This has been the longest week of my life. I'm just staring at the day seven and thinking, really, and, damn I am so tired.
Last night I could not sleep. I scheduled another therapy appointment today, except the card said the 17th and the computer when I got to registration actually said the 19th, so we were all out of sorts on Monday. The problem being that I was up half the night worried about what I had to talk to my therapist about two days later. The meds haven't had time to do much, and frankly, all I am doing right now is getting through this week. Maybe getting through December, too, but mostly just this week.
Today, Shannon came to wake me up on the couch, where I retired at 4am and apparently fell asleep at some point. And without even opening my eyes I said clear as day - I hate my life. I'm not sure if I actually hate my life but I certainly hate 6am. And I hate my brain that talks and talks and talks to itself all night. The meds are giving me crazy dreams, too, which Francis assured me they would. What she failed to tell me is that I would be unable to tell if I was awake or dreaming, but maybe she can't tell, not everyone can.
Because I am married to the most amazing man on earth, Shannon got the kids off to school today and let me sleep all morning until I had to go to that therapy appointment I didn't have. I went to lunch with him, came home, took another beta blocker just to get through the evening, which helped, and went to school.
Tonight was family night at the middle school. I had plans to register lots of parents for the ptsa, but me, Maua, and pretty much every parent that came into the parent resource room looked like they just needed a hug, so basically, we just gave everyone cake and coffee and a chair. December is just too much. I do as little as possible in December, I stopped making a Christmas production years ago and it still overwhelms. I'm glad this end of semester thing is over, though. I think that I will just do planning for January PTSA stuff for the rest of December and no more stressing out on this stuff. We are going to form the ptsa, so it's not like me needing more meds to not have a panic attack at the school is going to help anything.
I've decided that the therapists are probably right that I have general anxiety but don't know all the parts of it. I think I didn't used to but I've been pushed over the edge. There was a shooting at Clackamas Town Center yesterday. All my people are safe. One of the dead is the father of someone I knows aunts students, so enough space that I'm not knowing them. But one was a 15 year old girl, and I spent yesterday in a mall, and tomorrow we are going to the midnight showing of the hobbit at another mall, and I'm a little sketchy on the malls right now. I'm not usually this way, and maybe it's normal. I don't know. Last year, I moved near the Lloyd Center even though there had been a fatal shooting less than a year earlier. Maybe I'm less weirded out by gang shooting, which are usually pretty random, than I am the random young males but I don't know. I do know that I don't remember being so freaked out about a mall shooting before this. I'm trying to check the news twice a day for unfolding information but not sit on twitter listening to the nonsense. I can't seems to get the movie image of Christmas music and jason masks out of my mind.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Day Six
Well, I am starting to crawl out of the hole. This would be entirely due to chemical intervention. I am not even ready to consider going sober. But I am actually able to answer the phone - thanks for calling every other day until I picked up Lisa. You are da bomb.
Since Lisa called, and I had my headset and was driving anyway, I took her call. I was able to talk about what is going on, but I nearly cried. I didn't, thank you beta blockers, but getting through December is going to be about as much as I can do, I think. I've still unfriended practically every church friend I had and most of the rest of them are off my wall. I figure, if they are actually my friend, as in, we actually talk at some point in the future, I can just re-friend them. If they have a problem with it, well, they aren't my friend anyway.
I went to the mall today. I had to take my laptop to the Genius Bar because I popped a key off. Turns out, I over use my right arrow key and I wore it out. I was late, and missed my appointment but they took my laptop and fixed it anyway. It took 5 minutes. I'd have come back, since I did in fact miss my appointment, despite being in the mall half hour early.
I was buying a ceramic flat iron. Merry Christmas to me, I need to make sure Shannon hasn't bought those boots I wanted, because the flat iron was pretty spendy. Although it my hair stays curled all night at this party tonight, it was totally worth it. The girl who sold me the flat iron was absolutely adorable and Portugese, or Israeli. I'm a little confused on this, but she was so fun. She said something interesting to me. She said, you are not hard, it is nice. And I worked retail when I was her age, so I know exactly what she means. I have met a lot of hard people in this life - people who confuse good boundaries with douche like behavior. Something I never wanted to be was hard. Being right has just never been the most important thing to me. Nor being successful, nor being unhurt. I want to be hurt by people, I mean, no one really wants to be hurt, but I never wanted to be so closed to people that they couldn't hurt me. I don't think you can truly love people if they can't hurt you.
