It's a dry heat

Mostly, I love that I am such a prolific dreamer. Yes, occasionally the zombies are after me, and I'm having to hole up in a strange house, tearing apart the furniture for the wood to barricade the doors and windows with, and it is NO FUN. Then there are the "what the what was that about!" dreams, that are so fragmented and full of symbols and color and noise they are more painting than story. However, every now and then I have an Indiana Jones type of adventure and it is the most fun anyone can have in their sleep.

Halfabee was offered through work to go to Africa for two weeks, to organize and oversee transportation of goods at a compound/wildlife preserve, and asked me to go with. I thought about how absolutely hellish it would be for a "prone to panic" person to be on an airplane for almost an entire day, but I couldn't live with the regret of not seizing an amazing opportunity like this.

As soon as my decision was made, I was already there, bouncing around in a landrover on the way to the compound (bless my dream-brain for skipping right over the bit with the plane). The compound itself was a patchwork of rooms built onto the existing main structure as needed, giving the whole place the air of a treehouse for adults, with deep porches running all the way around it. The woman who had arranged this particular logistics nightmare that required Halfabee's brilliance to begin with, came out of the building to welcome us, screen door banging behind her. She was a zoologist/botanist/all-round sciencey type person, who looked fiercely efficient but also still capable of awe and wonderment at the nature surrounding her. She also looked so exactly like Alfre Woodard that I adored her immediately. 

For a decade her research had been solely centered around this one species of monkey that had the potential to live for thousands of years, were they not being systematically eradicated by another species of monkey, intent on their total extinction. On the way to our room I met one, and it was a funny little lemur-cat hybrid. Our room was a like a cabin bedroom, small with a white quilt on the bed and a canopy above, with one small window. I looked out of the window, taking in a deep inhale expecting to see a sprawling savannah and/or exotic trees, and instead looked out on rows upon rows of garden, and growing in those rows was lavender. That color set against the reddish earth and yellow sky knocked me on my ass.

The rest of the dream consisted of exploring the rooms, some like camp bedrooms with bunks, some made of concrete and drywall, and others with hermetically-sealed doors. Halfabee worked on how to transport this woman's research and samples when there were so many roadblocks put specifically in place by "big pharm". We went shopping at one point and I bought a CASE of Caramilk bars for unknown reasons, and there was a tenuous hiking trip where I discovered that I should not fear the sound of roaring, but in fact the sound of "chuffing" was the sound you should be afraid to hear on safari, as it preceded a lion attack. 

I realized I had not told anyone we were going and thought I had better say something on Facebook at the very least, and picked up Halfabee's phone to update my status. I was having a once in a lifetime experience that was changing me spiritually, but what I wrote was "I'm in Africa. I shit you not."

I woke up chuckling at my own silliness, and also how even in dreams I don't enjoy oversharing. Thus, I felt it necessary to blog about it. Yay adventure dreams!   

It's a Caturnalia miracle!

Ugh, I have had a beast of a cold for days now, but I think the worst is over, because I can actually taste something other than mucus today.

In other disgusting news, the cat is leaning up against the Christmas presents in order to get an easier angle to clean his butthole. 

Repeat the sounding joy. 

Also hide the Hello magazines. Because how embarrassing.

Note to Halfabee - Should any maintenance men, carpet cleaners, or our insurance guy be in our house when I'm not there, be sure to remove any reminder notes I have left for you on the refrigerator wherein I refer to you as "sugartits". Thanks!

The good

Insomnia, you miserable whorebeast. Ah well, time to blog all the things! Let's wrap up shall we?

I had a nervous breakdown. Fact. I spent the following three weeks bedridden only emerging from my fortress of solitude to bathe and occasionally eat, quickly. Fact. Ashamed, confused, and paralyzed with fear, I told no one.

