Talk is Cheap...

...and that's exactly what I can afford.

In fact, talk can be pretty pricey. Just look at your cable and Internet bills: talk ain't cheap and it isn't getting any cheaper.

This picture is a painting I painted last Spring. It was inspired by the Hindu Goddess Kali. I am most proud of her because I felt she reflected the Kali inside me; the very energy waiting to burst out from within.

Deeper thought into the subjects of my mind as of late have revealed to me that it is not a love I possess towards Guerneville, but rather a love affair. Love is unconditional, unwaivering and unbroken. A love affair is raw, passionate, volatile and easily collapsable. And just like in any other relationship, you'll find yourself drifting together and apart throughout your time together. My conclusion of the moment is even if we were to move away, the deep scar of the this intrigued love affair will surely tear parts of my heart this way and that, making it near impossible to feel such a love again.

A sort of rekindling occurred today, making me realize that so long as a select group of individuals never A. Move and B. Die, Guerneville can be tolerable. I'm three days away from sending off the proof pages for the my first published book; a Historical photo book that I and my coauthor spent 6 months working on. It has been months since we've sat at his kitchen table, throwing jokes and insults at one another, all the while learning more history about the Town who's love affair we both share. If there is something I can't get enough of, it's long, stringing conversations about everything under the Sun with somebody who is capable of keeping up with me. So how can I leave?

For the first time in MONTHS, while sitting at that round, wooden table, covered with a lemon table cloth, I had ZERO anxiety. I mean Z-E-R-O. Not once did I even rouse myself like I so often do (just to "test" the waters and see just how strongly I can counteract it). I was focused on the book, focused on photos and on conversation. Nothing from the outside world intruded my headspace; the many thousands of worries I cope with every day were stopped dead in their tracks the moment they hit the door. If I were to pinpoint a drug, it would be communication. THAT is truly MY drug, and when I go without, I am truly ruthless at getting it.

I'm enjoying where my life is going right now. I no longer feel as though we're stuck in limbo, dangling in a net a thousand feet above the ground. Although nothing has come to a true fruition, I feel it coming; the urge to relax and trust in the Universe draped over me today and I was showered with gifts. My family, my friends, myself and a sense of peace.

I've also noticed a change in Jesse: he's happy, he's supportive, he's fun to be around. He's supported me so much through this anxiety crap, and even today, knowing full well I was anxious about him leaving to Santa Rosa, did without my request a courtesy that I needed him to do. I need to remember to give him more credit for this, to help encourage this positive behavior.

Happy "Holy-Shit-This-Treacherous-Year-Is-Over" Day!!!

1-1-11. Tehe, that's fun to type.

Had a good New Year's Eve, full of errands and helping sick people and trying to keep kids and adults from fighting. It was grand! But hey, got to play Wii bowling and watch "Despicable Me" for the 4th time in 24 hours. "Liiiiightbuuuuulb!"

SO let's get into it...When dealing with my anxiety, I usually associate the numbers 1-10 to determine how mildly or severely it's affecting me. So from this point on, I'll be describing my anxiety as a "Level 4" or a "Level 7" in order to help give a broader picture of that day's experience.

For a good chunk of yesterday, I was at a Level 3, which usually requires some deep breathing and a couple repetitions of a positive affirmation, but I had a couple really good distractions to keep me pretty level. The peak of my issue came after Midnight rang and my husband had to drive our friends home 5 miles away. For obvious reasons, I was quite anxious and stayed awake long enough for him to pull back into our driveway, safe and sound. Much of my anxiety is triggered when he leaves, however, being a symptom of agoraphobia, I am encouraged to practice this exercise often to where I am quite comfortable and secure when he isn't home.

Funny, never thought of it before: when he was drinking, he was unpredictable and unreliable. I awoke many nights to him either being gone or yelling for our dog at 3am, drunk off his ass. Ever since I've been back home with him, I haven't been able to fall asleep until he is inside the house. Strange how trauma conditions our brains...

One thing I've noticed is the lower my anxiety level, the less determined I am to actively recover. I think of this as being similar to taking anti-biotics: you'll start to feel better after a couple days and will then want to stop your course of treatment, however by doing so, you may be creating a much larger problem for yourself in the future. Wow, I just came up with that! What a great image, so I'll keep this image in mind when I'm starting to feel like everything is fine and back to normal. The key, however, is to not facilitate more anxiety strictly because everything is fine (hey Moms, does THAT sound familiar?).

Before I began my journey to recovery three months ago, these bouts of panic would overwhelm me and I'd wait anxiously for the sensations to pass and then move on with my life. However with this phase of anxiety in my life, that "finalizing moment" has yet to happen; rather, the anxiety has persisted, day after day, with small "eyes" of relief. Needless to say, it wasn't hard for me to start feeling hopeless and like a victim in all this. The question "Am I going to be like this forever?" circled in my head, like a vulture waiting for me. Then came the torture of looking back to prior days and feeling like what I was once able to do no longer comes to me with the same level of ease (such as going to the store or stepping outside my house) created a lot of stagnant energy. Hopelessness coupled with self-doubt is all you need to really lose your mind.

