When Things Attack

I know, I know, I get your appetites all whetted with spoilers for my Glorious Adventure and then I take a week to follow up.  I'm sorry.  I promise more installments of the Glorious Adventure to Universal Studios will be making appearances this week.  Things just did that thing where all things become Things Seeking Attention Now And Not Later all at once, and then I was surrounded by and drowned in Things.

I've been slow to write this week because a) I've been busy with all of the Things I mentioned, and b) my mind has felt a little unhinged, and I wanted to take some time to examine what was going on in my self.  It got so bad yesterday that I had a full-on panic attack in my office at work.  Not the most pleasant of places to be when all you want to do is run around screaming bloody murder and tearing wood boards from walls and smashing car windshields and finally exploding into a combustion of angry flames.

If there IS such a place where doing these things would be pleasant and even welcome, you guys should probably get me that number and address.

It was one of those instances where a tiny little catalyst that shouldn't have mattered set things into motion and it snowballed into something wholly unmanageable and terrible.  I've been feeling the tendrils of that monster Anxiety licking at my fingertips and toes recently, but I focused on keeping it at bay, retaining my focus and my drive.  But such a monster is not only patient, he is also vicious and cunning, and will subtly sneak up on you until you don't realize how close he is until he's inside your rib cage, settling in nicely between your heart and lungs, the space that used to house Hope and Peace of Mind.

I broke down so wholly that I felt like I was drunk--my mind had disconnected from the stable plane of thought, and it was as if my head was spinning, my ears had a rushing in them, and I imagined I was spiraling, the liquids and matter in my brain wildly circumscribing the inside of my skull, I was so dizzy.  I would look down at my body and know that it was mine, but not know that I was connected to it.  I would watch my hands move, palms turned up, fingers flexing, and I wouldn't know how they got that way, even though I felt intuitively that I must have been controlling them.  It was very wild and scary and I was completely useless to try and complete any actual work, because sitting and staring at the computer screen made me feel as if I would turn to stone.  I felt so disconnected from my body that I literally felt that if I sat still long enough, I would just fade and disconnect, and my body would stay in that position forever, frozen.

I do not suffer panic/anxiety attacks often.  Ever, really.  This felt very new to me and yet horribly familiar at the same time--it's been years since I called the darkness in the space where my Hope and Peace should have been 'Friend.'  I didn't like it.  I pray it does not happen again.


When The Man was listening to me crying over the phone, he asked what was wrong, and all I could say was, "Everything is wrong, I'm doing all of it wrong, I'm trying so hard to get it right and it just keeps being wrong, all of it."  That's the only coherent thing I could take away from yesterday--the thought that everything I'm pursuing in my life right now is, in a word, wrong.  The drunken separation from myself made it that much worse, that all of a sudden I was terrified of and hated the thought of my applications being sent off to grad schools and all of the things I was currently dealing with were failures and I just couldn't handle the humiliation, the disappointment, that everyone I knew would know that I had been so incorrect.  It made no sense.


An amazing friend that I talked to about this with yesterday, who has experience with this herself, told me that usually when that kind of anxiety sets in, it means it's time for something to change.  Something in your routine, your lifestyle, whatever--it's time for something to change for the better.  I don't know what that is for me just yet.  But I'm keeping my eyes open.

Today I feel better. More put together, less dissected and apart from myself.  I have that feeling of being sore after an injury, where your muscles are aware of having been harmed and they've started the process of knitting themselves back together and it aches.  I'm taking my time on things and allowing myself to have breaks where I focus on breathing and knowing where/who I am. 


Admittedly, I have been siphoning an awful lot of Stress and Overwhelm and I Hate Everything away over the past couple of months.  It was bound to clog the pipes and come back up at some point.  If you've ever suffered from anxiety, you know how crippling it can be.  It's so crafty, it sneaks up on you, and stabs you from behind after it corners you.  If you struggle with anything like this now, I offer my empathy and my ears if you need to voice it to a friend.  I'm going to just take it easy today and look forward to moments of Peace and Joyful Relaxation that I hope are soon to come.
 






Take care today, friends.

Tell someone you love them.  And mean it.