Moving Along And Looking Back

[alexabroad]

I've been trying to do more writing specifically about my PTSD and trauma for a while now. I am a writer (or at least, I write) but it's been difficult to write about this in a way that feels therapeutic in the same ways that I write creatively. My experiences and feelings come up in my creative writing, but it isn't as free-form or cathartic as just getting it out. So I'm going to try to write here in less structured ways.

After I was assaulted, things got so bad so quickly. I struggled to finish the classes I was in and struggled to deal with being so far away from my family. I was studying abroad in the UK at the time, and I'm an American. After the term ended, I travelled for a bit and then came home. Since I'd been anxious before, a lot of my negative emotions during my traveling seemed just like very bad anxiety. Most of my difficulties at school that term just felt like the normal processing of trauma. Even though the therapist I started seeing used the term PTSD, I just didn't take it seriously.

Then things got scary very quickly once I was home. It was like I'd made it out of the survival situation and could finally fall apart. For months I'd focused on getting home, getting through the time when I had to be strong because I was on my own. Once I was back in my mother's house... it was like I hit a wall. I didn't have the energy to push through anymore. I just laid in bed for hours. I skipped all of my classes. I just couldn't go and be in a room full of people where I was expected to contribute. I was a great student, but since I developed anxiety and a panic disorder a year or so ago (before the trauma) attending class when I felt overwhelmed had been difficult for me. Suddenly, it was impossible.

I had started seeing someone I'd dated briefly before I left to study abroad again, largely because I just needed to be held. Sleeping alone was terrifying. My sleep schedule was f*cked. I was scared all the time and constantly on edge. Being able to get stoned out of my mind in a safe place and go to sleep in someone I knew wouldn't touch me inappropriately or hurt me's arms was comforting. And I really needed comfort.

What I remember most vividly was how often it felt like I was really losing my mind. I couldn't trust my perception anymore. I saw grass move out of the corner of my eye and it looked like a dog was running towards me to attack. I imagined I saw people walking down empty streets. Hearing noises of a busy street with cars driving by and occasional honks sounded like a domestic dispute happening outside the window. So often I had to ask the person I was dating whether or not things I thought I was hearing were real. And they never were.

I remember at the worst of it, he and I were having a conversation about his depression and how he just wanted to be himself again. I said back flatly that I didn't expect to be who I used to be again, but that I'd like to be functional. I just wanted to be able to get through the day without crying, to do what I needed to do without completely falling apart. I hadn't meant it to be an abrupt or disruptive statement, but he looked at me for a long minute and finally just told me how sad that was to hear when he'd known me before the trauma happened.

I got really lucky. I do feel like the person I used to be. I'm different, but so much of the personality that was gone during the worst of the aftermath is back. I feel happiness again. I feel things in general again. I'm not always terrified.

But the terror creeps up on me often. For a few amazing months, being out of the worst of it gave me such an intense feeling of gratitude that I couldn't consider the aspects of PTSD I was still dealing with. Not visualizing anxieties or hearing them was such a gift that everything else felt inconsequential. Being able to smile again and go about most of my day with minimal anxiety was a blessing. It was like a constant high to just be... pretty normal again. Especially since I moved abroad and was in legitimately challenging situations very regularly.

But now always being fatigued and dealing with intense anxiety is starting to wear on me again. My gratitude is still there... but it's not enough to keep me from realizing the magnitude of this thing I'm dealing with. I'm not as "cured" as I thought I was. Maybe I never will be. But it's manageable now, and I do think it can keep getting better. The hard part is just finding the energy to push through. I'm so tired just trucking along in my day to day. But I want big things for myself. Not even big in a traditional sense, but I want to pursue experiences that are challenging.

Today I was researching fruit picking in Australia, because that's something I'd like to do for a few months and it hit me like a sack of bricks that it might be too much for me. Of course, it could also be good for me. Getting away from intense social politics in an office and spending my day doing physical labor might take a load off my mind and give me a physical outlet for anxiety. Or it could make it worse and the entire situation could implode on me. It's hard not being able to inherently count on yourself. I'm still going to give it a go if I still feel like it'd be worthwhile when the time comes... but god, it's frustrating not being able to count on yourself reflexively. Weighing the pros and cons of taking risks with my condition is really tough on my self esteem and morale.

