Leaving Home

[whiteraven]

I have a lot of anxiety when I leave the safety of my home. Once outside, I'm usually fine, although if I'm gone too long, the anxiety returns. I don't like leaving my cats--even when I have someone in the building coming in to feed and check on them--and I think that is due, in part, to my terror of fire and worry they could not get out on their own, but also because they are just accustomed to my being here.

When I plan an extended trip (like, a week) away, I get these horrible feelings that leave me not wanting to go. Dreading to go. I've never been able to fully identify what the feelings are, though. There's a heaviness in my chest, I feel near tears, and just a horrible sense of dread. Anxiety, I guess?

Anybody else experience anything similar?

 

[Sideways]

I got agoraphobic to the point where I couldn’t leave my apartment at all. So yep, this is very familiar!! Makes life incredibly difficult, all by itself.

My way out of it was to find the point that made me stressed, and do that. Regularly. Till it was easier…then go a bit further, regularly…and on and on until leaving home was something I could just do.

That started with trips to the letterbox and back! Sometimes just to the bottom of the stairs. Overnight trips away are still a stressor, but the associated anxiety is quite manageable as long as I plan ahead (but don’t over-plan) and build in self-care.

All by itself, this is one of those things that can fill up our stress cup even when everything else is going brilliantly - sometimes even the prospect of having to go out (anticipatory anxiety) is enough. So building in more activities that help empty out the stress cup routinely can help manage the spike you may see in your other ptsd symptoms as well.

 

[Friday]

So I have this thing, that served me reeeeeeally well during my trauma years, of believing ANYONE I don’t have eyes-on? Is dead.

Post trauma years that means I go through a “weird” period, when I first get to know/care about someone, & have to get “okay” with their death. Because I do it, with everyone. And if I care about you? I’m going to be weird about that, for awhile. If I don’t care? Pfft. But if I do? I’ll grieve your loss looooooong before you’re actually gone.

It doesn’t serve me… badly?… post trauma? But it doesn’t serve me well, exactly, either. It means my goodbyes are sincere, and reunions joyous, and I almost never leave things badly with someone (because I have a looooooong list of “the last thing I said/did was XYZ” in my head) even for just a few moments.

BUT???

It also means I’ve gutted myself over the deaths of everyone I’ve ever loved… a thousand times, in a thousand ways; subtle & severe. And I FEEL it, when people run to the corner store for just a few minutes, or I can’t find the cat, or go to work, or off on an adventure, or walk out the door, or wave to someone else going somewhere, or, or, or. Because the last time I saw them? May. Durn. Well. Be. The. Last. Because it may. It probably won’t be, in this land of milk & honey, but it COULD be.

Trust issues.

And lessons learned in trauma.