Air

I think about suicide every day.

That's what I told my husband last night.  It's probably not the best way to qualify how I'm feeling right now but I needed him to understand that these struggles and thoughts are not out of the blue.

He did a stint in a mental hospital 10 years ago because he hit a bottom and had a plan and the materials to carry it out.  He called his mother and off he went to the hospital.  He stayed there 7 days, got on meds, had some therapy and straightened his thinking out.  He did outpatient therapy for three months afterwards and discontinued his meds 6 months after that.  And then he was all better.

So that's where he is coming from and he doesn't understand how I can feel like this all of a sudden when I'm on medication and already in therapy.  I tried explaining things to him and he still didn't get it.

Finally I was over trying to make him feel better because I hardly think this is the best time to have to explain my feelings.  They just are and they suck.  So that's when I blurted out what I think about every day.  He was shocked.  So I described it like this:

His depression was like a brown paper bag.   Sure, it gets a little dark sitting at the bottom of the bag but it's not stifling to exist in there either.  He eventually wanted a way out and he figured it out with some help.  He got out and the bag left in the wind. 

My depression on a good day is like living in a straight jacket.  I might be tied up but I can still walk and function in a limited way.  And because I've lived like this for so long, I've grown accustomed to it and I can even free a hand or an arm on a good day.  No, it's not pleasant to live like this so yes, I have thoughts of what it would be like to be free.  That seems pretty normal to me.

But when this hits it is like being thrown in a trunk and buried.  Still with the straight jacket on.  It's dark.  I can't move and the air begins to wane.  I twist and fight but then I feel panicked and then I really can't breathe.  So I get still and almost peaceful.  That's where I am right now.  That's also when I know that I need help.

That help doesn't include explaining the why's that support my feelings because those got buried along with the fucking trunk.  I'm still trapped and need that last bit of air to free myself.  Maybe then I can figure all this out.

Because it's a lot easier to breathe in just a straight jacket.

Sleep

I am tired.  I live in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation.

get more sleep... that's the recommendation. 

Sure.  No problem.  As if I enjoy defying sleep patterns.  I don't stay up all night having a party by myself.  I stay awake because it's terrifying to sleep.

I close my eyes.  I feel my head on the pillow; my hands touch the sheets.  It's dark and my heart starts to pound.  The bed begins to spin.  My head screams and my chest aches as I wait.  Wait for nothing.  I am waiting for a dead man who lives on so vividly in my mind.  Wait for the night where he does not appear.

I know that a few hours a night isn't good.  It's also not good to sleep in the corner on the floor.  I do both with freakish mastery. 

I go through periods of time where I can tolerate sleeping in a bed.  But I can't stomach it right now.  So while my anxiety is racing, I wait for my husband to fall asleep.  And then I move.  Corners are safe.  And the floor isn't a bed.

Bad things happen on beds.

After a few hours of hard fought sleep my corner is awake as he approaches in the dark.  I stand and slip out of the room where my husband never wakes.  I turn on the lights as the dead man begins to fade.  He wishes me good night and with a wink he tells me he will see me soon.

I clean.  I read.  I write.  I draw.  I make my husband coffee and pretend that I haven't been up all night.  The early light melts the terror as dreadful relief lets me know another night has passed with a new day on the brink.

My eyes are clouding with that familiar ache.  A dark periphery is depression's single warning.  I fight to keep my eyes open; to keep my vision clear.  But heavy eyelids pull the sadness in as I contemplate the Sleep.

Intersect

I see him coming and there is no place for me to go.  The one way out is the way that he will walk in. 

I can smell him twenty feet away. 

Through glass. 

Through a door.

The room begins to spin and collapse around me.  I tell myself that it's not him; that would be impossible.  My mind.  My nose.  My body.  They all betray me.

He walks through my door.  I offer a simple handshake.  I hope that a brief touch will flood my shattered mind with the calm of reality. 

That's not him.  He means no harm.  And then my reassurance turns into frenzied questions.

A handshake turns into a hug.  Too much contact as his cologne seeps into my every sense.  Glass shatters as my mind spins in sync with the room.

A painful haze fills the room.  My vision narrows into a tiny point.  A push.  And then a shove.  Obscenities spewed propel me backwards as a corner of the room folds me in as protection.

My back slides down the wall as I crouch to hide my face.  The two walls meet and wrap their arms around me.   I rock as I listen for the silence.  The calm.

But instead as the haze lifts I hear the racking sobs of a wounded someone. 

Tears like razors spill into my protective hands.  They cut my hands as each one drops.  I shake and pound my head into the walls. 

Those sobs are mine and I can hardly breathe.  I squeeze my eyes so tight to stop the tears.  They subside but I do not open them afraid that the monster is still there.

A voice calls my name. 

Another warns not to touch me.

One eye opens.  And then the other.  I shiver as I see the worried faces.

No shards of glass.  No wounded hands.  His smell still lingers but he is gone.  The shrinking room has expanded to an endless space of shame. 

Another hand offers me a way out of my corner.  I brush away my tears but my face burns hot with shame. 

It has finally happened.  My past has found a way to intersect with my public life.

