A Tangled Mess

I'm a mess. Much of my life is a mess. I'm spending so much energy distracting myself from my messes that I barely have enough energy left to breathe. I feel like I'm caught  in a mass of tangled yarn.

I'm reading obsessively, including books that I'm not normally interested in, as long as the books are light entertainment. And when I read, I skip over more and more of the text to just get to the main plot points. I'm not taking much enjoyment from the books. Books with greater emotional or mental content get set aside. I just purchased a new Tawna Fenske book and haven't been able to enjoy it. I love Tawna's work, but I'm anticipating the emotional and romantic complications and getting anxious about them. Anxious about fictional characters, people!

I'm not watching any TV series with my housemates anymore. Everything they watch has character arcs: I become invested in the characters and get stressed out when their lives are difficult. In general I've always had difficulty detaching from movies and TV, but it's a lot worse now.

There are people in my life I haven't contacted in months, some of them in over a year, and not because I don't like them. I don't read blogs much at all. I don't know why I've dropped contact with most people: I have no idea how doing so connects with how I'm feeling.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a two-week experiment proposed by my psych. For two weeks, I'm not going to try to go to bed earlier. I've been staying up until 3 am, but wanting to go to bed around 10 pm. I spend mental and emotional energy chastising myself for staying up so late. So for these two weeks, I'm just going to let myself stay up as late as I want to and sleep as late as I want to. No judgements.

As a corollary of this experiment, I'm setting aside all shoulds and should-nots. No judgement. No restrictions. Want to eat ice cream? Sure. As much as I want. Be a slug on the couch? Sure, as usual, but this time no judgements. Do it because I want to.

When I manage to quiet the shoulds and should-nots, I feel less stressed, more peaceful. It does take effort to quiet them. In addition, my housemates do NOT like this experiment. They think it's a bad idea. They disapprove. They disagree with my psych. Even though it's only for two weeks and I wasn't making any progress doing things the other way!

Better Living Through (Brain) Chemistry

It took me a long time to accept that I will have to be on medication for my mental health for the rest of my life. At first, I was sure that I only needed it for a little while, until I got control over my moods, until I stopped being depressed or anxious. Then, when my psychs started talking to me more specifically about brain chemistry, I thought maybe I'd just need to be on the right medicine for long enough to "fix" my brain chemistry, then the depression and anxiety would go away.

I now understand and accept that my brain chemistry is messed up, that it has been messed up for most of my life, and that the only thing that can help me develop and maintain some semblance of healthy brain chemistry is medication. Doesn't mean I like it, though. And I'm willing to bet money that the medications I'm on today are not the medications I'll be on five years from now, because for my brain chemistry problems it seems that the scientists haven't even stuck with the same diagnosis for five years, much less the same medications.

Of course, what that means is that I'm probably going to continue to struggle with my brain, that I won't be able to develop a stable balance. I could be wrong. I'd like to be wrong.

I felt virtually perfect that June, before Mom was diagnosed with cancer.

So my psych and I were talking last week and got on the topic of brain chemistry. I was explaining how frustrated I am that I still need weekly therapy after 30 years of therapy, with only about three years total of not being in therapy. And I am frustrated.I just want to be healthy and happy and be able to take care of myself without virtually constant medical oversight or care. Fine, I'll take the meds. But I want to stop being plunged into deep depressions or stabbed by spikes of anxiety. I want to function and function well, all on my own. But I feel a victim of my own brain chemicals.

So What's Been Goin' On?

Well, I've been thinking. I've been zoning out. I've been getting very few  hours of sleep a night — still — and wondering why. And the past couple of days I've been playing with the cool new toy Sabine bought me: an iPad mini. She said we all needed tablets, so she bought Griffin an android tablet of his choice and now she's seeing what about each of ours she likes so she can decide among all the choices for herself.

I also applied for six jobs yesterday. They say you need to apply for 100 jobs to find one. If I do, say, 5 a day for the rest of the month, I'll be set! Of course, I missed today. And I get very distracted by my housemates sometimes, especially since Sabine has retired.

I made a schedule of my daily routine needs. It will work, if I can get to sleep by 11, stay asleep all night, and get up at 7. Big 'ifs'.

My creativity seems to be in the bottom of the sink right now. I've been crocheting my brains out and showing some creativity there, but then I look at stuff people have made up that's on Pinterest or Ravelry and think "why don't I do that? I'm so dull!" The crocheting has left no time for other creative work (writing, drawing) or reading. But it is satisfying because I am creating tangible, useful, beautiful things for other people and that is one of my languages of love. Actually, two I guess: gifts and service.

I talked with my therapist about the rebound effect I experienced for the couple of days following my last post. We talked a bit about it being one of my patterns and how it seems related to how I withdraw after feeling a strong emotion — for example, after I have a cry or even a big emotional event, I then pull back and am distant and detached for a while, hours to days. I think maybe that's what I've supposed to have been thinking about and working on since Wednesday, but I forgot and it's upstairs in my journal and I don't feel like going up and checking it out. Right now I'm not feeling amazing and I don't feel like I'm doing Great Things, but I at least still believe I am and I can, even if not right now.

Death and Life

It is a matter worth noting that not once that I can remember this last week did I wish I were dead or dying. This fact is both happy and sad: happy because, hey, I didn't want to be dead, and sad because, wow, during enough other weeks I have?

Here's what I posted on the ReFab blog about this:

Some weeks, just getting through the week without having even random thoughts of how it would be easier if the Universe just casually bumped me off is a good thing. It’s not that things are rotten, just that they are hard and I’m still unemployed and I feel afraid about my future, never mind my present. So, I’m counting it as a win for this past week that I didn’t even wish I were dead, even for a moment.

