Once again, I cannot go outside.
I have a chiropractor's appointment, and I need to get some shopping done. I really have things I need to take care of today. But instead I am sitting here with the door locked tight because it's happening once again.
First I start to shake, a tiny tremble that starts from deep inside... down in the stomach... it slowly builds, spreads through my limbs until they are trembling as well. My throat tightens up and it gets hard to breathe. The tears come, burning my eyelids. Nausea boils in my stomach. I try to control my breathing so I don't hyperventilate. My whole body seems to crunch in on itself, my spine aching, I double over. I hug myself in mute protection from my terrors.
I don't want to go outside.
Outside holds every danger and every terror imaginable. My mind races with it. Will someone hurt me? Will I hurt myself? What if I get stranded, sick, injured out there? What will happen to me? The dread mounts and mounts into flat-out panic.
This is the point where most people tell me I am over-reacting. Sure, bad things might happen out there, but hey! Someone would surely help you out! Really, there is nothing to be afraid of! Your fears are unfounded!
Except that they're not. I think back to the awful day, years ago, in New Jersey... when I had no car, no friends, no help... and my beloved cat Tiger went into diabetic shock... I hustled him into a carrier and started running down the street, trying to get him to a vet before I lost him. In a strange city, a strange state, a strange neighborhood, I had blocks and blocks to run but I kept going. The carrier was heavy, my lungs were giving out, and I started to go into the panic. Things got blurry. The world tilted. Still, I kept running on. A big crack in the sidewalk blindsided me and I tripped, slamming onto the ground... my pants ripped, knees shred... my head spinning, can't breathe. The carrier lying sideways on the ground next to me. I'm try to get up but I can't, I am paralyzed, it is all that I can do to breathe because my chest and throat are locked up.
This is the part where the good Samaritan is supposed to come along, right? Only, they didn't. As I lay broken, bleeding, and struggling for breath on a cracked sidewalk, a thousand cars whizzed by me 6 feet away on the street. Some even slowed down to gawk at me. I was mouthing wordlessly, breathlessly, for help. Not one single car stopped. Not one single pedestrian came to help. They just flowed around me, looking down at me before moving along. I must have laid there for about 10 minutes before I could get up and continue on. I knew then that I could have died right there on that street, and none of those people would have helped me, or even cared.
And I have had this experience countless in my life. Like the time when my truck broke down at a busy local intersection... smoke billowing out from under the hood... and dozens of cars passing me by, honking at me, and even angrily screaming at me for blocking traffic, throwing me the finger. Or the time when a guy got violently drunk one night and started choking me and pushing me down onto the hood of a car, right on the street, and I called out for help while countless people just walked by and did nothing. I have never been 'saved' or even helped. I have been taught the lesson by life, over and over, that if anything bad happens to me out there, I am completely on my own.
Those are the big scary things. Then there are the small agonies.
The agonies of random strangers out in the grocery store, at the bars, on the street who make fun of my physical scars.... pointing and laughing right in my face. The agonies of intimacy and betrayal, like the many, many, many 'friends' I have had who cheated with my boyfriends, turned on me, lied to me, or just abandoned me completely. The agonies of the bully squad here in El Paso, that group of 'popular' people who hang out at certain bars and events and who- even though we are far from high school days- still spread completely made-up rumors about me, make fun of me, and still send me messages threatening to beat me up if they see me anywhere.
And what about the other things... the intense fear I have that anyone I see out there, outside, in the random crowds, could be anyone... serial killer, maniac, someone out to do serious harm...? This is where they tell me, 'Oh you can't think that way, you're just being paranoid... do you know how rare the chance that you will randomly run into a maniacal killer are??" *scoff* Except... I have run into killers. I had a friend murdered by a serial killer when I was 13. My own sister was murdered in her own home by a guy she randomly met. I was once targeted by an alleged killer who was found by the FBI to have photos of me that he downloaded from the internet hanging in his torture trailer. And I have also been assaulted by strangers on the street, and in my own home.
In none of these instances have I ever had another human being come to my aid. I have been in situations where I literally screamed for help and nobody cared. Life has taught me, over and over by experience, that everything outside of my highly-controlled safety zone is, at best, ripe for dealing out the pain, and at worst, potentially life-threatening. And this was a lesson learned at a very young age. I will never forget the years of physical and mental abuse we endured at the hands of a violent, drunk stepfather, and how not one person in the family ever stepped in to help us... even though we children were crying for help.