I was a little concerned that the medication would make me a bit of an automaton. But this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not where I am with the meds. This is one reason I didn't consider them before. I think it was a good idea to work the skills base first, and maybe I would have ended up on them eventually in any case, but I certainly didn't see this anxiety-meets-grief panic attack coming. So, you know, maybe I won't lose my super power. I'd be ok with losing the crying all the time part of it, but maybe I won't lose the ability to receive, amplify, and return the collective mood of a room back to itself. But maybe I can have a little help not taking this too much on myself. If I can find it, I'll write some other day about what I learned from Caroline Myss this summer. I got a lot to chew on, a lot to use to reframe, listening to her talks this summer. Maybe the bit where I can choose how long to grieve wasn't totally accurate, because it seems I either have some more grieving, or maybe some totally righteous anger to deal with still. I definitely am not done with the anxiety around institutions.
Well, I have a party tonight. I'm going to go play with the flat iron and borrow my daughter's makeup. I should probably buy and wear my own one of these days.
Since Lisa called, and I had my headset and was driving anyway, I took her call. I was able to talk about what is going on, but I nearly cried. I didn't, thank you beta blockers, but getting through December is going to be about as much as I can do, I think. I've still unfriended practically every church friend I had and most of the rest of them are off my wall. I figure, if they are actually my friend, as in, we actually talk at some point in the future, I can just re-friend them. If they have a problem with it, well, they aren't my friend anyway.
I went to the mall today. I had to take my laptop to the Genius Bar because I popped a key off. Turns out, I over use my right arrow key and I wore it out. I was late, and missed my appointment but they took my laptop and fixed it anyway. It took 5 minutes. I'd have come back, since I did in fact miss my appointment, despite being in the mall half hour early.
I was buying a ceramic flat iron. Merry Christmas to me, I need to make sure Shannon hasn't bought those boots I wanted, because the flat iron was pretty spendy. Although it my hair stays curled all night at this party tonight, it was totally worth it. The girl who sold me the flat iron was absolutely adorable and Portugese, or Israeli. I'm a little confused on this, but she was so fun. She said something interesting to me. She said, you are not hard, it is nice. And I worked retail when I was her age, so I know exactly what she means. I have met a lot of hard people in this life - people who confuse good boundaries with douche like behavior. Something I never wanted to be was hard. Being right has just never been the most important thing to me. Nor being successful, nor being unhurt. I want to be hurt by people, I mean, no one really wants to be hurt, but I never wanted to be so closed to people that they couldn't hurt me. I don't think you can truly love people if they can't hurt you.
I was a little concerned that the medication would make me a bit of an automaton. But this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not where I am with the meds. This is one reason I didn't consider them before. I think it was a good idea to work the skills base first, and maybe I would have ended up on them eventually in any case, but I certainly didn't see this anxiety-meets-grief panic attack coming. So, you know, maybe I won't lose my super power. I'd be ok with losing the crying all the time part of it, but maybe I won't lose the ability to receive, amplify, and return the collective mood of a room back to itself. But maybe I can have a little help not taking this too much on myself. If I can find it, I'll write some other day about what I learned from Caroline Myss this summer. I got a lot to chew on, a lot to use to reframe, listening to her talks this summer. Maybe the bit where I can choose how long to grieve wasn't totally accurate, because it seems I either have some more grieving, or maybe some totally righteous anger to deal with still. I definitely am not done with the anxiety around institutions.
Well, I have a party tonight. I'm going to go play with the flat iron and borrow my daughter's makeup. I should probably buy and wear my own one of these days.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Day Five
So, when I first took the beta blocker, I wondered if I would still be able to feel stuff. I wondered if I'd be able to cry, you know, if I wanted to. This is my superpower, being able to cry at will, and also to be unnaturally attuned to other people's moods. I wondered if I would feel like a sociopath without the excessive attention to everyone else.
Well, no problem there. I had such an ordinary day for me that I kind of wonder if that microscopic pill didn't land on the floor and I didn't even notice I didn't take it.
I guess we will see tomorrow. But, seriously, I cried about a normal amount today, which is a ridiculous amount, I'm sure. I got completely frustrated by the attendance policy for SFUSD. I swear, they do everything in their power to make everyone who possibly can, put their kids in private school. I did get things sorted out so that my daughter won't actually fail half her freshman year, but still, you would think that if they cared so much if I sent a note they would either make it easier for me, or they would let me know before I got a truancy notice with 3 times the number of absences that will get us a hearing. Dumb, stupid, shit. This is actually her second truancy notice, her first one was in kindergarten. We went out of town for a wedding, which isn't a good enough reason to miss school. We went anyway. We've gotten a lot more out of the wedding than we did out of kindergarten.
