Paranoia Doesn't Mean I'm Not Right

Before I checked myself into the psych hospital at the tail edges of my little meltdown/nervous breakdown, I let a few people know so they wouldn't worry. Among the people I told was a man who I report to for my favorite part-time job, the man who talked me into this job. His email reply was short, but supportive.

I emailed him when I got out, mentioning how I'd not done well on the job before I went in and wondering what he wanted to do about that. He usually emails me or calls me a lot during a week just to keep me up to date and to keep in touch.

I've had one text message, basically the same as the one he sent before I went in. And that's it. According to another member of the team, this man who supported me seems to have the same phobia that another good friend of mine (same age cohort as the man with the job): a fear that people with "mental illness" are never as stable or dependable as "normal, healthy" people and as such should be avoided as employees. At least, that's my fear and my current perception of this situation. 

And this situation and these reactions, ladies, gentlemen, and others, are why I choose to make this blog as anonymous as is reasonable and why I have not told my more stable job about it. I'm paranoid, but not a complete idiot. Just a partial one with a lazy streak.

Not Enough

Today was my mother's birthday. She would have been 72.

I'm doing particularly badly today, but have been doing generally badly for weeks. I've done virtually nothing on one of my jobs; I'm sure they are just so glad they asked me to do it.

I'm so miserable and I don't know what to do about it that I'm not already doing. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to be dead on almost a daily basis. I hurt and there is nothing that gives me any reason to think I'm going to become appreciably better. I have no family. What friends I do have are really just friends: none of them will ever come to visit me here or make me truly part of their family. And I haven't made any constant friends since I moved here. Given my experience, that's likely to remain the case.

Anyone who's reading this is already thinking "oh you should have hope" and "you don't really mean that" and "you don't know that's the case" and all that other optimistic stuff. And I wouldn't be able to convince such people — even if I bothered trying — that I have done and thought and felt all the hopeful, positive, productive things anyone has ever told me about, asked me about, or that I've read about or even thought of independently and none of it has worked.  But nobody ever believes me about that anyway. Just call me Cassandra.

Sometimes

Ya know, sometimes it's just not possible to be positive. And sometimes I want to be negative, or at least not-positive. This has been an ungodly shitty year, the latest in a life punctuated by unexpected and tragic losses and other traumas. (I am the poster child for fibromyalgia, which is thought to develop as a result of one major physical or emotional trauma, or repeated ones. I'm in on all counts.) Sometimes I need to acknowledge the shit.

I need to acknowledge that my life sucks right now and that the non-sucky part is still somewhere past the horizon and that it's quite possible that my life is going to suck even more in the very near future unless a series of miracles occur.

To me, being positive in the face of these things or, even worse, about these things is like saying they don't matter or they aren't real. It's unrealistic and irrational. Bad stuff must be acknowledged. Pain and fear and the very real possibly of going stone broke — even having spent my jars of coins on food — is right before my eyes. I can see it. That's not being pessimistic, that's being rational.

Acknowledging the bad doesn't give it extra power. I think that ignoring it gives it power; the power to overwhelm you because you were so busy positively ignoring it that all the realistic things you might have done you didn't.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to be all bright and hopeful and positive, I'm really on the edge of tears.

This has been my life. This is my life. If things entirely out of your control repeat in your life, is that a lesson? If so, mine appears to be that life is about pain and helplessness that slowly whittle you down to nothing over time.

I guess the main thing I'm trying to say is this: sometimes being positive and pushing the bad stuff aside invalidates the very reality of the bad stuff and the pain that has been happening and that is happening right now. And just because something good happens or I have a good day does not negate everything else that continues to be Not Good in my life. I've been doing all that I am able to do, from when all I could do is crawl out of bed in the morning and back into it in the evening until now when I can wash my breakfast dishes as well. I have not been capable of looking for a job in an organized or energetic or even useful manner if at all, so no money is coming in. All the affirmations and visualizations in the world have not brought me money through other means (bequests, lottery tickets, philanthropy, whatever). Reality says that if I don't become stone broke in the next 6 weeks, then I'm going to miss it by only a hair and that missing it might as well be luck.

So, this being positive thing. Don't take it to extremes. Doing so feels disrespectful and invalidating. I rather need some validation now and then throughout this terribly shitty time. I need some now. Just because I can manage a smile doesn't mean I'm not in hell.

Not Dying

On the one hand, I think the folate/folic acid is working as an add-on to handle my depression. On the other hand, I think my anxiety has moved into stealth mode. It perks up when I start thinking about paying bills, but because I am in a very quiet mode where I'm focused on dealing with the house sale and the estate sale and having to go back to Oregon — many logistic details — I think my anxiety is simply being quiet, too. As long as I don't disturb it.

I'm glad that we're getting a chemical handle on the depression; I should be able to begin getting a personal handle on it, too. I'm also becoming more functional on some fronts — I'm not crying so much. But I wish we had a national short-term disability program, or at least have a disability program that didn't take years to get covered under, because I'm not fully functional yet and don't know when I will be.

I feel completely submerged by my current focus. It's like swimming in dark water with a flashlight: I can focus on only one section at a time. There are some other logistic issues that I've simply had to throw up my hands at and walk away from because I can't handle them right now.

Most folks handle all this stuff plus work a job plus handle a family. I don't think I could care for a cat.