In my years of cognitive behavioral therapy, my therapists encouraged me to get out of the house and to do the things that I feared. The point being that when I see that my fears are unfounded, they will start to fade away. Instead, every time I pushed myself to do just that, yet another terrible thing would happen to me to reinforce the opposite theory- that I was right to be afraid. It got to the point where even my therapists saw that this was only making things worse and they were helpless to change it.
So now I live on medication. The pills give me my breath back when I can't breathe, but they don't erase the horrors of the memories in my mind. The pills lower my blood pressure, but they don't stop the nightmares. The pills calm my panic attacks, but they do not make me feel safe.
Is it surprising that I have been living all these years with debilitating extreme social anxiety, clinical depression, panic attacks, and PTSD? My life experience pretty much guaranteed it.
And now I get to dwell with it for the rest of my life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I appreciate you guys reading this, and please do not take it as a total negative... I just needed to vent. Despite my disabilities I am always striving for a happy life and I won't ever stop doing that. Sometimes though, you just need to get stuff off of your chest. So thanks for listening.
Anyone else out there who is going through these issues, I promise that you are not alone. Hang in there...
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Saturday, July 26, 2008
angsty mcangsterson
These are my darkest days.
I can't remember ever having a lower point. Which sounds crazy, given the great tragedy & drama that has been Life Thus Far. I'm no longer on rough waters, I'm no longer even floundering... I'm just dead weight... still, and limp, and bruised from the inside out, and slowly sinking. I am just in a holding pattern, numb and waiting, and waiting, and waiting...... I can't even summon up a healthy fear of sharks.
A little over 2 years ago, the simple decision of one person whom I had loved and trusted for many years sent my existence into a crash-and-burn. I faced the awful experience of losing everything I had in life in one quick split second. The D-word is never pleasant, but in my case it was beyond painful- it has reshaped my life like a tornado dropping from the sky without warning and brutally rearranging the face of the earth, touching down and transforming it forever into a different thing in a matter of moments.
The heartbreak of losing someone I loved was only the beginning of it- I came home from a work trip (photography assignment in Arizona) to discover- shockingly- that my husband had left without a word while I was away, yes left with someone else, someone secret from the secret hidden life I was unaware of, and had left me alone, with nothing much at all besides what I had with me on that trip. I no longer had a place to live, I didn't have a dime to my name. I had no warning and no time for plans. One second I was tiredly turning my truck- sheathed in Arizona road dust- into our driveway, thinking about a nice hot bath and my old familiar bed... the next second, I was standing on the porch in utter shock, after discovering that my husband had packed up and moved out with no explanation.
Even though it's been years, the shock of that moment and the pain of it's appalling cruelty have yet to wear off. I can still feel it just as vividly as I did that day.
When I came to where I am living now, it was out of desperation. I had no other choice- it was here or the streets. And I came into this place knowing that it wouldn't be a good atmosphere for me. But I was assuming I'd get my shit together and be out of here in a month or two. That was over two years ago now. Doh.
I don't really want to get into detail about why being here is bad for me, because I live with an older relative who really didn't have to help me at all if they didn't want to, and I don't want to openly call them out. I do have a roof over my head. And I appreciate it, I know that I could have it a lot worse. But living here is just kind of killing off my spirit one excruciating day at a time. The way I have to live here is in complete opposition to the way I live my own life. There are conflicting views on life and how it should be lived between me and my benefactor, there are religious/spiritual differences as well. And in order to stay here, I am in a position now where I bow my head in pure subservience to someone else's ideals (though it's given the name 'respect', after 2 years it feels like subservience) It makes me sick inside to live this way. But, it's this, or the streets outside. I have nowhere else to go.
The one room I live in here has spartan bare gray walls. Nothing can be hung on them. No art, no colors or reminders of loved ones and loved things. It's about as cozy as a death row prison cell. Ghosts haunt this room too, though not the literal kind... I can still envision the relative who died in this room, and the sight of his body, lifeless, pale and still in the bed, while I stood there silently looking through tears, waiting for the coroner to get here for what seemed like forever... I can see my murdered little sister in this room too. I can picture how it looked when she lived here during her own hard times... I can still see her vividly, sitting at the end of her bed in this room, alive and telling me her latest stories and poetry and plans. And it makes me remember how happy I was for her when she got out out here and was so happy being on her own, and it hurts to think about what happened to her after, when she should have had her whole life ahead of her.