I also cried to an episode of Law and Order: SVU. I can't decide if I am a sucker for Patricia Arquette or if it was because there was a priest with a significant role, and not as a pedophile. The reason I think I took the beta blockers is there is this heaviness in my chest that I don't recognize. Since I'm taking heart medication, I find this either ironic or troubling. My arm isn't numb, though, so I'm going to chance it.
I also met with my therapist again. He is still really confused by the whole ordination process thing. I got the distinct impression that he found people putting themselves in the position of working so hard for something so arbitrary to be a little clinical, if you know what I mean. And I know that he has no idea what needs or desires or whatever I was fulfilling but he is sure that I will be able to find something else, even if I have to have different training. This makes me feel a little strange - not necessarily because I disagree, because I have already found more than enough to do with most of my job skills, but because it means I am moving out of one language and into another.
In other therapy news, he was really interested in some more of my background. I kinda blew over the serial monogamy and alcoholism. Probably, this will come up again. I wonder if this is going to be like that time I went to a chiropractor and he was so concerned that I'd been in a major car accident that he couldn't believe that the two years of weekly chiropractic I had at the time would have fixed the problem and the 35 pound baby I was carrying hanging off one shoulder for years wasn't and the man nearly broke my spine but didn't do a damn thing for my shoulder. Idiot. But I wonder if the therapist is going to be really concerned with the childhood issues. I don't know. I'm sort of over my childhood - it was fun while it lasted, the working through it in ACOA, not actually the childhood, but I'm not particularly interested or avoiding it in any anxious or desperate way. Or maybe I am, what do I know anyway.
I know that I wasn't unsuited to the ministry because I'm a narcissist. I sure know that. I guess it is an open question still if I am unsuited because I am not politic enough. Probably. Ever since THE THURSDAY MEETING, I have been pretty sure that I don't ever want to be that politic. I am sure that I have hurt people in this life, and that I have hurt people I don't even know about - but I am absolutely positive that I haven't hurt as many people as I have cleaned up from the mess Sara leaves behind.
Well, no problem there. I had such an ordinary day for me that I kind of wonder if that microscopic pill didn't land on the floor and I didn't even notice I didn't take it.
I guess we will see tomorrow. But, seriously, I cried about a normal amount today, which is a ridiculous amount, I'm sure. I got completely frustrated by the attendance policy for SFUSD. I swear, they do everything in their power to make everyone who possibly can, put their kids in private school. I did get things sorted out so that my daughter won't actually fail half her freshman year, but still, you would think that if they cared so much if I sent a note they would either make it easier for me, or they would let me know before I got a truancy notice with 3 times the number of absences that will get us a hearing. Dumb, stupid, shit. This is actually her second truancy notice, her first one was in kindergarten. We went out of town for a wedding, which isn't a good enough reason to miss school. We went anyway. We've gotten a lot more out of the wedding than we did out of kindergarten.
I also cried to an episode of Law and Order: SVU. I can't decide if I am a sucker for Patricia Arquette or if it was because there was a priest with a significant role, and not as a pedophile. The reason I think I took the beta blockers is there is this heaviness in my chest that I don't recognize. Since I'm taking heart medication, I find this either ironic or troubling. My arm isn't numb, though, so I'm going to chance it.
I also met with my therapist again. He is still really confused by the whole ordination process thing. I got the distinct impression that he found people putting themselves in the position of working so hard for something so arbitrary to be a little clinical, if you know what I mean. And I know that he has no idea what needs or desires or whatever I was fulfilling but he is sure that I will be able to find something else, even if I have to have different training. This makes me feel a little strange - not necessarily because I disagree, because I have already found more than enough to do with most of my job skills, but because it means I am moving out of one language and into another.
In other therapy news, he was really interested in some more of my background. I kinda blew over the serial monogamy and alcoholism. Probably, this will come up again. I wonder if this is going to be like that time I went to a chiropractor and he was so concerned that I'd been in a major car accident that he couldn't believe that the two years of weekly chiropractic I had at the time would have fixed the problem and the 35 pound baby I was carrying hanging off one shoulder for years wasn't and the man nearly broke my spine but didn't do a damn thing for my shoulder. Idiot. But I wonder if the therapist is going to be really concerned with the childhood issues. I don't know. I'm sort of over my childhood - it was fun while it lasted, the working through it in ACOA, not actually the childhood, but I'm not particularly interested or avoiding it in any anxious or desperate way. Or maybe I am, what do I know anyway.