Badness

I am learning there were two versions of truth. 

His truth.

And then the truth. 

Forgive me because none of this is black or white.  Nothing is as it seems and this is so fucking confusing.  Ever since I received this news I have had an overwhelming sense of guilt.  Shame.  In little kid terms... badness.

Small voices repeat... bad people get killed... he was bad... he was our dad... so we are bad... over and over and over.  These are anxious words wrapped with fear.  Fear that we are next.  An irrational fear yet a real anxiety.

How could I be good yet come from them?  I get that they were bad.  Exceptionally bad.  So how did I get here when badness raised me?

Bad little kids don't have parents... If you tell then you will get taken away...  And then you won't have parents... Because you were bad.

And now we have no parents.

Quite honestly, I am lost.  I pace the floors all night.  My chest is full with pounding butterflies.  I stare at the food on each plate.  A cold sweat overcomes me with each police car I see.  My mind wanders through each day waiting for that phone call.  The call that makes this all official and I wonder how it will go.  I wonder how I will react.  And what I fear the most is that I will have no reaction whatsoever.

And in that lack of reaction, my badness will commence.

Anxiety

God, I hate anxiety. I sincerely believe that panic and anxiety can, at times, be more crippling than depression. I tend to swing back and forth between severe depression and severe anxiety. My depression is treated, my anxiety is not. Rarely do my anxiety and depression co-exist at the same time and so I've been told, that is why it it difficult to treat my anxiety symptoms.

I'm on the anxiety upswing right now. I wake up at night in a cold sweat with my heart racing. My brain quickly follows their lead and my thoughts start spooling up without me knowing how they will unwind. I can't stop it. I lay there awake until I am sure that my pounding heart is going to wake up my husband.

So I get up.

I clean, I read, I sew, I crochet, I play with the dog, I watch TV, I write... We have the cleanest house on the block. We have a maid and in my worked up state, I retrace her steps.

I'm not bipolar. I've been down that road with one too many shrinks and I am confident that the last one was correct.

I don't handle stress well. Actually... let me correct that. I don't handle stress at all; I stuff it. Eventually I run out of places to stuff my emotions and it explodes. At that point, I'm either depressed or anxious as hell. It is miserable. At times I feel paralyzed while sinking in quicksand when I am on anxiety overdrive. That is where I am now.

Like I said, my anxiety is not treated with medication. I self-medicate instead. Last night I washed my antidepressant pills down with vodka. It that isn't the picture of health, I don't know what is...

I'll be OK, I always am. Despite how this all sounds, I am attempting to deal with my anxiety in healthier ways. I will go to therapy this week and actually talk; I will also write more. The weather is nice and hubby suggested, as he watched the vodka/pill display last night, that we start taking a walk in the evenings. I can do that too.

Knots

When my daughter is nervous, she says that she has knots in her stomach. Today, I have knots in my stomach.

My step-kids were born 2 years and 1 day a part. Today is the birthday celebration. We have seen very little of them this month because they spent Spring Break with their mother. But tonight begins the usual routine again and I'm a nervous wreck. I have actually gotten comfortable in my home again and I am so afraid that comfort is going to all disappear beginning tonight.

Hubby, my daughter and I went birthday shopping for them last night and it was quite honestly, a miserable experience. And no, those weren't the words coming out of my wicked stepmother mouth; they were hubby's words. The kids typically hate anything we buy them. Nothing is good enough. Their typical responses are somewhere along the lines of, "is that it?"... "but I really wanted _____"... or the worst, "can I exchange this for cash so I can get something I want?". The last response was said at Christmas to their grandma, my husband's mother. We were mortified. We do not raise our kids to be ungrateful and spoiled. We correct the behavior but it always continues because somewhere over the years, a sense of entitlement has developed and been nurtured by the home they spend the most time at.

The gifts, our home, our love, our care; none of it is appreciated or good enough. Soon enough, our home will be a war zone once again; filled with teenage temper-tantrums, backtalk, screaming, rolled eyes and tears. I hate having such a negative perception. However, when I look, hope and pray for the good, it's kicked in my face and I am more disappointed than if I had just expected the "norm".

It's a sad situation we find ourselves in and it breaks my heart to watch the very home that I longed for as a child to transform into a place filled with anxiety and stress. I wish I had an answer but I do not. No one does. Professionals have told us that they will realize the truth when they are older and that's all fine and good. But what about the rest of us who know the truth and the actual truth of our circumstances today? What happens to us when we are older after living years of this stress and hurt?

I truly am the most sad for the kids. All of the kids. I would be lying if I said that I don't worry about the impact this could have on my daughter. I grew up in a stress-filled home; albeit much worse but this is still not ideal for her. What if she has knots in her stomach now and what if they don't go away? And what about the other two kids? What is going to happen to them if they continue to grow up thinking that this is the way you treat people? I can't imagine that will be a pretty lesson to learn...

I feel pulled in two different directions and more and more, I find myself wishing that I could just have my home back for the sake of the three of us who live there full time. I know I must sound selfish and bitchy but this is where I'm at.

For now.