This room tortures me in it's own special way, both with it's hard memories and with it's lack of comfort. When I wake up, and open my eyes to see the grayness all around, I am filled with heavy depression. It does not get the day off to a good start, that's for sure.
I would have been out of here a long time ago if Fate didn't have another trick up his sleeve *shakes fist* Shortly after I got here my health did a nosedive, and long story short I ended up on Social Security on disability status for a chronic health issue. While I get a (super minuscule) bit of money every month from SS, it's nothing that anyone could ever live on (it's a 3 digit sum just BARELY, and that's all I get per month!)... I'd never be able to afford my medications, doctors visits, lab work, prescriptions, etc without the Medicaid coverage I get through SS. So, I can't work, at least not beyond freelancing type stuff from home, and even then, they have a limit on how much I can earn per month before they take away my benefits. And that limit is pretty low (again, it's a 3-digit number, and that's per month. Sigh) So, like many countless Americans, I have to choose between having health care, or having money to live on. Without health care I'd have no health, so, moot point.
And so I'm stuck living here, on the generosity (and therefore on the whims and under the rules of) my fundamentally-opposed-to-my-beliefs relative. Sure I could have found a very cheap, tiny apartment I suppose- but that would have required me to get rid of my beloved pets. And no matter how bad things have gotten, those are my babies and I'm just not willing to abandon them- I'd literally have to abandon them at a shelter, where they'd have about a 90% chance of being put to death because they are not puppies/kittens, they are older, and some of them have medical problems- blind dog, dog with thyroid problems that require daily medication, etc- and I know there's not much chance of adoption for animals in their situation. Especially when right now our city's animal shelters are facing massive overcrowding and decreased adoptions, due to the recession and the money problems it's causing for everyone. I love them too much to abandon them, ever. No way, no how.
And that's my sucky situation.
This is why I am so anxious about finding a mobile home. The rent on the lot is so, so low (only about 200 bucks with some utilities included!) that I finally have a chance, and a way to move out of here. It is a ray of hope. But it's hard to see sometimes. I'm just in a funk right now, because we have been searching for a place for months now and keep finding great deals that raise my hopes and then just fall apart at the end. So my nerves are beyond frayed at this point. I just keep waking up each day and waiting hour by hour for the Yes Call, the one where the answer is finally, finally, "YES we have a mobile home!"
And that will be the counterpoint, the turning point, because that will surely be one of the brightest days of my life. It will be a whole new beginning for me... independence, and freedom, and privacy ohhhhh glorious PRIVACY!!!
So I am at the end of my rope right now, but... I have tied a knot and am hanging on. If you know of any rituals or sacrifices to the Mobile Home Gods (should I offer up some plastic pink flamingos?) to move this along please let me know. Thanks.
I can't remember ever having a lower point. Which sounds crazy, given the great tragedy & drama that has been Life Thus Far. I'm no longer on rough waters, I'm no longer even floundering... I'm just dead weight... still, and limp, and bruised from the inside out, and slowly sinking. I am just in a holding pattern, numb and waiting, and waiting, and waiting...... I can't even summon up a healthy fear of sharks.
A little over 2 years ago, the simple decision of one person whom I had loved and trusted for many years sent my existence into a crash-and-burn. I faced the awful experience of losing everything I had in life in one quick split second. The D-word is never pleasant, but in my case it was beyond painful- it has reshaped my life like a tornado dropping from the sky without warning and brutally rearranging the face of the earth, touching down and transforming it forever into a different thing in a matter of moments.
The heartbreak of losing someone I loved was only the beginning of it- I came home from a work trip (photography assignment in Arizona) to discover- shockingly- that my husband had left without a word while I was away, yes left with someone else, someone secret from the secret hidden life I was unaware of, and had left me alone, with nothing much at all besides what I had with me on that trip. I no longer had a place to live, I didn't have a dime to my name. I had no warning and no time for plans. One second I was tiredly turning my truck- sheathed in Arizona road dust- into our driveway, thinking about a nice hot bath and my old familiar bed... the next second, I was standing on the porch in utter shock, after discovering that my husband had packed up and moved out with no explanation.
Even though it's been years, the shock of that moment and the pain of it's appalling cruelty have yet to wear off. I can still feel it just as vividly as I did that day.
When I came to where I am living now, it was out of desperation. I had no other choice- it was here or the streets. And I came into this place knowing that it wouldn't be a good atmosphere for me. But I was assuming I'd get my shit together and be out of here in a month or two. That was over two years ago now. Doh.