I know everyone has been telling me I can handle it all and cheering me on and saying that the Universe/God/whatever never gives us what we/I cannot handle, but I've seen otherwise. I am experiencing otherwise. My anxiety is sitting there like an undetonated bomb — will it go off; how much vibration will set it off? I'm coping because I'm ignoring a lot of it and I'm desperately hoping that the bomb isn't triggered. If you judge that simply staying alive is "handling" what the Universe sends us, well that's no big deal; there are many reasons for not offing yourself that have nothing to do with indicating one is "handling" what the Universe has "given" you. Being a zombie for months or years, shutting off large sections of yourself or your life, living inside a very tiny virtual cocoon: I don't consider these ways of "handling" it. These are ways of not dying.

I look like I'm doing well to those outside my home. I probably look like I'm handling things better to those of you who read this. But for the most part, I'm really just not dying.

I'm going to do what I can do with the house and all. I can handle certain responsibilities and the pain/fear of not doing this stuff is greater than the pain/fear of doing it. There's a motivator for you. I'm terrified of dealing with my own storage unit, which is completely necessary to keep me from having to pay for two storage units with my own money.

Progress? It's been almost a year since Mom died. I can now wash my dishes after each meal (altho' today I am four meals behind) and I make my bed 75% of the time. Before you start cheering me on for these positive steps, please note that I haven't completely cleaned my bathroom or vacuumed since I moved in in December. I haven't finished unpacking. I haven't paid bills in a couple of months. When I venture out of my apartment it is notable. There are still a lot of things for me to trip and fall over on the floor. And I still don't shower every day (you really need to down here, what with the sweating and all).

Yeah, sure, celebrate the little steps I suppose. But they are like throwing pebbles in the ocean. So far, I'm just not dying. Now you're going to go and make that into some big positive thing, aren't you.

Motionless

Our bodies are made for movement. To whatever extent a body can move, it needs to move. Recent articles tell how all kinds of non-good and even bad things happen to and within your body when you don't move it.

I have barely moved in 10 months. My muscles are shortened and tight. My body hurts, yet walking causes pain as well. While I fear what I am doing to my body, my inner paralyzation controls me more than that fear. As my therapist says, what you do depends on which fear is strongest.

My life has been motionless as well. I haven't looked for work (and even if I'd had an interview, I don't think I'd have managed it well, given how messed up I've been). I haven't pursued help for financial problems. I've been a little mouse in a little hole who fears a cat is waiting right outside the hole.

This is not how I want to be! I used to climb trees and ride my bike. I also used to lie on my bed and read for hours. When we had a swimming pool, I could swim laps for hours, enjoying the feel of the water and the movement of my body. (And one time, when no one was around, I swam naked, which is the most blissful feeling in the world.) I used to dance in my house in the evening with my stereo turned up and the only light the flickering of candles.

Of course, I felt safer then. When I was a child, I didn't have to worry because my parents took care of us. After Dad died, I felt the beginnings of the instability of life. Later, I usually had enough money to get by. Even when I had no health insurance, I was healthy and young and didn't need it. I had work, I had enough friends, I had comfortable homes, even if I did move rather a lot at first. For all the problems I had and the traumas and griefs I endured, I still felt a measure of safety that allowed me to move.

Then, in my mid-30s, I had my first immobilizing depression and anxiety. I eventually overcame them, or they went away, and I recovered. I had a few other times that weren't quite as bad, but still I moved less than before. But none of those times of immobility were as long as this one, or as completely paralyzing as this time. Even at the worst of those times, I would get up and move — dance just a little, go into the garden and pick something to eat, walk around the block or on the beach.

I'm old enough that everything I do physically is more significant for my future than anything I've done until now. If I want to be physically fit and in good condition so I'm self-mobile and can take care of myself for a long, long time, I need to move now. I need to exercise now — not the run-a-marathon type or the body-builder type or the gym-rat type. However, I need to be able to walk long distances, briskly, while holding a conversation. I need to be flexible and strong (yoga, pilates perhaps). I need upper body strength as well as lower-body and, most of all, I need to enjoy moving my body, and to move my body because I enjoy it.

Maybe part of my immobility comes down to enjoyment: I don't do what I enjoy. My mind is a strange and sometimes unfathomable place, even to me — it wouldn't be impossible that I am punishing myself for some perceived fault. Fear or punishment, does it matter? I hold myself motionless, strapped down with invisible bonds — and not in the good way. I've emptied my life of so much I enjoy, other than the hurtful binges of fat and sugar that only mimic pleasure, that I'm empty of almost everything but fear and pain and grief and longing ... and the memory of everything good.

Years ago, when I owned my first home, I bought an orchard ladder: a very, very tall three-legged ladder made for people picking fruit from tall trees. I've had a fear of heights since I was a child, but it was my house, and my fruit. As I told my friends and myself, "I will not live my life controlled by my fears." For some time, I lived by that credo. Even a few years ago, when I made a major, unbelievable change in my life, I chose to do so in spite of my fears.

The incalculable grief and loss of the last year, all the changes in my life that I had absolutely no control of, the feeling of falling from a high cliff toward rocks many miles below — through them I forgot how brave I am. I forgot my credo from many years ago. I forgot me.

I'm still walking a tightrope with no net below me and each day is scarier than the last, with my continued unemployment and my dwindling resources and my beloved safety net gone forever.  But I can do it. I can do this. I have endured and overcome so many, many things in my life and I have come up from the Abyss again and again to smile, love, and enjoy my life. I need to remember: it never wins.

