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!

Damn, Damn, Damn Depression!

I'm sunk in the stupid pit again. Why? Hell if I know. And it's not just depression, although that is an overriding emotion. I'm crabby and antisocial. I'm terrifically stressed and anxious, to the tune of taking an extra 1 mg of Xanax each of the last two days. (So far today I haven't taken any extra.) I took a four-hour nap yesterday and still slept for 9.5 hours last night … and still didn't want to get up this morning.

I'm really tired of being "the sick one", the one people have to ask "how are you doing today?" I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I'm not doing right that keeps dumping me back into this debilitating space. "Functional" might as well be at the top of the highest glacier on Mt. Rainier, it seems to impossible to reach.

You can't get there from here.

I'm trying. But I've been sleeping so late (thanks to this great melatonin-based supplement my psych recommended) that I feel if I don't get up NOW then the day is fucking OVER, so I haven't been journaling or trying to meditate or visualize. And when I do try to meditate or visualize, I haven't been able to achieve the levels I was at back before I tried the Abilify (which I've been off of all this month).

In therapy yesterday, Michele asked why I feel I have to get up and start my day as soon as I wake up. What will happen if I put it off for another half an hour while I journal or meditate or something? If I stay in bed even later, I feel as if the entire day is over, wasted. I feel like a complete failure for the day. I feel judged and judging.

We also talked about writing. And drawing. About how I used to do them all the time virtually every day, from the time I was quite young. How somewhere in my 20s, I stopped doing them much and they became fraught with difficulties and issues. And yet, I need to do them. Writing and drawing are parts of me that need attention. When I do them I feel better. I feel like myself.

Anger and Compassion

Dangerous

My housemate Sabine is a very angry person. She is also kind and generous. But as someone living with her, I would not agree with "sweet" the way those who do not live with her (or are not married to her) think she is. Because when she gets angry, she uses her anger like a sledgehammer and woe to him, or her, who gets in her way.

Unfortunately for me, I have issues relating to anger, particularly to other people's anger, whether it's directed toward me or not. I want to cower, I want to hide, I want to run.

My friend Julie would say this is one of my Life Lessons. My therapists would all say I can use this as an opportunity to deal with my issues about anger. I'd like to tell them all to jump in the lake, but that would just be petty. Especially because they are right.

I wish I could help Sabine. I think she needs therapy, but she is not someone I can suggest that to. There is always a wall around her that I think no one can penetrate, except maybe her mom. Not even her husband, Griffin, gets that close.

And, basically, the only person we can fix is ourselves. That's another lesson I'm learning.

Flake

I have a confession: I am a flake. Iffy. Dodgy. A really good liar and undependable in work and play. Torpid. Stubborn. Lacking integrity, untrustworthy, and afraid of commitment. Basically, I kinda suck. I don't much like myself and I'm still working on loving myself.

I didn't used to be this way. Before I fell apart in my mid-30s, when an overwhelming depression washed over me and pulled me into deep, dark water. Before my ex-boyfriend — the one who'd changed his mind and decided he didn't want to get married, have children, or buy a house with me — got married and asked me how I used my 401K to buy my house. Before my insecure boss made me so diminished, anxious, and crazy-feeling that my psychiatrist prescribed not one but TWO mental health leaves within a six-month period. Before all that I was not perfect, but anyone could count on me to do what I said. Friends, family, and employers could trust me. I was active, flexible, creative, and committed.

I hate the way I am. I hate that I'm not the way I used to be. I hate that I can't seem to find my way back, after nearly 20 years. Twenty years is a long time to be disgusted by the person you've become.

"Ah, the sun is blindin'
I stayed up again
Oh, I am findin'
That that's not the way I want my story to end"

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.

Claustrophobia and Freedom

"I'm feeling lousy," I told my therapist. "I'm not sure I can any longer tell if I'm feeling depressed or anxious or both. It's been so long and they are so mushed together."

I've been feeling like curling into myself. I want to hide, to be small, to wrap myself into a tight little package. I could feel the muscles in my neck pushing my head forward and the muscles in my chest pulling my arms inward. And I wanted Michele to fix it.

So we talked. Mostly, I talked and she listened. Then I would pause and she would ask a question or make a comment that would lead me in a particular direction or spark another idea that I then followed.

