All is well, and all will be well
February 28, 2012Everything is fine but I am having a hard time convincing my mind of that--my mind, where things that don't exist seem to matter.
My thoughts keep circling around a few choice incidents: like how, last week, we lost Henry in the park for a few terrifying minutes, minutes that seem to stretch on and on in my memory, even though it wasn't that long and of course he was found, completely fine, if scared. But for those few minutes, we screamed into the woods, and there was no answer. That's where my memory is stuck.
And then it fast-forwards to a few days later, when I crossed a busy street against the light (stupid, I know, so stupid) and Henry was behind me, with Scott, only he bolted after me, and there were no cars even near him, but he wasn't looking and he followed and that's my freeze-frame, the innocent following, the trusting, damn it, all my fault.
The culmination occurred only a few minutes later, I think--maybe a half-hour?--when the encroaching stomach-sick that was threatening me all day, struck--on the subway. Where you really don't want something like that to happen. And I don't know whether it was the nausea that gave me a panic attack, or the panic attack that's been almost overtaking me for days kicked the nausea into high gear, but either way, I had to get off the train. I was in a blind panic and I told Scott, I have to get off the train now, and we were nowhere near home, and then I was on the platform, retching (unproductively, painfully) behind a garbage can, and I had no feeling in my arms and I was bathed in cold sweat and between retches I informed Scott that he had to get an ambulance because there was no way. There was no way I could get home. I was going to die there. On the G platform. The G! The very worst train!
At any rate, Scott (fortunately) did not panic, and no one called an ambulance (although a very nice passerby did offer to help, which was so kind--I would keep my distance from a lady retching on the subway platform, personally) and Henry patted me on the back, and the crisis subsided, and we actually got back on the train, where I shivered and sweated and felt generally pathetic.
That was my Sunday. Yesterday I was sick, curled up on the couch all day. Today I am better. I had a burger that was off, or a flu, is all. But I feel like an open wound, and my mind keeps going back, to the park, staring into the woods, or to the street, Henry following me, to the mistakes I keep making--or that moment in the subway--I don't know. I don't even know why I'm telling you this. Only that I feel alone with my thoughts and they won't let up and I am exhausted. I wish I could give myself a break but I am still not fully convinced that I deserve it.
Reader Comments (88)
Alice, this isn't Fight Club -- beating yourself up will NOT make you feel better. It's okay to tell yourself, \"I did what I did, I can do better next time.\" I know it doesn't feel true, but you can tell yourself that anyway. You do deserve a break. You don't have to be sure you deserve a break, none of this mental illness/mental health stuff is about what you deserve. A break is just about that -- a break. A respite from the everyday.
Anxiety is a bitch. I hope you get a respite.
Oh my goodness, the same thing happened to me when when my first child, only months old, had a febrile seizure. Somewhat common, and she was fine in the end, but it involved panicking, EMTs, ambulance ride to the children's emergency room, and a night in the hospital. (She was fine, just overheated with fever.) Within 24 hours, I was vomiting helplessly, fevered, and so, so sick. I am convinced that it was almost entirely my body saying OMG you held it together when they needed you, but YOU ALMOST LOST HER! We Mamas care so much about our babies.
I lost my baby. I lost him in children's hospital. His physical therapist had recently taught him to run. Only 3 years old but he was like the wind. I didn't see it coming, didn't realize how good he had gotten. He was only gone for 10 minutes. The hospital's procedures for such a thing are quite effective. I still don't forgive myself for what could have been. Do I deserve forgiveness? So do you.
Oh, Becky. Thank you for the perspective. Oh.