Remembering this, I must get up again and smile and love and live. Because pain sucks and just existing sucks and if I run out of money and have to go live in someone's basement it will suck, too.

Smiling and loving and living won't hurt me any worse than I hurt now. At least they will make room in the fear and pain I've surrounded myself with so I can move. And the next time that I get knocked down, get my feet wet in the Abyss — because it will happen again and again in my life — the voice inside me will remind me that it never wins and I'll get up and walk and dance my way out of that damned Abyss, out of the paralysis of fear and I will win, because I have done so before. If I can do it as many times as I have, there is every reason I can do it again.

So move.

Broken Thoughts

I mentioned earlier that a blog I read had a post about Fear the other day; I may have mentioned that Fear and I are really far too close for my comfort. Even just reading the blog and the comments, most of which were about how others deal with fear and overcome fear, made all my fear reactions stand on end and I had to take a pill to calm me. I do not want to be that woman who "must take a little pill to calm me down."

Well, today was therapy. As I had not done my homework, we talked of other things, such as fear and how I'm doing on my behavior changes (we looked at what I had succeeded at, not what I didn't do, thank you Julie). The talk about fear merged into talk about some feelings I have that are pretty constant. I have quite a few, but we talked about how lost I feel, how I feel as if I'm floating, and how I feel untethered. That's when Karen the Wonderful Therapist took me through some focused Cognitive Therapy.

These thoughts are lies that my mind tells me and the only way to fix the distortions and overcome the lies (eventually getting rid of them altogether) is to combat them with truths. Luckily for me, she outlined true statements for me to use, because if we'd left it to me, I'd still be in her office!

For example, when I hear myself saying that I'm floating, I counter with I'm not floating. I am moving in a direction. I am making choices daily. For one thing, I choose to be in therapy to help me move in the direction I want. And that's all true. But I feel as if I need to write notes on my hands and arms to remember it all.  :)  Perhaps just a folded up cheat sheet I carry around.

It was very weird, hearing her statements for me to use to respond to these fear-based distortions in my head. I could really perceive the power of opposing these thoughts with true statements. For one thing, I have to think through the truths, so it's not just a mindless phrase to throw at an issue. And thinking will make it all stick better. It's like when I write something down, I remember it better, even if I don't reread what I wrote. (Not applicable to all things — I have to reread the truth responses to these first three distortions because they are complicated enough that I can't yet remember them off the top of my head.)

A lot of what I'm doing right now behaviorally and cognitively relates to grounding me, creating a foundation to build on. This same concept is what my outside life is about as well: I need to basically build a new life, and I don't have a stable foundation for it, either. The therapeutic work I'm doing will most likely help me to do the outside work; as one part stabilizes, so will the other parts. 

This is all more or less clear in my head. I'm not sure it's as clear on this blog. I can't say I know where I'm going yet. But I can say that I have a lot more hope that I will get there, wherever it is.

This is the Best. Therapy. EVAH!

Ice & Stone

Fear generally initiates one of two reactions in a person: fight or flight. However, sometimes the fear is too strong for either — then it paralyzes.

My fear and anxiety levels have been off the charts for so long that I cannot move. I have no fight, and I cannot flee. So I freeze. I've been frozen for so long that I might as well be an ice sculpture at a fancy party.

Even the easy stuff, such as walking to the mailbox, isn't easy. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I don't go. I stay here in my small, more or less controllable environment. Outside is too unpredictable.

At a blog I read today, the topic was Fear, and the message was acknowledge that you are afraid, then go ahead and do whatever it is that you fear anyway. There have been times in my life when I could do that, all by myself, with no help. I have done plenty of scary things. But right now, I feel almost too afraid to cross the street without someone holding my hand. This is a time when having someone to help me would enable me to break through the ice. And this is a time when there is no one to help me, not in person. This is the time for hands-on help. With just me picking at the ice, getting me through the fear, I feel as though it will take me a hundred years. And yes, fear is undoubtedly causing me to feel that way.

I have reminders, like my affirmations, pinned up around the place in hopes that they will help reprogram my thinking. I imagine that I can get through this, all by myself, eventually. (Although, it would help me if I could just call people. But then, reaching out like that scares me silly, too. But actual conversations and poor babies would be nice.) I know it will take longer on my own, even with the therapy (because my therapist cannot be with me 24/7, and I'm going to have to cut back on therapy due to the whole money thing).

I'm so depressed and anxious, I can't look for work, so I'm afraid I'll run out of money, a not unreasonable fear. I'm afraid all my online friends will realize I'm a whiner and a downer and a lazy loser and stop liking me. I'm afraid that I can't find work because I'm so out of date (it's been a long time since I've had a regular job), and that I can't find enough work as a freelancer to make a go of it. Then I'll have to give up health insurance, which means no one will ever want to treat me knowing that I cannot pay them .... It all spirals out of control and ends with "and then I'll die, painfully." Most people when you ask them what's the worst that can happen will give a reasonable action (I'll make a fool of myself, I'll lose my job, whatever). My "worst that can happen" answer is always either that I will die, or that I will end up mutilated, in a hospital, with no way to end the life support. My fear reactions cause me to sink like a stone.