But hiding away forever was not an option and the thought of having to continue living this way as a hot mess made me extraordinarily angry. Anger felt good. Powerful. I had not felt any other emotion for so long that the simple urge to fight felt so clean and brand new. If you're imagining a scene in which I shed my duvet and rise like a phoenix with arms to the sky and breathe in a new day, well that only happens in movies. Resolute as I felt that this would go on no more, getting my body to cooperate was another matter entirely.

However I did get up, albeit slowly and with duvet wrapped around me, and I shuffled out of that room. My shuffling led me to my computer and I sat staring at my desktop for some time, marvelling really. You know when you run into someone from grade school and they look so different as an adult, but gradually you start to see their child-face underneath, mannerisms they still have and traits that didn't get lost over the many years in between and it's kind of delightful? Just like that. Yes, I'm only talking about a computer and that sounds weird, but it was like that with everything I laid my eyes on that day, forcing myself in a way to look beyond what looked odd outside of my personal desert island, to find the comfortable and familiar underneath.  There was a reunion happening.

I did some research that day, trying to find answers to the why and how this happened to me and what this really was that I was experiencing. Answers to my personal dilemma I did not find (that took years of dissection), but there was a wealth of information out there regarding anxiety, agoraphobia and panic disorder. Even better were the communities I came across of fellow sufferers, literally hundreds of thousands of people sharing their stories, of both hardships and successes. I can not express the TREMENDOUS relief I felt knowing that a) I was NOT suddenly an unhinged person and b) holy crap, this can actually be beat?

In the months that followed I got out of bed every day, some days were harder than others but I did. I read everything I could get my paws on. I shared it with the people in my life I trusted. Then I didn't hide it at all. I went through two lousy doctors before finally finding one who would not only listen, but also not want to just heedlessly prescribe me whatever anti-depressant was in vogue at the time, regardless of the fact that in my case it is not remotely a cure or even temporary solution (I may rant one day on the issue I have with the overprescribing and misprescribing so prevalent in the anxiety community, be warned it will be lengthy).

It is now 6 years later. I am as informed as a person can be about their condition, and that alone makes it impossible that I should ever become a duvet castaway again. I do not take any prescription medication regularly, and though there were times I had to take a mild sedative to get through something I found particularly terrifying (a wisdom tooth extraction for example) I do not allow myself to see that as a failure or a crutch. I go out, as much as I can. I believe in exposure therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and meditation. I say NO far more than I ever used to, because there really is no such thing as pleasing everyone. When things become stressful and I feel I'm taking too much on, I step back and re-assess my priorities and I am at the top of that list. I have as much silly fun as I possibly can, even if I look stupid.

This is where I address you, reader. Maybe you are wrapped in a blanket right now unable to leave your house, or maybe you just are having problems dealing with crowds or you just don't feel normal like every other person because it feels harder for you, and you happened upon this blog. 1. There is no such thing as normal, everybody has something, you are not weird or wrong in any way. 2. READ everything you can about your particular issue. It's empowering. 3. Find a place where people are talking openly about it, you don't have to join in, but you won't feel alone or crazy. 4. Don't settle on a doctor who won't listen to you, even if they are the "best". 5. Do the research on medication prescribed to you. Don't be afraid of medications you NEED and are right for you. 6. Pay more attention to what you're eating. Add foods that are a natural anxiety relief, even if you can't completely eliminate the bad stuff. 7. Believe it gets better but don't get discouraged when you stumble. It works in waves.

So, that's my backstory. Oh I'll likely mention it from time to time because it is just as much a part of my life as the color of my eyes, my need to create things, or the douchebag emo-cat in my lap. But from here, you go forward with me. Tally-ho.                   

Would sir like to wear a cravat on his cross-country run?

Can I just say, that Stephen Fry has long been one of my favorite people in the entire world? 

The bad

So where did I leave off? Oh yes, I went to sleep in a panic one night and woke up a new person. Well actually, more of a breathing, walking, raw nerve-ending. What followed was the worst day I have ever experienced.

