No Rhyme, No Reason

Thursday morning I finally made it to the support group for anxiety and stress that meets at 10 am and is free to attend.  I have been trying to make it there for almost 2 years now.  I went and I was really good that day. I probably seemed to the others that I didn't need to be there since all quoted an anxiety level of 6 or higher while there.  I was at a zero.

Some days I feel so good.  I live for those days, those hours, those moments when all seems normal and right in my body and brain. I can think, speak, sit, stand, wait, engage, laugh.  It's a feeling most people take for granted every day.  I revel in it.  Take it in.  Am in awe of it. Am so grateful for it.  I enjoy it while I can because at any moment everything can change in an instant.  It's the strangest thing ever.  Only people like me could understand what it feels like to live like this.

The very next day I was out for the entire day.  It hit me like a bolt of lighting, very fast, unusually fast in the am just after I got up.  It was so powerful, I had to take extra meds to calm down.  Nothing worked except the meds.  My day was engulfed with trying to work and sleep and work and sleep. Escape into a place where my panic usually lets me be....in sleep.

I've had times where it has woken me, choking me, sending me flying out of bed.  But that hasn't happened in a long time.

I just don't understand how I can be so good one day and so bad the next.  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to any of it.

I can write to you now while I am at a level 6, struggling but still able to communicate.  I wanted to get this down because I know some of you struggle with panic that comes and goes for what seems to be no reason at all.  I've kept a calender this month of each day and how and when my panic is striking and leaving.  I am doing this because it seems to be a daily thing, out of my control and I am trying to get to the root or just catalog how it lives in me at different times and seasons of life.

I have been struggling with allergies, sinus infections, stress of finally getting my own home, learning my father is declining into alzheimers.  Most things that happen to other people I can handle.  It seems that when I am personally sick, unhealthy, either from the allergies or from emotional stress I am worse.  It's the feelings inside me that set me off.  The changes in my own body that I can't deal with in a sane way.

Why are we so sensitive to feelings?  Why do they scare us so much?  It seems so silly to the average person and to me.  I self talk and say how silly I am being but my body is "just reacting" and I don't seem to have control over it.  Like my mind can''t stop my body from feeling like it has been injected with 1000 shots of adrenaline.

But I will live today in thanks and prayer and make it through.  I will push through and live for the next "normal" time.

I wish you all a panic and anxiety free day today!  I wish you peace and calm today!

Anice

Hopelessness is so Real. Robin Williams showed us that this week.

I can't have a sight about anxiety and panic and not touch on depression and how overwhelming the hopelessness really is.  When I heard about Robin Williams and his struggle over the years with addiction, anxiety, depression and "abnormal mental health" I cried.  I cried for him.  I cried for myself and I cried for all of us out there who suffered and still suffer in silence.

Mental Illness is not understood and can't be seen by the average person.  Those of us with it have learned how to hide it very well.  It's a survival thing with us.  We have to learn or we are treated as outcasts.  We are considered "not normal".  Some people are afraid of us.  The reason for that could very well be that they see a little of themselves and do not want to be considered weak and messed up so they turn away from us.

If it wasn't such a stigma in our society more people would reach out for help and get it.  Insurance doesn't pay for therapy which is a monumental need for many of us.  If we can't get help because we can't afford it we end up in some pretty dark and dangerous places.

Lots of us self medicate which turns into addiction.  Lots of us end up homeless because we couldn't afford medication or didn't want to admit we needed it or were too prideful to seek help.  Lots of us learn coping mechanisms.  Usually this kind of person isn't having debilitating issues.  At least not to the point of being home bound or disabled.  The more I learn about OCD the more I see a little of how functioning depressed or anxiety affected people actually function successfully.  There are things we do to get through the day, the meeting, the drive, the waiting.

Over the past few years I have seen more and more attention and awareness brought to the mental health issue.  Mass shootings and suicides have brought attention to it.  More people are "coming out of the closet" so to speak because they want to help others who are struggling.  I am very happy about that but it is still very "cloudy" do the majority of people and I still see a lot of my friends and family still putting there heads in the sand.  I call them ostriches. They just can't deal with it and don't want to.  It hurts to see that.

Robin Williams has single-handedly brought mental health to the forefront.  

I feel every ounce of pain he must have been feeling.

I feel like I wish I knew him and could have spoken to him and told him about God and how knowing God has helped me.

I wish I could have helped him live a longer, happier life.

I wish I could have said, "if you think you are a burden or will be a burden, you are wrong"

I wish I could have said you are so loved.

I wish I could have said, I am here.  I will talk.  I will listen.  I understand.  I know.  It really sucks but we have to try to stay for the ones we love.

I feel the torture he must have felt to get to the point of no return.

People all over are going to be talking about him and what happened and why it happened.

This is one of those times when God uses something sad and tragic and opens doors for millions of others.
Because it takes time and miracles to help someone believe they really are loved and there really is hope.
We know how they feel but most people don't know how to talk to them or how to just be there.  And how to make sure that person has no guilt about what they think they seem like to others.  There is a huge amount of education for the "normal" person and I pray they will want it and seek it out to help someone they may know who is suffering.

I pray now for his family who will go through so much, not only because their loved one was a public figure and famous, but because it is so hard to wrap your head around how that person must have been feeling.

- the agony and pain in his last day, hour, moment in time.

And all the what if questions they will ask themselves.

And the anger, when they realize there are no more chances, no more time, no more possibilities.

Yes I have been there when a loved one chose to leave before I could talk to them.  All things I thought of after they were gone and there was no going back.  It may not have helped but I will always wonder and I cannot ever forget.  But I can go on and try to help someone else.