My biggest single fear, other than running out of money and then living out of my car or something, is that I am going to be old and alone, and that I will die old and alone because I have no kids to take care of me at the end the I did for Mom. I suppose, at least, this trumps the "and then I'll die" earlier in my life scenario.

And here I go, off into the other dark areas of my soul, so I'll end it here with this thought: I did go outside, take a small walk, and pick up my mail today. Then I took another quick walk later to the corner market for an ice cream sandwich; I should find a way to harness my love of ice cream to overcome my fear. And I have many new notes and affirmations added to the ones already littering my home. Something is bound to stick, sometime, if only to get me to stop repeating these mini-mantras.

I wish I could end this the way others on that other blog did, about how they have overcome fear and stare it down whenever it raises its head. I can't yet. My fear is Medusa and I am still paralyzed and cold.

Turtling

Turtling is a term I use for when I close in on myself in a self-protective mode. I guess some people might call it nesting, but I avoid surrounding my areas with lots of clothing and blankets (I've done this in the past). Instead, I feel as if I've pulled into a shell and don't want to come back out.

I think it's different from agoraphobia (my BFF thinks differently, of course). Agoraphobia generally results from having panic attacks at different places until even leaving the house causes them, leaving you stuck. I don't feel as if I'm afraid to leave (although there is anxiety). I just feel safer inside my home.

When I do leave, I enjoy being out. When I've been out for a couple of hours, though, I start feeling like I need to be home. Luckily for me, it isn't the compulsion it was about 15 years ago. It's merely an urge.

The big problem seems to be making myself get out of my little womb.

I think part of it is the problem introverts can have when they've been excessively introverted, away from almost all stimuli. They become more introverted. When I read The Highly Sensitive Person, it changed my outlook and I learned that I'm not "too sensitive." But I do have to watch out for becoming so introverted I have difficulties having any stimuli at all. I don't even listen to music anymore.

Having reasons to go out, having people to see, having things I want or need to do: these would get me out and expand my stimulation threshold once more. Yes, it's been suggested I do some volunteer work that requires my physical presence. I forget to look for it. My current state of mind (or medicine) messes with my short-term memory. A lot. So I forget these ideas I have for helping myself get better. 

I forget to do stuff I really love to do, such as write and other creative things. Here I am, more time than money, and I fritter the time away not creating a thing, not walking in beauty, not going to a museum or the zoo. I waste it huddled in my self-created womb, my shell, my bomb shelter.

I need to remember to look outside and see that there is no bomb, the sky isn't falling, and the sun is shining invitingly. I need to reclaim my authentic self and surrender my turtle self, because I can protect myself in other ways and do not need a hard shell to hide inside. I must remind myself that I gave up barriers when the walls of my keep broke into ruins inside my mind and my heart a few years ago when I felt great pain.

Vulnerability is the new strength. Try it on, self. I think it looks very good on you.

Meltdown

Well, I melted down most of last week. Lost all power of perspective, all positivity, all courage. I let fear and the scarcity-mindset take me over and make me their bitch.

That's over. This week I have regained perspective. I am putting great effort into the power of positivity and gratitude. I'm remembering how courageous I am and have been in my life. I'm remembering hope. I'm kicking fear and scarcity in their skinny little butts.

I used to have routines; I had habits. I had regular behaviors. I cooked and ate decent meals, and cleaned my home and kept it organized. I walked. I went to bed and got up at reasonable hours and I read some useful and inspirational books at bedtime so I could take their wisdom into sleep with me.

I do none of that right now. But I'm on the verge of relearning it all and one of the things helping me with this is the zenhabits web site and the free e-book Focus by the site's author, Leo Babauta. One of my favorite things about this book is that he says to not set goals, that goals can be more destructive and constructive. Yes! I heretofore discard goals.

My  goal  ... I mean, my intention is to get back to my pre-Mom's-cancer state of being meltdown-free. I worked hard for a couple of years — from when I first realized what was going on in my mind when I had these hamsters-whirling-around-in-my-head phases that made me feel I was going crazy — to get to where I knew my cycles and my triggers and how to perceive if and when I was developing a meltdown so I could head it off. I got very good at that. Then one of those little detours of life threw me out of that calmness and awareness (at a time I could have used it) and now I get to learn it and practice it all again. Well, I guess it's supposed to be character-building.

I swear that once I put myself back together again, I'll have a character that not even a nuclear bomb could shatter.

A late childhood

Several people have written how it's never to late to have a good childhood. In some ways they are correct (given you have the option). And who better than you to give it to yourself? Who knows what you really want, once we realize that Santa doesn't?

Oh, sure, my folks often got it right because my brother and I were verbose in our desires, and our desires were fairly simple. We both got our 10-speed bikes. I got books. He got cars. Now, I also got Barbie, who I hated with a passion. And the year i asked for a stereo, my brother got the stereo and I got a small TV, which I had no use for, not being at all interested in watching TV in my room (it ended up in our camper for camping trips).

My childhood was fairly decent, except for the fear of being with my cousin, the fear of all the me-improvements my aunts would initiate every time we had a family get together, the fear of a variety of school bullies who recognized the victimized part of me ... a little too much fear for a truly good childhood. Unfortunately, I'm still experiencing rather a lot of fear for a truly good adulthood.

But maybe giving myself a new childhood, free of fear, will alleviate at least some of the adult fears. Thus, I think it's time for a plan. Okay, maybe making a plan for a second childhood is rather antithetical and a little ridiculous. How about an un-plan, which sounds a bit Peter Pan-ish?

