Friday was a big day for me. The first book signing: a phenomenal event. And what did I do? First thing in the morning, I reached for my bottle of "Get Anxious to the Point of Insanity" and took a BIG swig. It hit my head so fast, it took my heart a few beats to catch up, then it was up-and-at-'em with the adrenaline rush. What was I afraid of? I was afraid of the crowd, the faces looking at me, how I was going to feel, what I was going to say, if Jesse was going to have an emotional breakdown. Holy bejeebuz! The list was ongoing. Did any of my fears come to fruition? None but one came to be, and even then, it was a delayed response. Fortunately, I was wise enough to know that I might be having a bit of an issue with such a large, stressful event: I schedule my therapy session the morning of. GENIUS!!! My therapist saw how tense and scared I was and had me close my eyes and walked me through the evening to come, in what's known as "guided relaxation". I haven't felt that relaxed in MONTHS! It was gone! Holy smokes! I'm not dysfunctional! The crappy feelings of fear and hopelessness and wants of ending it all went away! And STAYED away!
Three things I learned that day that I keep in my head to throw in the face of anxiety:
1. It's JUST a Thought. Thoughts are irrational and impulsive and they are designed to come and go. That's WHY we can meditate, that's WHY not all of us are psychopaths (they're the ones who LISTEN to every. single. thought.). So I envisioned my thoughts coming up like clouds, or even storms when they're the nasty ones; but in the end, every cloud goes away, carried by the wind, and just as every thought does, too.
2. A Mental Hospital would turn me away. This has been a big one for me. I've had this terror of ending up in a mental hospital from all this anxiety. It took voicing this to her to finally get that I'd have to be running down Main Street naked, batshit crazy for them to even consider MAYBE I might need to be placed on a waiting list for some outpatient therapy...NEVER ending up in a mental hospital. And in fact, as she puts it, every person she's ever heard express that fear has NEVER ended up in one; it's the ones who don't know they need to be there that end up there (most times, at least).
3. Stress is the #1 Cause of ALL. THIS. SHIT. I'm sitting in my chair, tears rolling down my cheeks, and I'm expressing to her that I'm scared I'll be this way forever. She then instructs me to tell her what I do in one week. So I did, and here it is:
-Work x2 week with a MOUNTAIN of responsibilities (I've come to realize that this is the 5th Child)
-Home, continuously; ongoing marital problems + child rearing issues + animals and house responsibilities + bills = #1 Stressor
-School x2 week, consisting of 10.5 units (which I one handled like nothing before), which recently includes having to orchestrate a 1.5 minute dance, lead a group that is presenting a chapter to a class, finish a photographic project that I feel ZERO passion for, not to mention the financial burden that is still required in needing to buy mats for my final portfolio and more photo paper, and then a final paper on California Government for the elusive online class.
After reciting these lists to her, and by the look on her face, we determined together that my anxiety levels peak when I'm pushed against a wall with responsibilities.
Now, this got me to thinkin'. While the blow-out between Jess and I was paramount to the development of the extreme anxiety, I am now starting to see how the signs were present in the twilight of the event. I recall being anxious about going to SF for a festival, two weeks before, then feeling the pressure about the book deadline, three weeks before; the feelings of dread and hopelessness because I had recently come to the conclusion that ASL Interpreter was not for me, therefore leaving me with no career direction; also not to mention it was the first time we were enrolled in Summer School (BAD idea!); Jess and I were constantly fighting about his alcohol consumption and my constantly having projects. It's no wonder it didn't happen any sooner; I REALLY wasn't taking care of myself, which translated to I wasn't taking care of my family. Work was suffering, school was suffering, my homelife was suffering...I was wasting away by being wasted on my addictions: keeping busy to avoid thinking about everything that I'm faced with now.
Well now I'm paying the price, and I have to remember this. I. am. paying. the. price. Tonight, Jess and I sat down to figure out what our class schedules are for finals week. And, not to my surprise but DEFINITELY to my objection, our finals are on different days, which translates to us traveling to SR at different times, which automatically figured in my head as a recipe for disaster. I've convinced myself along the way that I'm too unstable and unready to drive myself to Santa Rosa, without anybody. Although I have done this before, it was a few months ago and I was REELING from anxiety even after it was done and over with. YIKES! The point is, thought, my immediate reaction was, "I can't do it. It's too hard for me to do. I'll have anxiety. I won't make it. I'll freak out in the car. I'll freak out at school. I'll crash the car from freaking out. I'll be too scared to move. I'm not safe if I'm alone." Soooo....see how damaging believing in irrational thoughts can be? At this moment, I'm feeling a pretty good amount of anxiety, not only over this, but now the anticipation of the weeks to come leading up to the event. Oh boy...I don't even give myself a chance to get it right!
There's this part of me that's strong, though, and it's reaching to everything that I know and everything that I've learned while recovering from this garbage. This part of me wants to sit down, meditate, guide myself through the experience, learn to live with the anxiety, be one with it and let it GO! I can hang on for another year. I can hang on for five years! As long as there's an end in sight, I can do this for as long as I need to, as long as I get out of it as ME, in this life. This obsessive behavior doesn't help anything; if it's all I ever think about, then no wonder it's all I ever feel. I sometimes wish there were something physically wrong with me, so that I had something solid to blame: but I don't, 'cause there IS no cause to it. It's. in. my. head. Always has been, always will be. Just got to remember to breath, recognize that they're just thoughts (and everybody has them), let them go and MOVE ON.
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