Why have I felt different this past week? I have no idea. Could be we are getting somewhere in therapy (but I'm not aware of it; however, wouldn't be the first time). Could be due to the slight medication change (but we didn't start that until Wednesday and the past few days I've been kinda dizzy when I got up, so maybe the med isn't such a great thing for me). Could be the full moon (full moons make me happy). Could be, as was pointed out by responders to my comment, I know there are people who would miss me and be in pain if I died. I might as well flip a coin to decide what factor has made a change. Unless it's just a mental hiccup and I go back to occasionally thinking about how much it wouldn't hurt if I weren't alive. (Yeah, a bit of pessimism and wariness, plus discomfort about change even if it's for the better …)

Just FYI: NO! I am NOT thinking of hurting myself. Just want to be clear on that point so no one worries.

Rebound Effect

Wednesday's post was like flying, like rocketing up through the clouds into bright sunlight. Thursday was like faltering at the peak of my flight, Friday was stalling and then falling back through the dark clouds towards the earth, and today was like crashing in a fiery explosion on the ground. I am experiencing such a strong anxiety reaction that I had to spend over 45 minutes in bed this morning talking to myself and breathing just so I could get out of bed to take a Xanax to calm myself. And instead of the .5-mg that I've been taking for morning and afternoon doses, I returned to 1-mg doses for both of those. I'm still quaking inside, but I'm functional. Mostly.

How did I go from Wednesday to today, from being filled with light and life to being filled with shards of glass and fear?

One highly likely possibility is via the Rebound Effect, where my peak that came from reaching great depths in therapy rebounded to depths in response to the vulnerability and the anxieties and insecurities that remained in place even after the wonderful therapy-initiated learning. Vulnerability and fear operated like rubber bands to pull me back an amount equal to what therapy helped me soar to.

Why? Well, Wednesday did not cure me — it just provided me with new insights and perspectives and even handholds to keep pulling me toward progress. But I have been more vulnerable, to varying degrees, in the years since my fortifications were breached, and when I touch things deep inside myself during therapy or self-exploration, I am extremely vulnerable and all my history has taught me that vulnerability makes me unsafe, so touching that vulnerability can spark an equally powerful fear response. I think that is part of my response, my anxiety.

The other thing is that I have been feeling anxious and disappointed in myself for not having other paid work and for not searching hard for other work for many weeks. Add to that the fact that I didn't follow through with a commitment I made to the housemate who is supporting me (I agreed I would water some potted plants for her while she was at work, plants that were showing dryness and that she doesn't want to lose, and I had not done so by the time she got home), and she went into one of her temper fits, which triggered many of my worst anxiety and fear responses.

I apologized, after she finished watering the plants herself and came indoors. She eventually cooled off and apologized for her temper. But my anxiety is still resonating inside of me, and today I have been online a lot and I took a long nap, instead of baking as I wanted.

Power, Protection, and Progress

So. Therapy today was powerful. We talked about a major theme in my life: power and powerlessness, authenticity and invisibility. I came away with my mind spinning, feeling full to the brim, and feeling good. I even turned off my radio so my mind could keep resonating with what we talked about and when I got home I wrote the important bits down so I'd remember them.

It started off with me talking about the TED Talk by Amy Cuddy about body language and using it to change your own perceptions and feelings and behaviors. About the "Wonder Woman pose" that the media has played up and how to use it. (And I have used it, and Amy's other suggestions, and they seem to actually work.)

From there we went into how I diminish my own strengths and talents and accomplishments, and why I do so. I tend to have "don't look at me, I'm no threat" submissive and powerless postures: head or eyes down, shoulders hunched, arms and legs drawn in. I have often thought that I don't deserve as much space as other people, as much air as other people.

Then we went to why. Mostly self-protection, plus a lot of being squashed so much I've just given in and stayed squashed most of the time. Because of being molested, and from such a young age. Because my parents were always telling me "don't show off" (my intelligence and vocabulary), "don't brag," even while encouraging my little brother to show what an exceptional athlete he was and revolving our lives (mine included) around his sports. Because at a job I stayed at for six years (four years longer than I should have), my boss and co-workers treated me worse and worse the more authentically I lived my life and the more I threatened their world view: I both worked AND wrote (and published a story); I took a month off and went to Britain; I took six weeks off and attended a full-time writers' workshop (that you have to apply and compete for). Some people can be downright hostile if you do what they have told themselves they cannot do because that is How Things Are.

I have often in my life felt that The Universe hates me. It has seemed as if, just when my life was going particularly well, the Universe has reached out and slammed me, with moving when I was 16, with the deaths of my father and my brother and my mother, and with other things. And that has happened a lot, but there are times when I've been slammed while things were going very badly, and I'm sure there have been times when things have been going well and I haven't been slammed (I just have to remember them!).

Emotional Pinball

I feel like my emotions are in a continual pinball game. Some places are lit up constantly, and pinging, pinging, pinging. Some places never light up, never make noise. The noise is constant, the stimulation is constant, and I don't get a chance to rest, to look away, because the next ball is in play and I have to keep it going for as long as possible. I don't know what will happen if I don't, but I fear it won't be good (my go-to thoughts and emotions are generally negative).

It's exhausting. As an extreme introvert, this much stimulation tires me even on an occasional basis. On a constant basis, well, I have fibromyalgia.

So I sit each day, finding concentration difficult, a constant pinball game playing in my head, wondering why I have so many difficulties getting it all together.

I think that the solution would be to just stop playing the game. Unfortunately, it's gone beyond my control and it plays itself. So now I have to figure out how to make it stop itself. Along with all that other stuff I'm doing to my mind.

Do you ever feel like your mind is a pinball game, or a thunderstorm, or some other powerful, highly stimulated state? What do you do when that happens?