I had a children's birthday party to attend that day and I went, assuring myself that I was bound to shake it off at some point, like a bad nightmare, and the bright light of day and a festive atmosphere would dispel the last of the jeebies. Ridiculous notion. From the moment I left the house I was in a state of hyper-awareness I didn't know was humanly possible. I might have felt like a badass Terminator if I wasn't so thoroughly freaked out. My sense of impending doom was so heightened that my eyeballs were trying to watch everything at once, spinning in their sockets, scrutinizing all that moved, assessing its danger to me. Also, HAD EVERYTHING ALWAYS BEEN THIS LOUD??

I was experiencing a total sensory overload...and I hadn't even arrived at my destination yet. The party was nothing short of horrifying. I sat in the corner of a couch, trying hard to control my visible shaking, burrowing my way into that couch as much as the springs would let me, with my pupils dilated and a dessert plate in hand with an untouched piece of cake on it. I sat in the little rabbit warren I had created (with my ass) and wondered why I felt that these people I had been around all of my life were now, clearly, gibbons. Screeching and hooting at each other, moving swiftly from place to place with long loping arms, snatching at the party food on their plates, or to scoop up their cake-smeared offspring who were climbing the walls to pop the balloons. This is not a birthday party, man, this is the goddamn jungle.

I had clearly lost my mind.

I may make light of it now, years later, as I'm looking back on it with a mind that is now much more informed about the nature of anxiety, and the many-headed hydra that it can be, and just the knowledge of it alone is a mighty weapon. I'm sure that the party attendees that day would NOT be very amused by the comparison to apes. However, they don't want to know what it was really like, coming home in that state of cognitive dissonance, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted to see the nervous breakdown that immediately followed. Frankly, I don't think it is possible to describe something so abstract at all. A razorball of sound, color, fear and sad? Newp, I won't attempt it, and we'll move swiftly on.

Next post - "So, I'm not crazy then?" 

   

Joyful and Triumphant

I meant to finish yesterday's sadface post, but I became distracted by pretty paper and ribbons and bows, so I started wrapping Christmas presents.

Yes, you read that right. Other than one last parcel yet to arrive, I am finished my shopping.

I am insufferably smug about it too. 

The ugly...

The worst thing about coming face to face with anxiety and panic, seemingly overnight, is the absolute conviction that you are now indeed a crazy person. How confusing when yesterday you were not. Yesterday you were having tea with your Grandpa, making plans for your niece's upcoming Halloween-themed birthday, and it is Autumn, your favorite time of the year. Yesterday you were breathing deeply and positively sighing with contentment at how golden the trees, how golden the very air is in October. Today, you are paralyzed by sound, movement, even your own thoughts. Nothing feels more wholly unfair than waking up in a prison with no recollection of a crime being committed.

Such was the case for me 6 years ago, when this hydra reared its many ugly heads. Halfabee and I went to bed early knowing we had a busy day ahead of us, and I was attempting to go to sleep while going over a mental checklist of the things I had to do the next day. I began to feel uncomfortable, and then overwhelmed, and then I couldn't breathe right. I shook Halfabee awake about an hour later when I had ventured right into a full-blown panic attack. This was not new territory, I've had a few of them in our long relationship together, and each of them was preceded by allowing myself to become overwhelmed in some way, whether by taking on too many tasks or chewing on an issue I couldn't resolve. Halfabee, being the most grounded person to ever exist, and having had a little experience with me in this overwhelmed state, put lavender oil on my pillow, said "Okay, talk." and then took both of my hands in his so he could play with my fingers while I spoke. These three things he does are to encourage me to breathe, to get everything out of my head (once verbalized rarely seem quite so insurmountable) and to ensure my hands can't express my tension by gripping or balling into little fists.

You should know, Halfabee is kind of a singularly amazing human being like that.

His method of relaxing me had worked wonders in the past. I would fall deeply asleep in the middle of talking and wake up in the morning feeling brand new. Unfortunately this time it didn't. Oh I fell asleep, but it was a fitful sleep, and I woke up the next morning in the same tense state from the night before. 

To be continued later today...