or yourself. Not to belittle, but in some ways, anxiety/panic disorders are similar to PTSD. Not the same, but similar. It’s a condition that can turn otherwise strong, intelligent people to behave in a way contrary to logic or even their own identity. None of us choose it and the fact is, many of us don’t know why we have it, there is often no constant trigger. It’s random thus generalized.

Life with severe panic disorder is itself a hell no one should have to contend with. Many of us do have to deal with it.

This week alone, I have had several panic attacks. To my credit, I have learned to manage them, as there really is no controlling them most times…But they were episodes severe enough to stick in my brain instead of sliding off like teflon as many of my bipolar issues do.

I had a week of nightmares about losing my child to the system, reason unknown, and the other day…she was 5 minutes later than normal coming out. My brain instantly started thinking, OMFG, they took my kid, she’s not coming out, they think I am a monster, I can’t survive losing my kid to the system, I try so hard! Illogical? Perhaps. No less terrifying. And mind you, this has been a constant since she started school 4 years ago. Any time the routine deviates and she comes out late, my go to thought is, OMG THEY TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME. Honestly, it’s legit what with society’s view on mental disorders. It only takes one “well meaning” or “vengeful” person to start the ball rolling. Or a volatile fickle child who didn’t get to play until 10 p.m so she claims I am ‘mean’ to her. I stand there at the fence, waiting and watching for her to come out, year after year, and if she’s ten seconds later than the days before…Panic sets in. I become paralyzed and the terror couldn’t be more extreme or real than if being chased by a chainsaw wielding madman.

I have, over the years, learned to save any major “march to the principal and demand to know where my kid is” overeactions by reminding myself…”Susie Q is in Spook’s class, she hasn’t come out yet, so maybe the teacher kept that class late or they are just slow pokes.” It doesn’t quell the anxiery, nothing does until I see her and she is by my side, but it does give me enough perspective to NOT act like a complete ass clown. Living this way 5 days a week is miserable. Not to mentioned the crowds and the parking (lack of) and now they changed their policy and bus in the kindergartners (they used to be picked up at the office they attended) so the parking and crowds have gotten even worse…It’s a daily battle to not be an overreactive ass clown.

It doesn’t matter to the world that I have a LEGIT disorder, agreed on by no fewer than 10 doctors, since I was 20 years old. Nope, just mad as a hatter.

Another thing that set off the panic disorder/paranoia/panxiety (paranoia mixed with anxiety) is renewing paperwork for our food stamps. I finally cleared my head enough to fill it out and it said I have to interview with a caseworker. Last time I just took the papers in and they said, “Thanks, you showing up was your interview.” This time, some prickly dude at the desk decided on the spot, “Take a seat, you can talk to a caseworker” and I told him I needed to make an appt because I had ten minutes before getting my kid from school…He seemed pissy and claimed to have a caseworker call me. Whether after the deadline for losing benefits or not remains to be seen but now I feel glued to my phone.

And I am fairly certain why I suddenly need to do the in person interview. I’ve been receiving benefits ‘too long’ and they are going to demand to know why I haven’t managed to get a job and get off food stamps. The state has long been broke and my sister just had her medical and stuff cut off but hey, after 19 years with a physically and mentally able husband who won’t work but smokes his weight in pot and your kid now of legal age and not in school…Maybe in that case it’s legit.

In my case, my disability is legitimate. I WANT to work. Unfortunately, I can’t a single employer who finds a manic depressive anxiety ridden sporadically functional single mom a ‘good’ job candidate. I’ll write greeting cards, do balloon porn (oddly, yeah, it’s a thing, weird, but not as weird as foot porn), pretty much anything with a flexible schedule to work around my disabilities. In this area…Those jobs don’t exist, especially when you burned every bridge you’re qualified for years before getting a diagnosis that would explain your flaky behavior to potential employers. And considering my mental state is so precarious I can’t even bathe reguarly or wear undergarments or even take my kid to a bloody carnival cos the crowds make me spaz…I’m not touting myself as stable or desirable.

Again, the world does not care.

So here I sit waiting for public aid to call and set up an appt to lambaste and further shame me just so I can get benefits to half ass buy food for my kid. This isn’t swallowing your pride, this is cannibalizing your own soul. This was not supposed to be my life. But then, I was never supposed to be on a medication that caused brain damage, either. Which wouldn’t have happened had our local hospital been competent enough to contact my doctor (and they were presented with the bottles of my psych meds with the doctor’s name on them) so I could have been treated sooner before the mini stroke and brain damage.

Sometimes, it really IS a chain reaction of shitty events that lead you down the rabbit hole.

To anyone who says anxiety and panic disorders are ‘bullshit’…I wish it upon you not out of spite but out of a desire for empathy. You don’t know until you’ve been here and your judgement says more about you than me, or others with this malady. You wouldn’t presume to be so rude and dismissive of a cancer patient’s battle but mental health issues are fair game?

Makes me grateful that “rude and cruel” are not synonyms for “chemically imbalanced”.

Even imbalanced, I can muster up empathy.

a glimpse into panxiety attacks

8***forgive this post, my keyboard doesn’t work right, i am not home, and this is being copied from paper because, well, you’ll see….