But getting it out feels good. And I always seem to find just enough momentum to push a little bit farther than I have before. If not every day, at least some days. At least enough to make a difference. Enough to keep me fighting.

 

[alexabroad]

I just had a horrible anxiety attack after such a promising night.

All I wanted was to stick it to my sleep issues. I only sleep well one night of the week, Friday, when I don't have anywhere to be the next morning and can sleep as late as I need to after my usual method of wearing my mind out to fall asleep. I can't get to sleep with less than an hour of lying in bed generally. I usually go through a few rounds of anxious thoughts and near panics before I finally drift off, often in the exhaustion that comes after a wave of anxiety.

I've been thinking more and more about how much better my anxiety and mood would probably be during the day if I just had enough sleep. So often I start the day off under-prepared and groggy because I stayed in bed until the last possible minute out of sheer exhaustion. And it builds on itself. One night of sleeplessness and I'm fine, after five consecutive nights, I could cry from sheer frustration.

There are physical tolls too. I know it ups my stress. I frequently get colds and can just feel myself being run down. In the past I've overeaten a lot because of how tired I was and how much I needed energy. I can't even fix it with caffeine (or at least I shouldn't) because it makes me jittery too. But most days I have to have a cup of coffee to get through the day, so I limit it to in the morning and just struggle through the rest of it, hoping that I'm not selling myself down the river in the long run by opting out for some amount of energy in the immediate.

Tonight I decided to give it my best shot of having a good night. I showered just after I ate dinner around 7:30, was really nice to myself and made it more relaxing than the normal in and out ordeal it is, washed my face and brushed my teeth, put on Tigerbalm because my back sucks, got into bed and listened to a good podcast. I even burned incense. It was the most relaxed, mentally and physically, that I've been in at least a year.

And as soon as I turned off the night and got ready for bed, I was hit by a million anxiety bricks. I heard someone yelling outside my apartment. Because i live in Thailand, I had no idea what they were saying. My mind automatically related it back to me and all of the ridiculous things I could hypothetically be in trouble for. (I currently have a bag of garbage sitting on my balcony waiting to be taken out because I'm lazy/constantly tired--- lock me up now!)

I think it was because I was so relaxed that it got so bad. It was one of the worst panics I've had in a long time. My guard was so down. Normally, I'm fighting off different paranoid thoughts on such a regular basis that they just roll off of me a lot of the time. Tonight I went from 0 to 100 in a few seconds and it was a dizzying transition. My normal 60-100 does not compare.

It just feels so unfair. (I know that's dumb to say. Of course it's unfair, what is ever fair?) I can do my best and be so close to what normal feels like and in a moment it's all gone. I'm blaming myself right now, listing all of the things I could do so that I'd never have anything to "worry" about, thinking that if I could just live out all of the aspects of my life in unoffensive, totally transparent ways I wouldn't have these brushes with anxiety that spark from environmental factors... but 1. that's still my anxiety talking and 2. I know it's not true.

I could live my whole life "perfectly" and I'd still be looking around the corner for the worst case scenario to become reality. It's exhausting. Now it's 12 AM and my panic has just ended. I can probably get to sleep, especially now that I've gotten all of this out there, but man. I'm just sad about it. It doesn't seem like it should be hard for me to get a good nights sleep when I put so much effort into it. I think it causes a bigger fear for me-- one that keeps me from trying to make things better too often, the thing that makes me settle for the safest option (staying in instead of going out, resting up ineffectively instead of putting energy into a new project that might not pan out, etc). When I try to make things better, even if it's a small immediate thing like this, I get my hopes up. It feels like it's working and I get happy or excited or more optimistic. And it's such a let down when it turns out to be a disappointment. Maybe it's safer to not try. But I can't think that way. I've gotta keep meeting it all head on, because that's how I push through it. That's how I've gotten to where I am, and that's what makes it all more bearable. Losing the fear through confrontation with the fear.

I just wish I wasn't so tired. It'd all be more bearable if it was attached to something less comforting, enjoyable, necessary, and pivotal than sleep.