I ended up talking about my housemates and my living situation. (From now on, I'm going to give them non de plumes, to more gracefully refer to them. They shall be Griffin and Sabine, which suits her more than him.) About how while I am truly grateful to Sabine for not allowing me to pay room and board — I only have to pay my own personal bills — and for buying me things, like the sweaters and warm socks she's just purchased for me so I will be warm this autumn and winter, I hate being dependent. I hate not being able to provide myself with these things.

And, in a way, there is a price for these wonderful things. Nothing that is expected or demanded of me. No, it is a situational and emotional price. Because my housemates' issues unfortunately trigger my worst issues and are making me want to be invisible and making me want to hide. I'm caught up in their issues and the blacklash of my own, and it seems that the result is that I'm focused more on those dramas than on myself and my own needs.

For example, Sabine is super-sensitive to noise. She also has anger issues. So the other night, when I was trying to manipulate a hot dish from the microwave, one without handles, using silicone hot pads, I was making lots of glass-on-glass noise. Eventually, Sabine exploded, took the dish with her bare hands ("It's hot!" I said. "I know," she said.), removed the lid, and set the dish on a cutting board. She continued to be angry and everything inside of me shrank and shriveled, even as I kept repeating to myself "not my issue, not my issue". When she calmed down later, she apologized. But the damage was done for the day.

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.

Melting the Ice

When I get stressed in my personal life, I don't fight or fly — I freeze. This is why I've had to struggle so to accomplish things during very stressful times in my life, such as right now as I prepare to move. It's very odd because when work becomes ordinarily stressful — deadlines looming or changing completely, new features being added to projects at the last minute — I fight and win. It's only in my personal life that I come to a standstill.

"So what is that about?" my therapist and I were asking this week. It comes down to fear. It's like when I don't leave my home because if I stay inside, nothing bad can happen. Well, if I don't move off the couch and do things, then nothing bad can happen either. Talk about distorted thinking! My therapist called it "trauma survival thinking." Everyone has different survival mechanisms they've developed over their lives, some in response to trauma, some simply in response to everyday living. And the thing about many survival mechanisms is that they make you think that they are helping you to survive (and perhaps they did at one point in time), but they do not help you to live.

Simple survival generally eschews taking any kind of risk, yet to live fully you have to take risks: learn to ride a bike or drive a car; speak to that person you find attractive; apply for that job; move halfway across the country. So my survival mechanism of freezing is definitely getting in the way of my living a rich and fulfilling life. It's getting in the way of being my authentic self. Hell, it's getting in the way of my cleaning the apartment!

So what do you do with a survival mechanism that you no longer need or that simply isn't working for you but against you? You have to use those cognitive therapy skills to learn to think differently in the situation that causes the mechanism to function. When I get stressed and start to freeze, I have to remind myself that freezing is getting in the way of my living the life I want to live, that I don't need that survival mechanism, and that I want to act instead of freeze.

This process isn't going to be immediate; I've had this mechanism since I can remember. When I was a child, I would occasionally wake in the night, filled with terror over a specific imaginary situation and I was certain that if I moved, I would die a horrible death. Therefore, I would hold myself as still as possible, even to the extent of breathing very shallowly, until I fell asleep (or maybe passed out from a lack of oxygen). This freezing has accompanied various stressful situations off and on throughout my life and only as I became older and found myself feeling helpless during times of great stress and/or depression did it become overwhelming and go on for long periods of time. I am tired of it and more than ready to be rid of it. I am very motivated to do the cognitive work needed to be rid of it.

I invite you to help me come up with a better and more succinct way of phrasing my anti-freezing statements. It would be nice to put them into a form that is easy to remember and say. But even if I don't come up with something more succinct, I am going to state them because I truly do want to act rather than freeze. I want to be powerful rather than helpless. And I want to begin to truly live my life.

Cognitive Slips, Mozambique Epiphanies, and My Nose

It's been a rather full week here in Skye World. I'm currently sitting on the couch with bandages on my nose and behind my ear and with thoughts buzzing and whirling around in my head like so many hummingbirds and butterflies.

On Monday, my therapist and I talked about my last post, about having the blues and just being down. She said my "cognitive slip" was showing. Basically, the tone of my post was one of powerlessness, as if I had no options but to feel depressed and oppressed and anxious. I wasn't using my cognitive skills to look at my situation differently or to see options. For example, instead of being depressed and staying depressed over the darkness of the weather and feeling like I was living in a cave, I could have acknowledged that I felt low but that I could then change it. I could have watched funny movies on Netflix. I could have taken on a project (and I have plenty of those) to turn my mind in a different direction. I could have blessed the rain for helping Houston against the drought. So I need to work more on my cognitive skills.