For example, clean up my rooms. If they are clean, I'll have room to play with my toys. Note: get some toys. I'll have room to dance around and be a goof.

Also, go outside, even if it's just a short walk. Or go sit on the dock nearby and draw.

Write stories that are goofy and have no plot.

At first, I might actually need to remind myself to play and have fun. I might have to schedule it. I hope that the simple pleasures and joys will take on a life of their own and I won't need to remind myself.

In the past, I have been silly and goofy, even as an adult. I have a whimsical nature, when it isn't in hiding due to the simple fear of going stone-broke. I've even been given the best of all compliments by a pair of 9-year-old cousins, when I was about 30. 

I'd been playing outside with one or both all afternoon until they'd worn me out. So I told them I was done for now and was going inside. They wanted to know why. I told them I was tired and besides, I wanted to hang out with the adults. They couldn't fathom why I'd want to do that, so I explained that I was an adult. At which they went into giggles and said "No you're not!" Best. Compliment. Evah.

I need to spend time with kids again; they are my preferred peer group and we get each other. It's also a good way to remind myself to be like a child. In the good ways, like finding awe in simple things and laughing just because life is funny, not in the bad way like stomping my feet and crying because I can't have my way. Of course, those behaviors have something to recommend them, too.

So here's to toy dinosaurs and LEGO castles and Star Wars figurines, to play-doh and water colors and coloring books. To staring up at the stars and down at the dirt. To painting my nails all different colors because I can and to then giggling at them because they are funny.

It might be time to pick up a DVD of old Bugs Bunny cartoons, too!

Night-night

Therapy knocked me down and made me cry

Yeah, that therapy is a big ol' bully. Makes me cry. Makes me look at things that hurt me. Knocks me clear on my butt and leaves me sore and tired all the rest of the day. Sheesh.  Therapy is a mean muthuh.

What made me cry? Well, we talked about Mother's Day. I didn't get teary or even emotional yesterday. But I cried on Saturday because someone told me she was aware that this, my first one without Mom, would be extra hard and that she was thinking of me. No one else said anything to me, until they read the blog. Not my oldest friends. Not my mom's friends; not even her best friend who was supposed to adopt me. I felt ignored and that the people who say they care simply didn't think about me or felt it wasn't important. I felt even more alone and isolated than ever.

So when Karen-the-therapist and I began talking about it, I began crying. The more we talked about it and how I felt and why, the harder I cried. I even became inarticulate from time to time, I was crying so hard. It just wouldn't stop, all my feelings of loneliness and missing Mom and feeling that my friends don't think of me (whether they do or not, this is how I feel) came flooding out. 

I was a mess.

I read something in a blog comment today that really bothered me. Someone had written in about how isolated and hurting she felt, and how hard it was to see how well the blog author was doing after a year and the woman who wrote in felt she'd made no progress. 

One of the commenters was trying to be helpful and going on about how the only person you can count on is you, that only you can do this stuff, and you always have to do it alone. Except, I don't think the commenter is all alone. I think she has family. When you have backup, even if you are doing things yourself, you are not in isolation. It bothered me because I truly am doing things all alone and I'm not doing so well or quickly. It's harder than the commenter made it out to be. But I didn't want to be mean on the blog, even though I didn't think it was good advice to the woman who had written in.

So many of my buttons were pushed in therapy: loneliness, abandonment, fear of total isolation and friendlessness, anger that someone has diminished my experience. And therapy caused me to live through and describe each one, which hurt like hell.

That's how therapy beat me up, knocked me down, and made me cry.

Stole my lunch money too, but you have to pay for the privilege.

Losing it

The cruelest thing about mental illness is the loss of one's true self. Trauma such as sexual abuse can have the same effect: you mask or hide your true self for survival.

At one time, long, long ago, I was a cheerful, outgoing, talkative little girl. I was bright enough that the school considered bumping me over 3rd grade. I wish they had: I had social issues even among my own grade-mates. Jumping a year wouldn't have hurt me that way at all. And I was so all-consumingly bored by everything but math — and that just stomped me into the ground.  So all that boredom squashed me a bit. Don't stand out. Eventually I took only the classes I knew I could get As in so as to please my parents.

But the effects of the abuse hit me at puberty and I became shy and awkward and tended to slouch and mumble by about the age of 10 or 11. My parents couldn't even get me to take the check up to the restaurant cashier and pay it; I wouldn't go without my brother. Thus began my social phobia and ended my fearlessness.

I wasn't supposed to use the words or the knowledge that I had from reading or my gifted class — that was showing off and unacceptable. (My parents probably didn't understand everything I said by the time I was 12.) But my brother could show off any physical prowess he had. That was okay.

I wasn't supposed to correct adults, even if the teacher was teaching something wrong or an adult went back on what they said. Squash. I lost my vocabulary. I lost a lot of my brightness; I became dull.

At least I kept my room clean and tidy. Very. I liked clean and tidy and organized, even when I became a teen. No tossing clothes around and being a general slob.

I was a bit untidy in my mid-20s, when i shared a house with two guy friends. I was so miserable, still borderline suicidal (still considered it an option if I couldn't handle things), no boyfriend so I felt ugly and unloved. I began keeping my clothing in a nest around me in my bed — a queen mattress on the floor. I liked my weird-shaped room in the attic but I froze in the winter. That might have sparked the nesting.