I don't really want to get into detail about why being here is bad for me, because I live with an older relative who really didn't have to help me at all if they didn't want to, and I don't want to openly call them out. I do have a roof over my head. And I appreciate it, I know that I could have it a lot worse. But living here is just kind of killing off my spirit one excruciating day at a time. The way I have to live here is in complete opposition to the way I live my own life. There are conflicting views on life and how it should be lived between me and my benefactor, there are religious/spiritual differences as well. And in order to stay here, I am in a position now where I bow my head in pure subservience to someone else's ideals (though it's given the name 'respect', after 2 years it feels like subservience) It makes me sick inside to live this way. But, it's this, or the streets outside. I have nowhere else to go.
The one room I live in here has spartan bare gray walls. Nothing can be hung on them. No art, no colors or reminders of loved ones and loved things. It's about as cozy as a death row prison cell. Ghosts haunt this room too, though not the literal kind... I can still envision the relative who died in this room, and the sight of his body, lifeless, pale and still in the bed, while I stood there silently looking through tears, waiting for the coroner to get here for what seemed like forever... I can see my murdered little sister in this room too. I can picture how it looked when she lived here during her own hard times... I can still see her vividly, sitting at the end of her bed in this room, alive and telling me her latest stories and poetry and plans. And it makes me remember how happy I was for her when she got out out here and was so happy being on her own, and it hurts to think about what happened to her after, when she should have had her whole life ahead of her.
This room tortures me in it's own special way, both with it's hard memories and with it's lack of comfort. When I wake up, and open my eyes to see the grayness all around, I am filled with heavy depression. It does not get the day off to a good start, that's for sure.
I would have been out of here a long time ago if Fate didn't have another trick up his sleeve *shakes fist* Shortly after I got here my health did a nosedive, and long story short I ended up on Social Security on disability status for a chronic health issue. While I get a (super minuscule) bit of money every month from SS, it's nothing that anyone could ever live on (it's a 3 digit sum just BARELY, and that's all I get per month!)... I'd never be able to afford my medications, doctors visits, lab work, prescriptions, etc without the Medicaid coverage I get through SS. So, I can't work, at least not beyond freelancing type stuff from home, and even then, they have a limit on how much I can earn per month before they take away my benefits. And that limit is pretty low (again, it's a 3-digit number, and that's per month. Sigh) So, like many countless Americans, I have to choose between having health care, or having money to live on. Without health care I'd have no health, so, moot point.
And so I'm stuck living here, on the generosity (and therefore on the whims and under the rules of) my fundamentally-opposed-to-my-beliefs relative. Sure I could have found a very cheap, tiny apartment I suppose- but that would have required me to get rid of my beloved pets. And no matter how bad things have gotten, those are my babies and I'm just not willing to abandon them- I'd literally have to abandon them at a shelter, where they'd have about a 90% chance of being put to death because they are not puppies/kittens, they are older, and some of them have medical problems- blind dog, dog with thyroid problems that require daily medication, etc- and I know there's not much chance of adoption for animals in their situation. Especially when right now our city's animal shelters are facing massive overcrowding and decreased adoptions, due to the recession and the money problems it's causing for everyone. I love them too much to abandon them, ever. No way, no how.
And that's my sucky situation.
This is why I am so anxious about finding a mobile home. The rent on the lot is so, so low (only about 200 bucks with some utilities included!) that I finally have a chance, and a way to move out of here. It is a ray of hope. But it's hard to see sometimes. I'm just in a funk right now, because we have been searching for a place for months now and keep finding great deals that raise my hopes and then just fall apart at the end. So my nerves are beyond frayed at this point. I just keep waking up each day and waiting hour by hour for the Yes Call, the one where the answer is finally, finally, "YES we have a mobile home!"
And that will be the counterpoint, the turning point, because that will surely be one of the brightest days of my life. It will be a whole new beginning for me... independence, and freedom, and privacy ohhhhh glorious PRIVACY!!!
So I am at the end of my rope right now, but... I have tied a knot and am hanging on. If you know of any rituals or sacrifices to the Mobile Home Gods (should I offer up some plastic pink flamingos?) to move this along please let me know. Thanks.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
sick and/or tired
Trying to wind down after a hardcore day (and night) of illness & convalescence. I had a rough day today. My body crapped out on me. I'm so tired of being sick & tired. I'm only 35 but my body sometimes behaves like it's 70... *grumble*
I've had various health problems most of my life, and I have always imagined that if I lived in the way-old days, I'd be one of those white-ruffly-nightdress-ed ladies that always got the vapors and spent most of their time lying abed, hand pressed to forehead dramatically. But since I do not live in olden times, I am instead just that chick who sometimes falls down in a faint, most usually not in a white ruffly nightdress. Fainting sucks!