I know that I wasn't unsuited to the ministry because I'm a narcissist. I sure know that. I guess it is an open question still if I am unsuited because I am not politic enough. Probably. Ever since THE THURSDAY MEETING, I have been pretty sure that I don't ever want to be that politic. I am sure that I have hurt people in this life, and that I have hurt people I don't even know about - but I am absolutely positive that I haven't hurt as many people as I have cleaned up from the mess Sara leaves behind.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Day Four
Last night we went to a party. Dude, I haven't stayed out until 3am in a long time. And I'm going to do it twice this week - Hobbit opening night for Francis' 15th birthday. I think I'm too tired to need the sleeping pills after all, but it is nice to have them.
Took another beta blocker this morning. Yesterday was a totally functional Saturday, which really means I only got 25% of what I wanted, done. Today, about the same. I never get as much done on the weekend as I want. But the lazy days are pretty important, too.
Of course, I drove past a lot of churches with bells and people walking in. None of them were Episcopal, so it seems to have been just fine.
I did find myself several times today replaying last spring and the arguments in my head. I don't readily see what type of thoughts they are, so I think this is going to take awhile. Perhaps I do have general anxiety disorder, just that I am not highly suggestible. Probably, I am just more subtle and clever about talking shit to myself.
What I did notice, I was able to tell a story to someone last night that I have only ever been able to tell two other people - ever. I'm not typing it in here, because it's someone else's story and more intense than is really appropriate here. I don't even know if it is relevant to this particular thing I'm working on. But the point being, it's been this huge traumatic thing for nearly 20 years, and I could talk about it without crying.
I'm really perplexed by the not crying all the time. I wonder if if this is how everyone else feels all the time. I wonder if I even can cry on these things. And I wonder about my emotional eating - sometimes I eat a lot and sometimes I stop, it just depends. So, I wonder what this will do. The side effects are certainly leaning towards a weight loss plan.
Took another beta blocker this morning. Yesterday was a totally functional Saturday, which really means I only got 25% of what I wanted, done. Today, about the same. I never get as much done on the weekend as I want. But the lazy days are pretty important, too.
Of course, I drove past a lot of churches with bells and people walking in. None of them were Episcopal, so it seems to have been just fine.
I did find myself several times today replaying last spring and the arguments in my head. I don't readily see what type of thoughts they are, so I think this is going to take awhile. Perhaps I do have general anxiety disorder, just that I am not highly suggestible. Probably, I am just more subtle and clever about talking shit to myself.
What I did notice, I was able to tell a story to someone last night that I have only ever been able to tell two other people - ever. I'm not typing it in here, because it's someone else's story and more intense than is really appropriate here. I don't even know if it is relevant to this particular thing I'm working on. But the point being, it's been this huge traumatic thing for nearly 20 years, and I could talk about it without crying.
I'm really perplexed by the not crying all the time. I wonder if if this is how everyone else feels all the time. I wonder if I even can cry on these things. And I wonder about my emotional eating - sometimes I eat a lot and sometimes I stop, it just depends. So, I wonder what this will do. The side effects are certainly leaning towards a weight loss plan.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Day Three
Well, I didn't try the sleeping pills last night because I fell asleep while meditating with my daughter, and she fell asleep too, and I didn't want to wake her up so I laid there mostly awake all night.
This morning, I made breakfast and took a beta blocker. Wow. Let's just sum it up by saying I love you, I really do, but I can't feel you at all. And when you hurt my feelings, I can say, right out loud without pausing to push down the tears, hey, that hurt my feelings. Because I can't even feel my tears. I rode in the backseat on the freeway and I didn't even bite my nails or jump or anything - unfortunately, I still got carsick, but hey, I'm not ticking like a clock while looking for a bucket.
Is this what other people feel like all the time?
My husband fears I might become a sociopath, or that this in fact does make me a sociopath, but I think a moral compass is something more than just your adrenal glands burning out - and I have both philosophy and theology degrees to back me up on this. In fact, I could probably even look at a theology book without crushing despair and get some theologians to back me up.
I can't actually say that for sure, though, because I am still giving myself permission to stay as far away as I want from church and religion. And it occurs to me that without the weighty dread, I may not be able to find the AT's that are the problem, but I will probably be able to finally seek out a spiritual director who can help me out with them.
And, again, can I just say what a completely bizarre feeling it is to jump and catch your breath when something scares you, but not have the emotional surge that goes with it. It is a huge relief after the last 3 weeks. Heck, I may not even need the sleeping pills. We will just see how I feel about it when I go to bed tonight.
