Hold the Door
What do you do when your brain starts screaming bloody murder at you?
What do you do when the thing you rely on to keep you grounded, to keep you safe, and to help you navigate the world suddenly doesn’t goes on the fritz? You get absolutely no feedback from it at all and you end up in dangerous, stupid situations because your warning system was off. Or you get too much feedback, all the feedback, and you end up paralyzed on your couch unable to choose a distracting movie or TV show on Netflix because…well…what if you do it wrong? Or, somehow, both happen at the same time and you find yourself panicking about everything but completely unaware of what you’re doing.
Obviously, I’ve been having some difficulty with anxiety recently. It’s been a while, so bear with me while I whine a bit.
The worst part is…well…all of it is the worst part, but my current least-favorite part is that I have absolutely no idea what set me off this time. Usually I can find something to pin my panic on, but this time? Bupkis. I can’t help but wonder if maybe by identifying the trigger I could make the waves of panic stop. Try as I might, however, I can’t pinpoint it. I know when it started (it will be two weeks ago tomorrow), but I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
This is why mental disorders are so difficult to deal with. Depression, too, likes to rear it’s ugly had for absolutely no reason. Try as you might, you can’t go around or over or under it, you just have to go through it and come out the other side. At least, that’s been my experience. The more I try to head off a bout of anxiety or depression the worse it will eventually be when it hits. It’s fighting a losing battle, trying to hold the onslaught at bay, and the more you fight, the more the opposing side gangs up on you and, eventually, makes you it’s bitch.
This is not to say that I simply let depression and anxiety run roughshod over me. No, I have plenty of coping mechanisms, tricks, and tools in my mental toolbox to help me get through a rough patch. There’s medication (some of which I take every day, some of which I reserve for emergencies), therapy, and various forms of escapism (from plunking myself in front of the TV with an inane science documentary to going to the movies to reading or listening to a book to actually living in a fantasy world for a little while because the real one is too difficult…I don’t recommend that last one). There are also the less healthy things that I’ve done in the past (bingeing, self-harm), and I try very hard never to touch those tools. They are too dangerous…like using a blow torch to kill a spider. Yesterday I ate an entire jar of Marshmallow Fluff and I’ve been beating myself up for it all day today. I probably will for the next week at least.
Today I decided to try to escape. I listened to a whole new audiobook. I went to the movies and lost myself in the gross hilarity of Deadpool. I made my food for the week (cooking is an escape) and did some light cleaning. I hugged my cats. And I’m still not OK.
I would really like to be OK again. I’d really like to be on less shaky ground. I don’t know how to make this stop. I’m already doing everything I can think of. All I can do now is wait and hope the upswing starts soon. But it’s exhausting. I feel like Hodor, blindly holding my ground against a swarming army of evil, hoping that the best piece of me will find a way to escape, find a way to freedom, a way to safety.
