Panic Ninjas And Their Throwing Stars

And from out of the woodwork come the oh so familiar panic ninjas, filling me with paranoia and that bad juju feeling…like something bad is coming my way.

Nothing triggered it.

It just is.

And it’s one of the hardest things I have to live with, these anxiety and panic attacks that make no sense and garner little empathy, just harsh judgment.

I feel like I am losing my mind, not being able to get these out of control feelings of anxiety and paranoia under wraps.

I also feel weak for not being able to beat it.

But it’s a disorder for a reason. I cope best I can, I take my meds, I try to at least keep my freak outs inward so as not to damage my kid with my neurotypical brain.

Does not change, at all, these feelings that something awful is coming my way. Is something bad coming? Is it distorted thoughts and misfiring brain chemicals? Culmination of holiday stress and frustration that my meds aren’t actually making as big a difference as I’d hoped they would?

Maybe it’s knowing for the next 16 days my kid is going to be home, bored and restless and giving me whiplash with her puberty induced mood swings and screaming fits.

Maybe it’s knowing that I am trapped in this fucked up mind in this fucked up mental state with these fucked up panic ninjas throwing their fucking stars at me and I have zero respite outside sleep. Which in two hour increments leaves me more pissed off and exhausted than feeling much relief.

I wish even for one day all the people who say condescending shit like “calm down” and “get over it, panic attacks won’t kill you.” could find out what it is like to live perpetually in a state of fight or flight.

Difference being, I wouldn’t be an insensitive jerk and judge them for symptoms or not understanding before. I would offer empathy and compassion, as it should be.

Still, wish I could slash these panic ninjas into ribbons with a big ass sword.

Jitter-bugs

My kid has a shrink appointment at 3 today. It’s HER appointment, but I am the one having some sort of massive anxiety attack waiting for it to be over. This includes excess sweating, paranoia, and a burning stomach ache.

Because my reality is so sucky in this regard…

I started watching The Walking Dead from season one. I tried it once before but the first 20 minutes bored me into a coma. This time I gave it a chance to get to the point-survivors fighting the zombie apocalypse. Where it’s no longer racial or political or consumerism or rich or poor…

Just survival.

I know some may find it hard to believe, but I actually find these doomsday type scenarios calming. Takes me out of my own head for a bit.

And honestly, some days I would rather face a mob of crazed flesh hungry zombies than deal with the depression, the anxiety, and the panic, all of which limit every damn thing I do, right down to what I can enjoy watching on TV or whatever.

I might be one of the first zombie TV dinners, but I’d have a Z Hacker, for sures, and I’d go down righting with a rebel yell.

Doesn’t matter if it’s zombies, vampires, werewolves, catastrophic weather events, ebola and such outbreaks…The ‘pull together for the greater good’ message is what soothes me.

I am starting to get into Walking Dead, though the scene with the zombies eating that poor horse really stirred up my issues. I know the disclaimers, no animals were harmed during the filming of this, but still…Poor horsey.

I will just be glad to get this appointment over with. It is so awkward because Spook clams up and barely talks to the doctor and elbows me to do all the talking. Which makes me feel like some domineering mother who won’t let her kid speak up and I WANT her to speak up. But much as she may hate taking the pills, the teacher has noticed a great difference in her behavior at school and with her focus and temperement, so she’s gonna have to suck it up on this one. The meds help, enough said.

Now can we just get on with it so I can be done with it?

My palms are sweaty. One more wonderful byproduct of how my anxiety and panic manifest physically.

Oh and of course, there is always the paranoia that the car will break down on the way to town.

And yes, I have taken my ‘chill pills’ but…until this appointment is over…The anxiety is a runaway train. And no matter how long you live with it, it never ever becomes something you get used to and handle with any grace.

Pop Up Freak Out

Ok, 3 posts in one day, I am over the top but damn it, I kept my shit together for a few days and now…I am FREAKING THE FUCK OUT AND I AM NOT EVEN SURE WHY. Same problems, different day. Being reminded I have to see the psych nurse tomorrow made my mood drop drastically and heightened the anxiety of frustration and hopelessness but…Much like a rabid pop up ad that gets past multiple pop up blockers, panic has set in and my mind is racing and my heart is pounding and I am breaking out in itchy hives from it all. It just came from out of nowhere, this overwhelming sense of panic and paranoia. Panxiety ninjas.

NOTHING happened to trigger it, it literally just came on like a band of ninjas attacking from…well, nowhere. Suddenly the ‘can do, over time’ mental state that was keeping me grounded from a freak out all week vanished and now I am under siege by these ruthless panxiety ninjas. I feel like I am doomed, no way can I ever accomplish everything I need to get done before cold weather hits, before…well, that’s kind of it, before what…I have no idea. I am just panicking and trying to stay rooted in my bed space of safety but my mind keeps galloping ahead like a stampede of horses going at the rate of my heart right now.

I was low, but so exhausted from not sleeping well that I wrote off watching any new shows tonight and decided to return to my usual Frasier bedtime routine. I am very tired. But now I am so scared and freaked out and anxiety ridden and paranoid, the exhaustion has taken a backseat to pure terror. I hit the Xanax stash and chased it with a Buspar (useless for my malignant anxiety and panic disorder, but desperate people with benzo nazis charge will try anything in hopes for relief)…The itchy hives have been coming on for days, which I assumed was because I either skipped or lowered my Benadryl dose but the welts raised on my skin kind of indicate something else is at play. Ya know, like how my panic disorder manifests physically. I’d chalked my gut goblins to food disagreeing with me but now I see it was a precursor.

I was trying so hard to be calm and cool and just survive that I didn’t heed the warning of pretzel gut. Or the itchiness.

All this on top of depression from every angle and hormonally altered thoughts and physical pain…Feeling a bit like life’s punching bag right now. I pray for a good night’s sleep and a brain reboot come morning. I’d say maybe it’d be best if it just stayed at fever pitch so the nurse could see how bad it is but…she’s seen it before and gives zero fucks. Driving in town means I am going to need a modicum of sanity. Tragic H8te ball says…’it remains to be seen’.

Anyone who thinks anxiety is a minor problem is ignorant and has zero clue how drastically it alters your thoughts, functionality, and how it utterly destroys your ability to lead a normal life. I wouldn’t wish this current mental state on an enemy.

Shame I can’t invest in a good pop up blocker for these ninja panic attacks. Then again, I wouldn’t need to if I had competent care properly medicating these crippling panic attacks with the proper med doseage.

At least my kid’s nose is so far in the tablet she isn’t witnessing mom come flying apart.

When anxiety and panic are induced and you can trace the trigger and explain it, you can cope better. But when it comes from out of nowhere you’re kind of at a loss. Like you’d be if attacked by a band of ninjas.

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.

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.