The Only Way Out Is Through

That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. It’s become my new mantra. I haven’t posted in a few days because I’m dealing with some PTSD related things. It’s been rough, I had a breakdown at work yesterday and had to come home.

So, at this point the only thing to do is deal with my issues head on, and work through them, because there’s no way around them. If I deal with them now, it’ll be easier in the future. If I choose to avoid them now, they’ll come back to haunt me again and again. It’s now or in another 3 years when the trauma resurfaces. Last time I dealt with this, I got extremely depressed, shut down, and ended up in the hospital because I didn’t want to live anymore. So, dealing with this isn’t something that’s easy. I’m in a much better headspace and environment now than I was then. Hopefully I can get through this a little easier than last time.

It’s like reopening a wound, making the skin raw again, and letting it heal. Like the Papa Roach song, “I tear my heart open to sew myself shut”. That’s essentially what I’m doing. I don’t have to necessarily relive the trauma, but I have to rehash some of it, bring it to the surface, and deal with it. I suppressed it, twice. Last time I dealt with it I just told people what happened, I never actually talked about it, I just thought that it would go away, and for a little while it did. Something triggered me though, and now I have to deal with it for real. According to my therapist I just have to keep myself distracted for the time being, which is easier said than done. It’s like when you least want to be distracted the more you are, and when you want to be preoccupied or distracted, you can only focus on the thing you don’t want to.

That’s where I’m at right about now. Just trying to get through the jungle of emotions, the mess of issues, and just overall trying to get better. I feel like this is kind of a setback in my process of trying to stay stable. So, I just have to keep going.

The only way out, is through.

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Tuesdays Take you Down the Rabbit Hole

This is essentially how I feel today. Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going. Just falling, we’ll fluctuating, but it feels like I’m in a never ending spiral. I just feel so lost and like I’m not on stable ground. I’m not neutral, but I’m not down, it’s some middle ground and I keep going between the two.

You know when you learned about waves in school? Like UV rays and microwaves and stuff? You had to learn the length and the frequency and all that? That’s how I see myself right now. And the frequency is high, I would say rapid cycling, but there’s no aspects, no hints, of mania.

So, down, down, I fall. I wish I would hit the ground so I could know what to do or where to go. In this state though, there’s no meds to adjust, I feel like there nothing I can do, but ride it out. I try all my coping skills, I try everything, and nothing helps. It’s just uncomfortable. I don’t know how to explain this discomfort, but I do know that I keep rocking back and forth when I’m sitting or laying at home. According to my therapist it’s self soothing, but it’s not good. At this point, it’s the only thing that helps.When I’m at work, I want to go home, but when I’m home, I just want to be somewhere else. I don’t mean like isolate and abandon, I’d want my family, friends, and pets with me. I just don’t want to be here anymore, like in this physical location. I just don’t know, I feel like I don’t know anything.

I just want to feel better, I’m not sure where to go from here. Since I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to leave the house. Taking the dog out is even a struggle, something I dread. I love my dog though. I just don’t really feel anything, but sadness, anger, and irritation. I can mask all I want, but if I do that, people won’t know that I need help, but even then, how can they help me if I can’t help myself?

So I’ll do what I can to find solid ground for now, to stop feeling this feeling of falling, being in constant flux, and just feeling so lost.

Tuesday Malaise Musings

I had a whole different post planned for today. I had a nugget of inspiration while I was at work earlier, but by time I got home, it was gone. At this point, my mind and body are both exhausted. I’m not down, but I’m also not at baseline or neutral. I talked to my therapist about it today, he called it malaise. Basically, just an ill feeling. That’s how I feel. I’m just in a state of sadness. Work seems to be dragging, I always hit a point around 3p, where I just hit a wall, nothing seems to make time pass faster, I’m just watching the clock.

This weekend was rough, I was recovering from heat exhaustion, so I spent the whole weekend inside, drinking lots of fluids, and just basically not moving. I know that had some impact on my mental state. I also just felt, bad. I have no inspiration right now I just want to sleep, I’m so anxious, showering and laundry are not an option. It’s like depression, but it’s not a magnitude to which I would consider myself depressed. I used to call this feeling, meh, like I didn’t have a name for it. It just kind of was.

The thing is, my heart has been hurting a lot lately. According to many people, I’m an empath. My empathy has no bounds. When something happens that I have no control over or watching things that shouldn’t be happening, I don’t like to say it makes me sad. Sadness, to me, is a feeling that I associate with bipolar, as an emotion on my spectrum. So when I’m feeling empathy for certain situations, or people, really anything that I don’t have any direct relation to, I say my heart hurts. I don’t really know how to explain it better than this. Just know, that my heart has been hurting a lot lately. I think it’s finally taking a toll on me. My heart isn’t broken, it just hurts. With everything that’s going on in the world around me, it’s hard not to sense what other people are feeling.

So, pretty much, I’m exhausted, my heart hurts, I’m sad..all adding up to malaise. I don’t have a true grasp on what it is, but I just know that it doesn’t feel good. I’m going to just take the night to relax and try and recharge. Probably eat some ice cream, of course. Maybe one day I’ll write my philosophy of ice cream.

Tuesdays are for Late Naps

Sorry this is going up so late, but my anxiety was so bad earlier, I took anti-anxiety meds, and they knocked me out. I slept from about 7-9:20 pm. The thing is, that I have a very strict night time routine. Which starts at 9:00 exactly. So between waking up so late and having to take my dog out, and now writing this, there’s no time for my routine. Which we call “simmering”. No simmering, usually results in my waking up early the next morning with anxiety, especially this time, because I’m going to have to force myself back to sleep.

The thing is, I’m not upset about this nap. My body must have needed it, I’ve been so stressed and anxious the past few days, I must not have been getting enough restful sleep. So my body took what it needed. I usually try to not take naps, because I always feel pretty bad when I wake up from them. Sometimes, naps are okay though, they can be refreshing, sometimes they’re what you need. Tonight, it probably won’t help me I feel refreshed and it sure won’t help me in the morning. But I am sure, that my body will thank me for it. I’m going to leave this here and try and go back to sleep. Which may or may not happen.

An ode to Tuesday Mornings

Oh, Tuesdays…how I hate thee.

Well I hate Tuesday mornings. Tuesday as a whole isn’t too bad, but the mornings are rough. I don’t have a routine. I work half days on Tuesdays because I have therapy in the mornings. So, my weekday morning routine that I follow the rest of the week, just don’t apply, because an extra hour and a half is added to my morning. It is even worse when I wake up earlier than usual. Like today, I woke up at 6:15, which is fantastic. Especially since I’ve been having debilitating migraines, and when I have these migraines, I can’t stay asleep, and when I don’t sleep, I get manic. The migraines are the worst in the Summer, and I don’t drink enough electrolytes, so they just get worse and it’s just a vicious cycle.

Anyway, back to my loathe of Tuesday mornings. I just hate them so much. This post is just going to be a giant rant about Tuesday mornings. I mean I could just add some things to my mornings on Tuesdays, but I just feel like nothing makes the morning seem any less daunting. It’s 7:47 now, I don’t leave for therapy until 9:45, but I’m leaving early today to go to target. So I guess I can leave 15 minutes early, yay…it doesn’t make the morning any better. The rest of the day will go pretty well though, I just feel like the mornings last forever. Before I take my meds, I’ll have some bad thoughts, I’ll feel like garbage, and I’ll just hate everything, but that doesn’t happen any other day of the week, just Tuesdays.

Bottom line, Tuesday mornings are the worst. End rant.