When my best friend Steve and I shared an apartment together, I kept my space and the house clean and tidy in partnership with Steve. He, too, has always been neat and tidy, so it was easy to be that way. And I was that way with Marlys when I roomed with her. I wasn't too untidy when I moved in with Thom, but he kept all his computer stuff in a mess, so it began.

When I moved into my own house in my early 30s, at first I was very tidy. That's what I like. I loved sweeping the old oak floors. I loved that house. But then I hit a major depression, so bad that I even took two leaves of absence from work for mental health reasons. My house became the Pit of Chaos. My Mom and her second husband came and helped me clean up once. I tried, but was only able to keep parts of my home clean. Never the kitchen. I stopped cooking much at all. This continued to the coast and was the worst ever in my little apartment at the end of my life on the coast; I never even unpacked for the year I lived there. I felt lost and hopeless and terrified, with a wide-open future in front of me. Being alone in my apartment where I live now, I achieved only moderate tidiness, but it was better than nothing. I was still over-stressed. I had lost the tidy, organized, happy me.

When I moved back to Oregon to take care of Mom, I wanted to keep the tidiness up to her standards. It was bad enough she had to deal with cancer; i wasn't going to make her uncomfortable with clutter. So I kept things up fairly well. Mom had a cleaner come every other week, which was very helpful because that was beyond me. I didn't cook much for us. But I kept the clutter to a minimum and mom was comfortable in her beloved home with the brand-new kitchen until she died.

Return to Houston: my home hasn't been this bad since those bad days in Seattle in the house I loved. There are papers, mostly mail and discarded empty envelopes, all over the floor. No single surface is clean and tidy. My clothes are piled in bins and on the white wire shelf in the closet. No, I don't have a chest of drawers, or enough shelves in the book shelf. I don't use the desk because it has the TV and more stuff on top of it.

I hate this, hate this, hate this. I want clean and tidy. I want my life to be simple and easy to maintain. The times when I've achieved that, even briefly, I have experienced peacefulness and happiness. To say that this mess is contributing to my depression and anxiety is an understatement. But I don't have the energy to pick up. I'm behind on my bills, on the estate's bills. I don't even know where they all are. I am unhappy in part because my home is a mess, and when I'm this unhappy I cannot keep it clean and organized: it's a Catch-22.

I need help. Don't seem able to provide it to myself; that's something else I've lost.

Are any of those things even findable?

Who goes there?

Ah, the proverbial military security phrase, usually preceded by "Halt!" Movies and books have shown simple ways to get past guards: throwing gravel, pebbles, rocks. Making the guard jump, look, even go investigate. In a way, movies and books were telling us a bit about the PTSD a soldier can get. Hypervigilance — jumping at noises, seeing shadows.

It doesn't take declared war — or military action of whatever name politics calls it — to create PTSD. Just trauma, being placed in a situation (often repeatedly, but sometimes just once) where showing extreme vigilance was a survival mechanism. It means being hyperaware of sights, sounds, smells. And it means assuming, and mentally preparing for, the worst-case scenario.

Running in place

I haven't been so good at keeping up with the myriad details of my everyday life. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone. Bills, picking up, cleaning, phone calls, record-keeping, even getting together with friends — all of this has been difficult if not impossible for me in the past months.

I've even found it difficult to keep up with my therapy homework. Three hours ago, I started my homework for tomorrow ... and then spent two hours on the phone with one of my best friends. Talking with my friend was terrific; we haven't talked in a few weeks. But now it's after 10 pm and I should finish things up and go to bed.

.... Who the hell am I kidding? I haven't gone to bed before 2:30 in months. Often I'm up until 4 am (Hey Julie! ::waves::). Unfortunately I don't spend my time doing anything useful in any way.

My sleep schedule became completely fucked up in 2007, after my cat died. In the aftermath of the death of my companion of over a decade, I realized how much more she was to me than simply one of my most-loved companions. She was also my security system. If I woke in the night —a not-unusual occurrence — I'd automatically look to her. If she was asleep, or simply looking back at me as if wondering why I weren't asleep as I should be, I could lay my head back on my pillow and drop off easily. But if she were looking about alertly, then I had to get up and walk the house. Once I thought I saw someone in the back yard and I called the police. Several other times it was deer in the back yard; it is quite disturbing to carefully pull a curtain aside to look out ... and see a long deer face looking back at you! I was definitely the more startled.

After my furry security system died, I routinely woke in a drenching sweat from dreams of gangs of intruders hunting me down in my home. The sleeping pills my doctor gave me made the nightmares worse, so I quit them and began staying up later and later. To occupy myself during the late hours, I built a highly detailed imaginary life and I whiled away the hours between 9 pm and 3 am with this life, with listening to Vonda Shepards "Maryland,"and with watching the moon wash across my bed and the floor in the next room. It was pleasant.

Now I have no place that is washed by the moon and my heart is once more broken, even worse than before. I don't currently have anything to look forward to in the morning, or in the moment after that, or the moment after that, so I stay up, surfing the same sites over and over, and running in place in the hope that the next moment doesn't come any sooner.

Lost in the aisles

In therapy today, we wandered. I neglected to do my homework last week due to the usual, plus some days where I couldn't sleep until 3 am. (I am feeling somewhat better, which means I cannot get away without my homework next week.)

