I've been meaning to write. I've sat down in front of numerous computers in the last few days with my fingers stalled over the keyboard. I guess I've been hoping for inspiration to hit. In the past, words have just flowed from me, but currently I feel...quiet.
It's not bad necessarily, sometimes quiet is good. For example when you live in a house with two toddlers, quiet at 9pm is a very good, and currently very rare, thing. If you live next door to a crazy teenager and their never-there parents. Quiet at midnight, instead of pumping bass and reeving engines, is a very good thing. My quiet is one of confusion. I'm just not sure what to think right now, so writing seems nearly impossible, but hey it's me your talking to so here I go:
I haven't had another panic attack, or at least a severe one, in about a week, but the anxiety about having another keeps me on constant vigil. I'm told for people with Panic Disorder (you caught that huh? Yep, this is a full-blown disorder) that kind of anxiety is normal. I was given a packet by my therapist about panic disorder and one of the greatest things in the world was to see solid, black and white evidence, that EVERYTHING I think and feel when I go through these is "normal" for people with this disorder. Normal. I really hate that word. What is normal other than the distance between boring and insane...but I digress.
There are also other diagnosis flying around me. Hurled from different directions. Different professionals, with different degrees on their walls with different opinions as to what I need to be doing. Cognitive behavioral therapy, prescriptions, diet modifications. They all agree on exercise. Tough sugar though as that's the ONE thing I'm not willing to do after my last ER visit.
That's the other thing that keeps me quiet. I don't WANT to tell people about all the things I'm scared of now. I don't want to talk about the fact that I can barely drive, I can't run, I can't dance with my kids, I can't drink cold drinks...the list goes on...because I don't want to be afraid. But this is the hard part for my family to understand, I CANNOT HELP IT! I've tried. I AM trying, but I don't know how to make this better.
So I may get quiet. I may not share as much. It's not because I don't want to share, but it's just hard right now. Hopefully the next time you hear from me, there will be good news. News about how I'm winning the fight now, or better yet, news about anything other than me and my mildly irrational brain. We're getting a little sick of each other..does that sound crazy? Oh well, maybe I can make crazy the new normal. What was that? Lady Gaga is already on that track? Damn.