This morning, I made breakfast and took a beta blocker. Wow. Let's just sum it up by saying I love you, I really do, but I can't feel you at all. And when you hurt my feelings, I can say, right out loud without pausing to push down the tears, hey, that hurt my feelings. Because I can't even feel my tears. I rode in the backseat on the freeway and I didn't even bite my nails or jump or anything - unfortunately, I still got carsick, but hey, I'm not ticking like a clock while looking for a bucket.
Is this what other people feel like all the time?
My husband fears I might become a sociopath, or that this in fact does make me a sociopath, but I think a moral compass is something more than just your adrenal glands burning out - and I have both philosophy and theology degrees to back me up on this. In fact, I could probably even look at a theology book without crushing despair and get some theologians to back me up.
I can't actually say that for sure, though, because I am still giving myself permission to stay as far away as I want from church and religion. And it occurs to me that without the weighty dread, I may not be able to find the AT's that are the problem, but I will probably be able to finally seek out a spiritual director who can help me out with them.
And, again, can I just say what a completely bizarre feeling it is to jump and catch your breath when something scares you, but not have the emotional surge that goes with it. It is a huge relief after the last 3 weeks. Heck, I may not even need the sleeping pills. We will just see how I feel about it when I go to bed tonight.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Day Two
So day two was mostly spent with the prescribing therapist. After the ridiculous amount of time it took to get to the doctors office at all because some idiot thought planting succulents in the 1 foot margin between lanes of traffic on 19th was going to impact global warming. Keep dreaming San Francisco.
The advice nurse yesterday said I would like this psychiatrist because she was professional. I thought, that is a weird thing to say, I would hope all psychiatrists would be professional - I mean, they are going to mess with my brain chemistry, but I am agitated enough that I'm game. And it turns out, I think I know what she meant. I watched the psychiatrists and psychologists come out to the waiting room for patients and so many of them were so casually and comfortably dressed. My doctor had on a suit. That gave me more confidence than the woman in head to toe purple tie dye, with purple crocs. And yes, she was a therapist, the person sitting next to me got up and went with her when she called their name.
So, this managed to be a 50 minute appointment, and I am pretty sure that the details are still a little unclear but we managed. It turns out there is not a drug that cures "I am crawling out of my skin" and "practically crashing the car when the phone rings" but we decided, as they often do, that the stuff that is technically for depression will work for anxiety. And I now have 3 prescriptions. Interestingly, all three of them mess with my serotonin, and one of them says to watch for serotonin syndrome if I am taking multiple serotonin drugs. Two are for getting me settled down while the third starts to take effect. Nothing like jumping in with both feet, I suppose. As long as I don't wind up in emergency. But, she was wearing a suit, and this is a usual combination for her to prescribe, so, I'll trust the suit.
Tonight I will take the sleeping one, and see how that helps. If I don't like it, I don't have to take it, and the melatonin seems to have worked ok last night, so I might just stick with that if this new thing makes my mouth taste like vomit in the morning. It turns out that I've got to be really, really desperate before I am willing to wake up with vomit mouth, which I did when I took a muscle relaxer to slow up that migraine I gave myself the day before yesterday.
Last night was actually quite fine. First, I let myself not talk to anyone about anything I didn't want to, and I let myself not think about anything I didn't want to think about. Second, I went to a chapter wide logistics meeting for the Red Cross. And I got to hang with the guys and no one cares if I feel all weepy, so consequently, I don't get all weepy. And I get to talk systems, which just makes me happy all over. And I totally abandoned my people to their own devices and I was gone for 5 1/2 hours, 2.5 of which was spent in traffic. Not awesome, but I did try to leave San Francisco at rush hour.
I count today a win. Except for the 50 minutes spent sobbing in the psychiatrists office, I only burst into tears 3 times. Well, it's 2:30 in the afternoon, so I suppose there is still time, but really, the shaking has stopped and although my hair is still making my skin crawl, at least I'm not considering shaving it off anymore. ( I did this in college. Some girls look totally hot with really short hair, I am not some girl who looks hot with really short hair. And I hate the 3 years of grow out that it takes to have long hair again. Even when I am not twitching with anxiety and panic, I can't stand hair in my face, and I actually will still chew on my hair like a grade schooler without even knowing. I'm 40 now. If I can't quit, I can at least be old enough to stay out of those situations.)
Goal for tomorrow. Taking the beta blocker one, and seeing if I get too dizzy to drive, which, if that is the case, will put them right out of the running, and then, probably I won't need to worry too much about serotonin syndrome.