3/6/15 12:16 pm

The power has been out an hour. I called but so far nothing. I am so panicked I can’t discern if it’s a panic attack or some sort of stroke. woozy, dizzy,sweaty, room spinning, heart pound and one of my eyes feel ready to pop out of the socket.
suffocating. head spinning. Not even heat without electricity. I am so reliant on technology I am lost without it. I’d have died back in Little House on The prairie days.
sO I sit and chainsmoke and stare at the door, waiting for the knock. Except my sweaty palms make it icky.
just when i thought the dark depression was the worst of the day.
i try so hard to do the breathing and visualization exercises to calm myself but it’s not working.
what if my wiring is so fucked i have to move.
what if…what if…
i hate being in a holding pattern at the mercy of others, I feel so hobbled and impotent…i guess control freak is an understatement.

12.;26 pm

still no power. my eyeballs are itching and now I have all this silent time alone with my tornado of thoughts and it’s like…do i have pink eye/ is my brain getting ready to explode through my eye socket/
The noise in my head is deafening. I have no background noise to distract and dull my spinning thoughts. so that leaves me to think about every shitty thing that’s ever happened to me and how it was all my fault even if people are using assholes. it’s all still my fault because if i were mentally stable, they wouldn’t run screaming from me.

Power restored.
Now tick tock until I can go fetch my kid and be done with this petri dish shit.

dogs are barking. people are talking loudly. nerves are cannibalizing themselves.
tick tock.

this day sucks. I have a cold so I spent most of the night hacking up a lung and my spleen. I nearly choked to death this morning( no drama, I literally thought I was going to die and my only thought was noooo, i have to get my kid from school.)

The darkness that permeates my mind right now freaks me out. You can put up a hell of a fight and still end up losing.

That terrifies me.

The Good, The Bad, and The Surprising

The bad: Bex missed her flight. Courtesy of Greyhound running ninety minutes late thus making her train trek to O’Hare run late and lead to confusion and panic. (Read about it here, in her words)

She had no phone, little cash, in a huge airport filled with people who wouldn’t help and few that would or could. She managed to occasionally contact by net and collect call. For my part, I worked from my end trying to figure something out. Since no one from the airline was available to talk to her, the best I could come up with was to get her back here. Her Visa is good til the 16th, this gives us time to regroup. Got her back by train. (FUCK YOU GREYHOUND AND YOUR INEPT SERVICE!!!!) To my credit, I found the train station fine and got back home fine, not once did I get confused or lost. I’ve always been like that. Freak out over a ringing phone or knock on the door, but when the chips are down and it’s an emergency…For some reason my lizard brain takes over.
So she’s back here with us and she zonked facedown into bed within three minutes. She has earned the rest, she went through such an ordeal. And I feel shitty because I waited and waited to hear from her but at some point after three a.m., I fell asleep with the lights on. And I can’t sleep with lights on so I had to have been ninja’d with sleep. She’s going thru hell, and I got to sleep for three solid hours. I’m an asshole.
We can’t do anything today since no one with any knowledge is in at the airline counter. So today is recovery, tomorrow is recon.

I fear I may have overstepped my bounds by writing an email to Bex’s mom. I just tried to explain the ups and downs of bipolar and how amazing Becca truly is, she doesn’t make bad choices and act impulsively as a norm, nor is she lazy or unwilling to try to fight the mental stuff. Her family seems to think it’s character weakness and I just felt…compelled to try to explain it’s not, at least not entirely. Really hope I didn’t make the situation worse. Oh, well, won’t be the first time I colored outside the lines and got told to mind my own business.

So…The good…is at least she’s out of that cesspool that is Chicago, safely ensconced in the safe zone here. Not a clue where to go from here, but she’s safe and resting. That is good.

The surprising…I reached out to both R and my dad for help getting her back since she and I didn’t really tuck money back for this contingency. We booked the bus so she arrived FIVE HOURS before her flight. That was ample time. We calculated what American currency she’d need since the plan was straight from bus, to train, to flight. So she’s stranded up there and panicking and I’m back here and panicking.

And I called R, since he’s the only one with a credit card, and he actually bought her train ticket back, not a single hesitation. Then I called my dad and explained the situation…And he drove into town today to put gas into the car (since I burned it all out yesterday getting lost).
I was surprised. It turns out, I do have real friends and half decent family who are there for me in a pinch. I need to remember this when prattling on about their shortcomings. They came through when they could have easily said, “You and Becca are grown women, you should have planned for this, you’re on your own.” But they didn’t. And I’m still a little stunned.

Life is full of surprises, good and bad.

For now…all is calm, we are all safe, and the rest..will get sorted out somehow. Just not today.

BTW…GREYHOUND SERVICE IS ATROCIOUS AND I WANT MY MONEY BACK FOR THE TICKET FOR BEX’S TRAUMA AND MISSED FLIGHT!!!!! Last time I took Greyhound (my wallet was stolen) the bus had mechanical issues so they dispatched another bus to ensure the schedule wasn’t thrown off by more than a half hour. I don’t know why they fucked up so badly this time. Like they knew this was crucial. Like the fates knew it was critical and wanted to troll us.

Becca made constant jokes about missing her bus and flight and now she thinks I believe she did it on purpose. I damn well know better. I heard the panic in her voice when she kept calling, I felt it in my bones. I know this wasn’t her doing.

I blame Greyhound. Shit happens, but this was beyond the pale of poor service. I hope they get rabies and have to be put down.