Then I was stressing about the decision whether to stay in Houston or move back to Seattle. There are pluses and minuses on both sides. I've gotten a lot of input from a variety of people about it. Then I was offered a full-time job by the people I did work for at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Right then I realized that I'd rather move to Seattle. Then I was offered a contract from that company to work on a job that would require me to work and live in Mozambique for 28 days, then leave and let another writer be there for 28 days, then I'd go back and so on for 6 months or more, and I could live in Seattle if I wanted. I even said yes because it seemed ideal.

Then the anxiety set in. And the stress. I was already still stressing from my cognitive slip and from my upcoming skin cancer surgery. Did I really want to travel to and from Africa and live there for a month at a time? Was it safe? Could I handle it? My cognitive slip got worse. But some of my friends talked to me and gave me their opinions and advice, which actually helped me focus on what was causing me so much anxiety. I realized that I'm not yet to a level where I could handle something like the Mozambique job, for a whole lot of reasons. But I can handle finding work in Seattle and moving there. Mozambique helped me see where I am with my mental health work and how much I still need to do. Luckily for me, the company was very understanding when I told them I didn't want that job, and they are even going to keep me in mind for projects I could do while I'm looking for work in Seattle.

Wasting Away in Anxiety-ville

In the 90s there was a movie called Tremors about gigantic worm-like monsters living under the ground. You knew they were around when you felt earthquake-like tremors and they knew you were around because the could feel the tremors of your walking or of the sound of your voice. They ate anything animal, as far as could be discerned. When one of these monsters (christened "graboids") came around, everyone froze and became silent. 

My anxiety, which is mostly generalized anxiety disorder probably, is a lot like the graboids. As it grows, I feel interior tremors as well as exterior ones: I feel fear and I freeze first; then I fidget, my feet move, it seems as if there are little bugs crawling on my skin.

My anxiety even reaches out to my media consumption. If something is more suspenseful than some internal threshold indicates, I can't watch it or read it without lots of breaks. If then. This aspect makes watching Leverage very difficult. I think I got 20 minutes in, maybe 15, to the first episode of the 4th season. I had to read the end of Sue Grafton's V is for Vengeance before I could finish the final third of the book.

I can't take any more anti-anxiety meds: I'm maxed out. And therapy is slow. Doing my little cognitive exercises work on some things but not everything and they are time consuming as well. Just one more pill, I think to myself. Or maybe a nap (my naps are 2-4 hours long, more escapes than naps).

I got anxious watching the Olympics! 

Frozen

You know how people refer to the fight or flight reflex? They forget the third option: freeze and hope you aren't seen. That is my response to stress and anxiety and fear. I have all the chemicals for the fight or flight, but they have nowhere to go because I stay still and hope that no one, or whatever is causing me stress, doesn't see me. So the adrenalin et al. have no way to burn off.

When I am anxious or stressed in some way, I minimize myself, try to not draw attention to myself if possible. That goes on at all levels, even to the level where I breathe shallowly and hold my breath.

I used to have nightmares as a child — lots of them. But my folks didn't like me to wake them up or climb in bed with them, so mostly I just stayed in bed quietly after having them. There was one I had a lot: I'd wake up and be sure that a big, black dog was sitting next to my bed, just waiting for some sign that I was awake. And once it knew I was awake, it was going to tear my throat out. So I would stay as still as I could, which involved breathing very shallowly (I had no idea how a sleeping person breathed and wanted to take no chances of attracting the big dog's attention). I would do this until I either went back to sleep or passed out from lack of sufficient oxygen, I'm not sure which. 

As a result, I am very good at remaining very still and at breathing shallowly. Given that I am anxious all the time currently, I breathe shallowly a lot. I hold my breath a lot. And I sit unmoving except for some occasional involuntary fidgeting for very long periods.

And that's nuts. Moving and breathing are supposed to help diminish anxiety and stress. So why isn't my body (and that little mind of mine) trying to do what would help it? Because there might be a sabre tooth tiger — or a big black dog — waiting just outside my door. Or somewhere, just waiting for me to prove I'm awake and alive. And the primitive part of my brain is very strong.

So I sit, a block of ice, not getting any better because I am a sea of stress and fear chemicals with no way to burn them off.

Tell me, do you freeze or do you fight or flee?