Goal for tomorrow. Taking the beta blocker one, and seeing if I get too dizzy to drive, which, if that is the case, will put them right out of the running, and then, probably I won't need to worry too much about serotonin syndrome.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Day One
It's not really day one, it's more like day 17. But if knowledge is power, then today is the first power day. Still, you may wish to be brought up to speed on what the hell is going on, or even what happened 17 days ago.
I went to church.
Which isn't actually that remarkable for me. In fact, what is more remarkable, but not surprising is not going to church for the last 6 months. And what scared the hell out of me, although I didn't know until yesterday, is that I've been coming unglued for the last 2.5 weeks. Like, skin crawling, don't touch me, can't sleep, weep copiously several times a day, freaking out at work unglued. And then doing all the things I learned and that have always worked before in order to manage my social anxiety disorder.
And nothing. Just nothing.
So, screw this, I've got insurance and low copays, I'll go see a therapist. It is definitely something I don't have a handle on, and that whole be strong thing is for shit. It is not working. And there is no point. I've learned a lot about the intersection between willpower and biology, and the willpower is losing.
I tell the therapist as briefly as possible about the last 7 years, particularly the bit where it all flushes down the toilet because I make the skin crawl on one person (and I must because otherwise, she really is a sociopath) and another group of people are at best practicing benign neglect. To which the therapist, like every other person I have told, says, that fucking sucks. (Ok, he didn't say fuck, but the look on his face did, for sure.)
And then tells me that what I am describing, especially since I am doing all the anxiety management tools I have learned and they are not working, is that it sounds like a phobia. And that he doesn't want to tell me how to feel, but could I describe how I feel as angry, perhaps. And I look him straight in the eye and say, well, I'm not screaming or throwing things (which my husband will say is totally untrue - since I have thrown a few things at him recently, and my aim is perfect when I actually am angry, although I am not angry at him) and anyway, that is all I know about angry.
So, I blamed my mother for that. Because when the voice in my head says "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" it is totally in her voice. Or maybe her mother's - it's definitely something my grandmother would have said, and it is totally in a "mom" voice no matter what. And I do know that to this avery moment, I cannot walk up to someone and say - "I hate you, you totally fucked me up and hurt my feelings and I think you are a complete douche. Go die." (My daughter can do that - and while I think it makes her a bit of a bully, I am totally proud that she can, and I will tell her to be judicious with it, but I won't ever tell her to stop.) Furthermore, I did a lot of work in the last couple of years learning to not talk shit about people behind their back and to assume they are doing the best they can and other DBT (this is dialectical behavior therapy - I talk about therapy a lot, I found it totally useful and helpful and I highly recommend it to anyone - maybe not the talk about your victimization stuff, but the only type Kaiser will pay for, i.e. the tools, skills, drugs to be better already dammit. I'm all for that.)
Anyway, the result of all this is that maybe I do have a lot of anger but I'm really lacking the outlet for my own. The therapist actually said to me, "anger is about injustice and this seems pretty unjust to me." I do a lot of social justice stuff, I do a lot with power and privilege of white people, and especially the injustice of the church, but I totally missed putting myself and my situation in those terms. Yeah, me.
This is what happened yesterday. The very nice therapist told me the unkind truth, which is that I actually need the amygdala and the cortisol and my whole frontal lobe, in fact, and so there really isn't any medication that is going to make a phobia go away. But he gave me a nice form to fill out to record my AT's when I am feeling distressed. I haven't even written any down on the paper yet, because I realized while driving the kids to school, every time I thought about church, or my friends from church, or passages from the bible or lines out of the prayer book - I got agitated and started to cry.
Awesome. I am allergic to church. Yesterday, even though I gave myself a migraine, I thought, it can't be that bad. But it can be that bad. This morning, I decided, yes, it can be that bad, and screw that - I'm going to blog all this and make my own book, and go around, someday, when I can go into a church again (because I'm freaking out right now just typing that I might go into a church), I'm going to do a tour and talk to church people about how they totally make people allergic to church. People stop coming to church not because it's boring but because they are actually physically ill. It puts a whole new perspective on every person I ever talked to who was sitting in the back of a church crying through the service. Now that I am one, I can see even more the places where I might have inflicted church damage on someone else.
