Risks and Panic Attacks

“The greatest risk any of us will ever take is to be seen as we are.”-Cinderella 

     Over the past few weeks I have found myself struggling. Struggling to make all the pieces of my life fit together into some kind of perfect jigsaw puzzle. This piece goes here and that piece goes there. This piece goes up there but if God forbid one piece won’t fit we turn it around and around checking all the sides trying to force it into place even if it belongs somewhere else. Even when we have exhausted all the options we still keep trying when we should just give up and move on to another piece. I guess that is just one part of human nature.

    I have been trying to balance school, family, and other responsibilities for the past few months. I have had my rotation at the pharmacy during the day, pick up the kids, college in the evening, then off to karate 2 days a week after college, trying to find time to study for both my college classes and my karate belt testing, balancing my daughter’s work schedule around this as well as my son’s extra curricular activities, making sure the bills get paid, making sure the chores get done, dinner gets made, grocery shopping is completed all while making sure I am available to answer the phone at a moments notice so I can listen to my husband complain about how much he hates his job and wants nothing more than to be home with us.

     Within the last month there have been health scares in the family which took all my attention causing me to miss classes and rotation. My focus has been all over the place and on everyone and everything except myself. That in itself should come as no surprise to you if you have been following me for any length of time. I’m not claiming to be some kind of martyr but we are all guilty of it to some degree. We give all our time and energy to others and leave nothing for ourselves.

     Did you ever have a nightmare that you just couldn’t seem to shake? One that just seemed to stay with you long after you have woken up and all the feelings remained? The fear, isolation, worry, grief seem to linger long after. Unfortunately, this was not a nightmare and all those feelings are what I have been dealing with for weeks. What brought them on is a mystery to me. I was doing just fine. I was excelling in my classes, my rotation couldn’t have been going better and everything was falling into place. My confidence was at an all time high and things were looking brighter than they had in a really long time.

     I woke up at 2am one morning about 3 weeks ago in a complete panic. My palms were sweating, my heart was racing, chest was aching, uncontrolled thoughts began racing through my head the second my eyes flew open. I had this complete feeling of dread and foreboding wash over me. I immediately tried to calm myself by taking some deep breaths and closing my eyes.

     I clutched the moonstone that I keep beside my bed in my hand and tried to focus on pushing all the negative energy away from me so I could at least try to go back to sleep. It didn’t work. I tried talking myself through it…that didn’t work either. I tried to call my husband, thinking maybe he could try to talk me down from this panic attack I was having, but he didn’t answer the phone. So, as a last resort I ended up taking a couple of my anxiety meds and finally fell asleep about 2 hours later.

    That feeling of panic hasn’t left me for weeks. I have tried everything I could to make it go away and it just keeps clinging to me like briars to a pair of socks after a long walk through the woods. I tried to hide it as best I could while on rotation and in class but the kids knew something was up because I reverted to the old stand by reactions of wringing my hands, beating on the gear shifter of the car with the palm of my hand while I was driving, bouncing my legs, and blurting out “I love you” and “I quit” repeatedly for hours on end once we got home.

     “Bugsy” come up to me one evening and just threw his arms around me giving me the biggest hug he could. Then, we sat down on the couch and he just cuddled with me trying to take away the enormous amount of anxiety I was feeling. I didn’t even want to get out of bed most days but forced myself because I knew there were things that needed to be taken care of.

    I have come to realize this is getting progressively worse and I’m not sure how to stop it. There are days when I am just fine and there are days where it is becoming completely crippling. Someone told me that maybe I am just trying to do too many things at once. They may be correct but all these things need to be done to secure my kids and my future. In the meantime I need to make sure my daughter has the graduation parties she deserves because this is a big deal.

     I fear though she may end up as crazy as I am. I have tried to shield her from her father for years. I have tried to protect her for years from his abuse. I knew some of it got through but I thought maybe I managed to protect her a little. I may have mentioned that a few years ago she was diagnosed with what used to be known as childhood bipolar disorder. It is now referred to as Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD).

     This has gotten worse…the outbursts etc. She seemed to be have it under control for the most part. There were still outbursts but they were few and far between at least when her father wasn’t around. Tonight she was sitting on the couch talking to her boyfriend on the phone as she always does and she seemed a little off. I asked her what was wrong and she put up one finger telling me to hold on a moment while she finished talking to him.

     When she got off the phone she looked really upset. I asked her what was wrong. She said she was having a lot of bad thoughts going through her head. I asked her about them and she told me they were all the bad things her father has said to her in the past specifically the past few months. She was sitting in the rocking chair in the living room video chatting with her boyfriend one afternoon while my husband was home. They were talking about something and he didn’t like her response so he told her to “Go kill yourself!”

    Her boyfriend overheard this and put his part of the call on mute so my husband couldn’t hear him cussing him out. This was not the first time they have had a verbal altercation with my husband being verbally abusive to her while she is on the phone with her boyfriend or with him sitting here in person.

     So, tonight for whatever reason her brain began to regurgitate all these bad things and got her so upset she was in tears and crying so hard she was dry heaving. She told me she knows she shouldn’t feel like this because she knows how he is. I told her there is no reason she needs to hide how she is feeling around me. She has the right to be angry and upset because there is no reason in the world why someone should treat her like that. I asked her if she realized that I was bring her with me when I finally did leave? She shook her head yes and came over to snuggle with me for a little while.

      There is a reason for the quote at the top of this blog. I was at rotation one day and my mentor could tell something was wrong. At this point I had been there a little while and after eluding to the fact several times that I was having problems at home, I finally came out and told him briefly about my husband and showed him the pics of what happened last January. He noticed I was trembling when I was talking to him about it and showing him the pictures. He said we would have to finish the conversation later.

     Obviously, I couldn’t go into a lot of detail and nor should I have at that time or place. A few days later, he brought up the fact that we had never finished our conversation and he would like to at some point. Well, we got busy and we never got around to finishing said conversation. I feel like you can’t just drop a bombshell like that on someone and not explain things. So, the night before my last day of rotation, my son and I were watching the new live action Cinderella movie.

      This quote comes up several times in the movie and it struck a chord with me each time. When it was finished we went to bed. When I woke up in the morning I realized we would probably never have the time or the place to cover that conversation completely so I did probably the scariest thing in the world and wrote down the link to my blog on an index card and put it in my pocket. Something was telling me it was the right thing to do, that he needed to know everything and I could trust him. I don’t know why but it was a gut feeling I had.

     The last day of rotation was great. They even threw me a sort of party and they all signed a card wishing me well and telling me how much I would be missed. Right before I left I gave him the index card and told him we never did finish that conversation. We went into the back and I handed him the folded index card. I told him about my blog and said it goes over everything…even my brownie recipe.

     I have been on pins and needles ever since. I have completely opened myself up to someone whom I would like to consider as a friend but after reading about all my craziness may turn around and walk away or he could become one of my inner circle. Who knows what will happen? Does that stop me from worrying and being anxious? Come on…you should know the answer to that! Even if it isn’t in my control I worry and stress about it. That’s just the way I am and I will probably never change.

     I took a major risk letting him in like I did. I am letting him see the real me with all my flaws and baggage. Isn’t that what we all should do though as friends? Shouldn’t we be able to be completely honest about who we are and lay everything out on the table and see who sticks around? If they can’t handle it then maybe they weren’t meant to be in your life. If they look at all that crazy mess and decide to embrace it….those are the ones you keep. Those are the diamonds in the rough…those are the friends you hold onto and never let go of!