In Dr. Bourne's book, he describes the specific personality traits that create the perfect environment for anxiety to move right in. Of these, the most persistent that have been my biggest challenge are the "Perfectionist" and the "Critic." These two bitches insist that you're never good enough and WILL never succeed, no matter how hard you work, thus creating the perfect soil and bed conditions for the seeds of anxiety to grow. Statements like "you should" or "that was stupid" are sharp words when dealing with anxiety. Their other two sisters, "Worry" and "The Victim" chime in their two cents as well with their "what if's?" and "I'll never get better." So what's the solution? Believe in yourself and find the courage to change.

Change doesn't come naturally to humans, I think. We're conditioned to stay in our "conditioned state" by the electronic goings-on in our brains. When we start to build newer, more efficient pathways in our heads, our brains see this as a threat and go into overdrive to ensure these pathways fail. It is in this theory of mine that I believe I'm having the persistent anxiety. Also, it's not easy learning how to believe in yourself when you've spent so much time criticizing yourself. The process of dismantling self-criticizm and negative-self-talk is similar to learning how to grow new arms. But if I had lost my arms or had messed up arms and yet possessed the capability to grow new ones, you bet your ass I'd do it.

So in light of the New Year and the human tradition of "resolutions" I'll be following a path in which I'll learn how to love and accept myself for who I am, what I am capable of doing and that I can make mistakes just as gloriously as anybody else. I will turn my "What If's?" into "I can"; I will take my bad thoughts and transform them into positive realities for myself; I will empower my victim to learn that the world is NOT out to get her; I was will show my Perfectionist that sometimes it's the mistakes that enhance our lives. I am the phoenix and I am rising.

First Post: Expanding the Department

I've been wanting to try out this "Blog" thing for quite some time, but haven't because who the fuck would want to read about some whiney blonde in California who's having "issues." Truth is, I think there's something to offer by listening (or in this case, reading) other's experiences with the troubles you may share. For me, I have many experiences and I have many issues. We won't go into them all at once (where's the fun in that?!) but a biggie for me is (if you haven't guessed it already) anxiety.

Anxiety can be defined in numerous ways, from having a tense emotional feeling about something to not being able to leave your house for fear that you might "panic" in public. Anxiety is also defined by the phobias the person experiences, such as the example in the previous sentence, Agoraphobia. Really, any phobia causes us to have anxiety, but the FUCKED up part is anxiety can help us manifest our phobias. Oh JOY!

So now that we've got a little bit of background on how treacherous this bitch really is, let me give you the scoop on me. At the young age of 6 months, my mother once told me, my early onslaught with anxiety manifested itself as midnight screams of terror and an inability to control my "big emotions." As a young child, my parent's divorce and fractured parenting skills helped make Anxiety my best friend and for years was unable to sleep by myself. As a teenager, the "fuck-it-all" syndrome hit me steadfast and I became pregnant at 17 and kissed my freedom years goodbye. I hadn't thought about those horrid nighttime attacks until I had my first major one in Junction City, Oregon on I-5. My husband, my 4-month-old son and I set our sights on the Emerald City to start our new lives together, later to find that we were traveling far away from any sort of real "home." Being 18 years old and not knowing any better, I drove 10 hours straight with no breaks. Let's just say, my body was mad at me, and Anxiety took the wheel. That night began my continuous onslaught of battling what I defined as "traveling anxiety."

Most recently, however, I've come to learn, through books and my Mental Health professional, that I have suffered (and sometimes not just me) from Agoraphobia. Only mine was quite mild, since I was still able to leave my house and interact with people in public quite effortlessly. As you might have guessed, this has changed.

The Blow Out. The only memory that doesn't hold gut-wrenching pain of that day is my husband and I holding hands on the skating rink, holding each other up (as we so often do) and smiling. The rest of that day....well, I wish I had a time machine. The details are not important, but what happened that day was the day the I hope couples NEVER have to go through: crossing the line. There are many lines in a relationship: lines that get you upset, lines that hurt you, lines that betray you, lines that break you up. That day, these lines weren't just crossed, they were butchered, beaten, and slain (metaphorically speaking, of course). The end result is a shattered foundation that was once sound, strong and seemingly-unbreakable. When you lose all matters of reality in your life, you start to kinda lose it.

So lose it I did. It got harder and harder to leave home and venture out in the world like I used to, and when I would, Anxiety took hold of the wheel and drove me on crazy, twisting up and down roads. I tried battling her with pills: that just tranquilized the beast; she eventually woke back up and started her rampage again. I spoke with some friends who, unbeknownst to me, had similar issues and discovered that I'm not alone and that there ARE ways of getting back home out of this dark forest. I also learned of a book: The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook by Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D. So far, this is the only book I've read on the subject, because I think it's the only one I'll ever need to read.

This week marks week #10 of active recovery from Agoraphobia. This is also the best I've felt since the Blow Out. I felt the urge to begin this blog because my normal journaling is moreso a conversation with the Universe, rather than an expressive log, such as this. And I can't write as fast as I can think, so I tend to lose a lot of thoughts that way. By no means am I doing this as a commercial effect on my life: this is purely part of my recovery towards being a healthy, happy, mentally-sound person.

Being stubborn by nature, I refuse to let this overcome my life. So journey with me, if you will, as I take you into my world.