Instead of homework, we talked about other things. Last week, when I was making a comparison to illustrate how I felt at one point, I told her a story about something that happened when I was a child. It happened several times: I lost my parents in a department store. I would stop to look at something and when I was done I'd look around and they would be nowhere near me. I'd go from aisle to aisle looking, panic growing inside me. When I was too short to look over the top of the aisles, it was like I was caught in a maze; even when I went to the same aisle again (in case my parents were looking for me), it looked different. And I never asked another person for help. 

I always found them. And every time they'd say "Oh? You were lost? We didn't know that." Way to go folks. Kind of lost parenting points there. Even to this day, I stay close to friends when I'm shopping with them because I feel that panic start to rise if I cannot find them immediately.

Since my mom's death, I've experienced a lot of that lost, panicky feeling. Today my therapist told me something she'd forgotten to say last week, which was that she sees me being in that place of being lost and unable to find my family — permanently. And now I have to find a way to become okay with myself and with being here. Without my parents, my brother. Just me.

The idea of being lost in the department store for the rest of my life punched me in the stomach I know she didn't mean it that literally, but I am a literal person in unexpected ways. And I kind of do feel as if I am lost in the department store. One of the darkly funny things about that is that some of the scariest movies I've ever seen — seen when I was a kid — took place in department stores.

Have you ever been lost? Did you look for your parents, or did they look for you? Who was panicking and who was calm? I've known kids who felt it was their parents who were lost, not themselves. No panic. Just hanging out doing what they wanted until their parents came running to find them. These kids didn't understand why their parents were so upset. I suppose I have to become that kid, because no one is going to run around looking for me.

What do you think are the qualities a person needs to adapt to the department store, to being alone? Yes, i know I have friends, good friends, but in the end, it is me and my aisle in the store and no one running around trying to find me. I've got to get home by myself this time. I'm not sure how.

I hold my breath

I found out, only within the past decade, that I shared a rather odd trait with my mother: I hold my breath when I am stressed. Given how much stress I've experienced the past several years, I seem to spend much of my life suffering from oxygen deprivation.

When I'm emotionally tense — which is most of the time — my muscles are tense. All of them. It's probably the only reason I have any muscle tone at all. If I'm going to die of asphyxiation, at least my core muscles have enough structure to keep me upright until rigor mortis sets in.

I don't notice when I stop breathing; I notice when I start breathing again, or when I need to start breathing again. This goes on all day, off and on. I have no idea if it happens at night, but I wouldn't be surprised. 

When I was little, I had nightmares fairly often. Sometimes they were about monsters, but one repeated for years. Each time, I would wake up, my heart beating so hard and fast I thought I could see it against my chest. My room was dark and my covers were over my head. I was absolutely convinced that a huge black dog was sitting next to my bed, waiting for some movement, some sound, that showed I was awake. Once that happened, I knew it would pounce on me aand rip my throat out. So I would breathe as shallowly as I could and I would hold myself absolutely still. I probably didn't fall back asleep so much as pass out.

When I grew older, the big black dog changed into home invaders, but the concept was the same: any indication I was awake would result in a horrible death.

By the time I was in my mid- to late-30s those nightmares were infrequent, and I rarely have them now. But the feeling is the same: if I don't succeed in whatever I think I need to do, whether it's act like I'm asleep or make enough money to support myself, I will die a horrible death. I have to make the macabre observation that now it appears my nightmare occurs in the daylight.

I'll admit that dying doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore, now that Mom is gone, but that might simply be because I'm not staring into the eyes of Death at the moment. A horrible death, however, is still to be avoided.

It's easier to tell someone else to breathe. To tell myself to breathe, I first have to be aware that I am not doing so. Maybe I need a small looped recording, some sound chip I can wear in an earring or a necklace. Over and over will be a voice, a calm and relaxed voice, saying "Breathe, honey. Just breathe."

Temporary

Having my belongings packed into moving boxes indicates to me a temporary state, a state where I know I'm going to move again. I have lived out of boxes since 1991 when my now-ex-boyfriend and I moved into a house that turned out to be dirty and too uncomfortable to live in. In our next apartment, we kept boxes packed in the second bedroom, even tho' the apartment was more than comfortable. If I had lived there alone I might have kept it. But I left it when I left him. Perhaps we knew the relationship was, by that time, temporary.

When I bought my first house, I left a roomful of boxes packed, taking up the space in my second bedroom for far too long. Then I moved them upstairs so I could at least inhabit that bedroom as an office and a comfy place to hang out, with a twin bed in the corner where I could look outside into my back yard. I lived there for eight years — hardly temporary. When I moved almost 300 miles away because everything had changed, all I cared to take with me permanently was that house, something I long for even now 10 years later.

Melodramatic Me

Today I'm doing something completely different. Today I'm sharing something I wrote for my previous therapist a few years ago. It is not out of date — it is the most articulate statement of something I have felt off and on for my entire life. I'm sure there are many simple and complicated reasons I am sharing this with you right now, but I don't have any interest in exploring them.

Warning: This post contains raw pain and a point of view that most people that most people would rather not see. It is a bit melodramatic, which I am somewhat ashamed to admit is part of my make up — I would much rather be practical and down to earth. It is honest, sad, and dreary. It's also very long. So read at your own risk. It's okay to skip this one.

I used to be so good

When I was younger, I was a morning person. I kept my living space — bedroom, dorm room, apartment, house — clean and organized. When I made a commitment, I met it.