It might seem that this is an easy fix. I mean, plenty of people go through life without ever stepping into a church and are leading happy, productive, meaning laden lives. So, I could just never go to church and be fine. Right? Wrong. You see, I was planning to be a priest, and I've been totally engrossed for the last 7 years in church business. I even spent 3 years in seminary, studying. The form of my days and the thoughts in my head are all organized around church. Imagine being allergic to your job, or English. Because it feels like being allergic to English. All the words and the metaphors in my head are church words. And I can't help but run into them. When I think about wanting to talk to someone, a friend or whatever, better than half the time, it's someone I know from church. Now, I have a really excellent group of friends that don't have anything to do with church, so I'm not completely destitute in the relationshop department, but they also don't get what I mean when I say, I'm allergic to my own self because for them, it's probably like smoking - for me, it's more like overeating. Some things you can't just quit because, like breathing, it's not optional. I don't mind that my head is full of theology, but if it's going to be in there, we are going to have to find a way to live together.
A lot of my church friends, for the last several months, have been really worried about my relationship with God. And really, that is what church is supposed to be all about, people having a relationship and creating meaning around the idea and the presence of God. Well, God and I are doing just fine - except for that problem that a lot of the language and stuff that I use to interact with God are church things - like the Bible and Communion and the Prayer Book. But I don't confuse God with the church or the stuff that churches use ritually. That stuff is real and important precisely because people are not God and you gotta find something besides getting stoned to get the feeling that God is real. So, for the people who worry about that - I never felt abandoned by God when the people who should have had my back failed to speak up, and the committee failed to set clear parameters, and made shit up as they went along and didn't tell anyone, and then didn't know what he hell happened when they let the priest change the rules, and start spinning the story while doing it. I felt, I feel pretty abandoned by those people, and I even feel a bit abandoned by the part of my own self that can't stand up and make a fuss over my own justice. Ok, I feel a lot abandoned by that part of me. But I'm good with God. We hang out in other places, that aren't church buildings and with other groups of people, that don't use the words that I'm freaking out over. (I think I am starting to get a feel for why people change denominations, though.)
That's it. That is where I am on Day One. Well, that and I got some recommendations for sleep aids from the nurse practitioner and made an appointment to talk to a med management psychiatrist tomorrow, because as long as I can still have the thoughts, so I can find them, I'd like a little distance from them, so I can start creating an exposure therapy (ET, this means in short, things that I think won't freak me out too bad, but that I can do to overcome the panic. It's CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, and it totally works. And it is this that I imagine is going to be the most ridiculously hilarious part of all this. Thank God, who totally has my back on this, that the church I totally had a panic attack in is the only one I can imagine would be down with helping me do exposure therapy to get over the phobia.)
Life is too strange to not have a God. Seriously. I can't say I recommend church these days, but I can totally recommend a God.
I went to church.
Which isn't actually that remarkable for me. In fact, what is more remarkable, but not surprising is not going to church for the last 6 months. And what scared the hell out of me, although I didn't know until yesterday, is that I've been coming unglued for the last 2.5 weeks. Like, skin crawling, don't touch me, can't sleep, weep copiously several times a day, freaking out at work unglued. And then doing all the things I learned and that have always worked before in order to manage my social anxiety disorder.
And nothing. Just nothing.
So, screw this, I've got insurance and low copays, I'll go see a therapist. It is definitely something I don't have a handle on, and that whole be strong thing is for shit. It is not working. And there is no point. I've learned a lot about the intersection between willpower and biology, and the willpower is losing.
I tell the therapist as briefly as possible about the last 7 years, particularly the bit where it all flushes down the toilet because I make the skin crawl on one person (and I must because otherwise, she really is a sociopath) and another group of people are at best practicing benign neglect. To which the therapist, like every other person I have told, says, that fucking sucks. (Ok, he didn't say fuck, but the look on his face did, for sure.)
And then tells me that what I am describing, especially since I am doing all the anxiety management tools I have learned and they are not working, is that it sounds like a phobia. And that he doesn't want to tell me how to feel, but could I describe how I feel as angry, perhaps. And I look him straight in the eye and say, well, I'm not screaming or throwing things (which my husband will say is totally untrue - since I have thrown a few things at him recently, and my aim is perfect when I actually am angry, although I am not angry at him) and anyway, that is all I know about angry.
So, I blamed my mother for that. Because when the voice in my head says "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" it is totally in her voice. Or maybe her mother's - it's definitely something my grandmother would have said, and it is totally in a "mom" voice no matter what. And I do know that to this avery moment, I cannot walk up to someone and say - "I hate you, you totally fucked me up and hurt my feelings and I think you are a complete douche. Go die." (My daughter can do that - and while I think it makes her a bit of a bully, I am totally proud that she can, and I will tell her to be judicious with it, but I won't ever tell her to stop.) Furthermore, I did a lot of work in the last couple of years learning to not talk shit about people behind their back and to assume they are doing the best they can and other DBT (this is dialectical behavior therapy - I talk about therapy a lot, I found it totally useful and helpful and I highly recommend it to anyone - maybe not the talk about your victimization stuff, but the only type Kaiser will pay for, i.e. the tools, skills, drugs to be better already dammit. I'm all for that.)