Fainting has actually been a big problem of late. Right now I am sporting a nice, purply bruised lump at my hairline (and a lingering headache) from my head kissing floor during an early morning faint. I have a rather new scar above my eyebrow from a faint a few weeks ago (another one dammit, though it does kinda give me that fetching deadly assassin-ish type look) Also I have a little cut by my lip right now from yet another recent faint. I look like I've been brawling! The fact that my room- where the fainting has happened lately- has a superhard concrete floor doesn't help. Doh.
The fainting is happening because of my blood pressure issues, which are being exacerbated because of stress. And when it gets hot (like it has been lately with the crazy 105 degree temps) my blood pressure is even more apt to spike up easily, increasing faintage potential. I am in a stressful living situation right now (UNDERSTATEMENT), so decreasing the stress is not that easy right now. I'm sorta stuck here in a toxic (for me) environment- for the moment. Luckily, it looks like I will be moving out soon; we're just looking for the right mobile home now, as soon as we find it, I'm outta here!
In the meantime, I just hafta keep on keeping on and try to at least make light of things- I've long been known for finding humor in the grimmest situations so, lucky me.
And I could be doing better in terms of taking care of myself lately. There- I admit it.
I've been eating a crappy diet (and not eating nearly enough), I've not been sleeping enough, I've been pushing myself physically on those days when I know I should cool it and give my body a rest. I have to realize that I can't bully my body into not being sick. I have to- like my very dear friend recently told me- ride out the rough patches like a sailor (or a pirate, yearrgh?!) on the deck of a ship at rough seas.... roll with the swells while keeping focused on the horizon.
So, though I had a very shitty & discouraging day today, there's always tomorrow. That, and randomly stumbling across things like these brilliantly bizarre videos of Isabella Rosellini portraying the sex lives of various bugs in a sort of see-it-to-believe-it insane bug porn.
Now that shit made me laugh, and laugh and laugh. More, please!
I've had various health problems most of my life, and I have always imagined that if I lived in the way-old days, I'd be one of those white-ruffly-nightdress-ed ladies that always got the vapors and spent most of their time lying abed, hand pressed to forehead dramatically. But since I do not live in olden times, I am instead just that chick who sometimes falls down in a faint, most usually not in a white ruffly nightdress. Fainting sucks!
Fainting has actually been a big problem of late. Right now I am sporting a nice, purply bruised lump at my hairline (and a lingering headache) from my head kissing floor during an early morning faint. I have a rather new scar above my eyebrow from a faint a few weeks ago (another one dammit, though it does kinda give me that fetching deadly assassin-ish type look) Also I have a little cut by my lip right now from yet another recent faint. I look like I've been brawling! The fact that my room- where the fainting has happened lately- has a superhard concrete floor doesn't help. Doh.
The fainting is happening because of my blood pressure issues, which are being exacerbated because of stress. And when it gets hot (like it has been lately with the crazy 105 degree temps) my blood pressure is even more apt to spike up easily, increasing faintage potential. I am in a stressful living situation right now (UNDERSTATEMENT), so decreasing the stress is not that easy right now. I'm sorta stuck here in a toxic (for me) environment- for the moment. Luckily, it looks like I will be moving out soon; we're just looking for the right mobile home now, as soon as we find it, I'm outta here!
In the meantime, I just hafta keep on keeping on and try to at least make light of things- I've long been known for finding humor in the grimmest situations so, lucky me.
And I could be doing better in terms of taking care of myself lately. There- I admit it.
I've been eating a crappy diet (and not eating nearly enough), I've not been sleeping enough, I've been pushing myself physically on those days when I know I should cool it and give my body a rest. I have to realize that I can't bully my body into not being sick. I have to- like my very dear friend recently told me- ride out the rough patches like a sailor (or a pirate, yearrgh?!) on the deck of a ship at rough seas.... roll with the swells while keeping focused on the horizon.
So, though I had a very shitty & discouraging day today, there's always tomorrow. That, and randomly stumbling across things like these brilliantly bizarre videos of Isabella Rosellini portraying the sex lives of various bugs in a sort of see-it-to-believe-it insane bug porn.
Now that shit made me laugh, and laugh and laugh. More, please!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)