When I started having problems with anxiety and depression, particularly in my early 30s at the Job From Hell, I started calling in sick when I didn't want to do something, mostly because of severe anxiety or depression. I began backing out more and more. It became more routine for me to break a commitment rather than to meet one. 

Over the course of a couple of decades, I became a person different from the person I knew I was. Knowing this added to my feelings of depression.

When I determined that I would change my life, I determined that I would change that aspect, too. And I did ... for awhile.

I called in sick a couple of times to a new job last summer, and I'm not sure why. Stress. But I got back to doing better. 

Then I was two weeks late for a project quote because I let my mental state command me. And today I backed out of a meeting and let someone else keep notes for me. I have yet to talk to her about it because I slept for four hours this afternoon — another way I have of avoiding what pains or stresses me.

I'm late on every one of my bills and those of the estate's. I owe money to the Steps to cover their tax burden from one of our bequests. I not only didn't get my taxes done, I didn't manage to file for an extension either.

I can barely breathe.

At this rate, it wouldn't be difficult for me to simply take to my bed for a few weeks. Except that I do need to at least pretend I'm looking for work. 

Dear god I hope the house sells soon. I don't know if a bit more financial security will make a difference in my personal integrity or not. I'm not sure what will.

Exploring pain

Therapy was rough today. In fact, it hurt like hell. And this is going to be a very long post explaining why.

I told Karen that she needed to be the leader, because if left to my own devices I tend to wander, especially if I dread the topic of the day. So today we jumped back into the trauma therapy and continued to read the first section I'd written about.

Now, this first section only covers from the point I found out about Mom's cancer to the point where I got on a plane to fly home.  There is a lot more geography to cover, hills and valleys and even fruited plains (truly — there were clover fields between Mom's house and the cancer center that we watched go from green to greener to magenta to ... mowed, and I didn't manage to get a photograph, even though I passed those fields five days a week). Given such a small section of the whole, it seems reasonable to think that there could be only a small amount of emotional trauma to discover. Even as I read through what I'd written, I felt little emotion ... until near the end when I spoke of the fear I felt. That's when I began to weep.

I expected that, from our last session doing trauma therapy. Weep a little, recover a little. Before we began, I grabbed a tissue because I knew I'd need it.

Then Karen began working me deeper into my experience and my feelings from that time, almost a year ago. I went through a second tissue and started on a third. She asked about my mom and about our relationship and meaningful conversations we'd had. We laughed at one or two of my stories.

I had no idea how deep we could go, how far back emotions can connect and resonate. We reached the topic of how I feel with Mom gone, how mothers can be anchors, which mine was for me, and so on. What came to mind for me was what happened from time to time when I was a child. 

Did you ever wander off in a store as a child? Did your parents panic when they didn't find you, or did you? I had a tendency to stop to look at something more closely, or to keep going when my parent(s) stopped. Eventually, I'd look up and not see my parents. A touch of panic would grab me right away. I'd look in the next couple of aisles and not see them, then the real panic would set in. I never called out, I never cried, I just felt dread and fear squeeze my insides as if wringing out a wet cloth. 

I always found them. They would be looking at something and had no idea that I'd gone "missing." They'd even tease me about worrying. "We're here," they'd say. "We wouldn't leave without you." But I'd always end up doing and feeling the same thing.

This panic went deep. Even within the past few years, if I lost track of my friends in a store, I'd feel the panic and look for them. This sense of being lost and alone generally led me to stay close to them, whether what they were looking at interested me or not. In fact, that behavior has become routine for me. If I am in a crowded situation with someone, I will hold onto a piece of their clothing, if I cannot hold their hand, so I don't get lost.

"So how do you feel now," asked Karen. "Now that your family is all gone?" All the fear and the sense of isolation and panic and the knowledge that my fear I would end up alone has been completely validated surged up and out of me, first in words then in tears and finally in sobs that shook me so I could barely breathe — I don't know how long that lasted. I do know I went through two more tissues.

I knew this work was going to be difficult, and I knew I would cry. I did not know that I would actually sob my heart out in this woman's office; I have only done that in front of one person ever in my life (at least in my memory). I hate feeling this much pain, I hate crying, and I particularly hate sobbing where my body shakes and I can't keep noise from coming out of my mouth — the part of me that stands aside and observes always comments on how stupid those noises sound. I hate them. Doing this in front of another person simply added to the intensity and distress.

We talked me down and I was calm and tear-free when I left. I even took a walk at the park. But I'm going to have to figure out a different strategy: I also went to the grocery store because I needed a few things. Unfortunately, not only do I not manage lunch before my appointment, I also feel a sense of need for comfort after pouring out my tears. I bought goodies. And ate them all. Even if I'm burning off calories by crying and by walking, they aren't enough to balance out the comfort foods.

After an intensely emotional event, I generally move to a phase of "reduced affect" where I feel and display very little emotion. I have a polite and civilized aspect, I think. Given enough of these events over time to think about them, I've concluded that the follow-up phase functions both as a self-protective mechanism and a control mechanism. When I experience such intense emotions, I fear that I will lose control completely, and then what?  Therefore, after such events, my mind and body shut down to limit me and protect me from that intensity for a little while so I can recover. After today, I wouldn't be surprised if I shut down for the next week.

Cognitive therapy has nothing on trauma therapy. Nothing.