Anyway, the result of all this is that maybe I do have a lot of anger but I'm really lacking the outlet for my own. The therapist actually said to me, "anger is about injustice and this seems pretty unjust to me." I do a lot of social justice stuff, I do a lot with power and privilege of white people, and especially the injustice of the church, but I totally missed putting myself and my situation in those terms. Yeah, me.
This is what happened yesterday. The very nice therapist told me the unkind truth, which is that I actually need the amygdala and the cortisol and my whole frontal lobe, in fact, and so there really isn't any medication that is going to make a phobia go away. But he gave me a nice form to fill out to record my AT's when I am feeling distressed. I haven't even written any down on the paper yet, because I realized while driving the kids to school, every time I thought about church, or my friends from church, or passages from the bible or lines out of the prayer book - I got agitated and started to cry.
Awesome. I am allergic to church. Yesterday, even though I gave myself a migraine, I thought, it can't be that bad. But it can be that bad. This morning, I decided, yes, it can be that bad, and screw that - I'm going to blog all this and make my own book, and go around, someday, when I can go into a church again (because I'm freaking out right now just typing that I might go into a church), I'm going to do a tour and talk to church people about how they totally make people allergic to church. People stop coming to church not because it's boring but because they are actually physically ill. It puts a whole new perspective on every person I ever talked to who was sitting in the back of a church crying through the service. Now that I am one, I can see even more the places where I might have inflicted church damage on someone else.
It might seem that this is an easy fix. I mean, plenty of people go through life without ever stepping into a church and are leading happy, productive, meaning laden lives. So, I could just never go to church and be fine. Right? Wrong. You see, I was planning to be a priest, and I've been totally engrossed for the last 7 years in church business. I even spent 3 years in seminary, studying. The form of my days and the thoughts in my head are all organized around church. Imagine being allergic to your job, or English. Because it feels like being allergic to English. All the words and the metaphors in my head are church words. And I can't help but run into them. When I think about wanting to talk to someone, a friend or whatever, better than half the time, it's someone I know from church. Now, I have a really excellent group of friends that don't have anything to do with church, so I'm not completely destitute in the relationshop department, but they also don't get what I mean when I say, I'm allergic to my own self because for them, it's probably like smoking - for me, it's more like overeating. Some things you can't just quit because, like breathing, it's not optional. I don't mind that my head is full of theology, but if it's going to be in there, we are going to have to find a way to live together.
A lot of my church friends, for the last several months, have been really worried about my relationship with God. And really, that is what church is supposed to be all about, people having a relationship and creating meaning around the idea and the presence of God. Well, God and I are doing just fine - except for that problem that a lot of the language and stuff that I use to interact with God are church things - like the Bible and Communion and the Prayer Book. But I don't confuse God with the church or the stuff that churches use ritually. That stuff is real and important precisely because people are not God and you gotta find something besides getting stoned to get the feeling that God is real. So, for the people who worry about that - I never felt abandoned by God when the people who should have had my back failed to speak up, and the committee failed to set clear parameters, and made shit up as they went along and didn't tell anyone, and then didn't know what he hell happened when they let the priest change the rules, and start spinning the story while doing it. I felt, I feel pretty abandoned by those people, and I even feel a bit abandoned by the part of my own self that can't stand up and make a fuss over my own justice. Ok, I feel a lot abandoned by that part of me. But I'm good with God. We hang out in other places, that aren't church buildings and with other groups of people, that don't use the words that I'm freaking out over. (I think I am starting to get a feel for why people change denominations, though.)
That's it. That is where I am on Day One. Well, that and I got some recommendations for sleep aids from the nurse practitioner and made an appointment to talk to a med management psychiatrist tomorrow, because as long as I can still have the thoughts, so I can find them, I'd like a little distance from them, so I can start creating an exposure therapy (ET, this means in short, things that I think won't freak me out too bad, but that I can do to overcome the panic. It's CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, and it totally works. And it is this that I imagine is going to be the most ridiculously hilarious part of all this. Thank God, who totally has my back on this, that the church I totally had a panic attack in is the only one I can imagine would be down with helping me do exposure therapy to get over the phobia.)
Life is too strange to not have a God. Seriously. I can't say I recommend church these days, but I can totally recommend a God.
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