At a crowded winery (Coppola, which is more like a crowded hotel) this last winter break, I turned around to discover that my daughter was not there. Minutes stretched into hours - days? lifetimes? - while we and the winery staff searched for her. It was probably three minutes but for me, both then and now when I think about it, it feels like a wormhole and even typing this I want to weep with a combination of abject terror and utter relief. It feels like in the movies, when the camera suddenly zooms in on a character and everything else goes out of focus, and all you have is the moment before this, when your child was right next to you, and this moment now, where she is lost (dear God let me find that girl before this moment becomes every moment from now on). And now my whole memory of my winter break is colored by losing her--not by finding her, not by the relief and the gratitude--by the terror and fear of that moment. I wept when we got home about my \"horrible vacation.\"
This is meant to say: yes, yes, and yes. Those moments where our worst fears are nearly realized, they seem to validate the fact that we have those fears. It is as though your mind says, \"You are afraid that a bear might eat your child? Look how close that came to being true! You are right to be afraid! Be ever vigilant!!!! You must not relax for even one moment!\"
But we must relax, forgive ourselves for our foibles and for our fears. Blessings, Alice. You are not alone in your woundedness and you do deserve a break.
The mind and the body are in cahoots. They conspire against us sometimes. For a month now I've had this cold/flu thing. A lot of people have it, they've all told me so. One of its varied delights is not being able to take a full breath. How do I quell my anxieties? Deep breaths. What makes me anxious? Not being able to breathe! It's awful and I did go to the emergency room and to the doc and I called the Ask a Nurse line and I called the doc a million times and I have an appointment with a specialist on Monday. Yeah, it's a conspiracy. Don't let them get you.
Hey, everyone deserves a break! But, more importantly, you deserve a break. :)
I am here for my kiss.
(And also, I have stupid anxiety attacks every now and again and I had a stomach virus this weekend. We have so much in common!)
(All of the other people have already told you to take it easy and do Zen things! So do the things they said to do, unless they're ridiculous things! In which case don't!)
I'm in a panic too. Why? I don't know why. There is no visible trigger. Maybe clairvoyance because my lovely child, all of 7, woke up this morning with her first ear infection. And to see that pain stretch across her face was heartbreaking. Of course I'm now full of the guilt that I left her to go to work and then had to rush home an hour later to take her to the Dr and get her some antibiotics. But she is OK. She ran out into a parking lot once. I still make her hold my hand, and her friends too when they are with me. I just want to sleep for a stretch with no dreams and no terror, or panic. Just peace. I want to silence my brain. We'll be OK...
Oh you are so loved.
I am so sorry to be able to relate to the anxiety-induced retching and the feeling of just raw... painful... helplessness, I guess.
Praying you'll allow yourself a break. We're allowed infinite number of breaks. I know how it feels to not be able to convince your mind of that, though. Ugh.
Listen, I want to say something very different from what most of these other comments have said, and I want you to understand that I say it with the utmost compassion and kindness and sympathy. I am a 39 year old mother of four, and although of course I worry at times, I have never, ever felt like what you just described. I tell you that because I want you to be able to see that having to live like that is not okay. it's not normal, it's not how everyone secretly feels, and you deserve to be free of it. So many of the people I love most suffer from anxiety, and as the world's possibly least anxious woman (maybe pathologically lacking, who knows?), I see it as this crippling, terrible burden, and I think that whatever you have to do to get out from under it is totally worth it. I know you have written about taking medication, and I don't know where you are with that now, but it sounds like it's time to revisit and evaluate what is needed. You deserve better than this.
" I don't even know why I'm telling you this."
Alice, it HELPS to tell us. And also, if you don't tell us we can't assure you that it WILL be well. And it really will be--honestly!
Sorry to hear of your rough time. I hope you will be okay. You're one of my favorite writers.
Oh, Alice! You are going to feel much better, soon. When you're coming down with something, your brain becomes convinced that doom is imminent. In fact, one of the symptoms listed on food allergy action plans is \"impending sense of doom,\" because the body slips your brain a note when things are going haywire, which reads: \"panic now!\"
Very soon, your body and brain will get over it already and normal feelings of hopefulness will resume.
So glad it turned out okay.
I know that sick feeling, and I'm always afraid that it won't go away, that it will spiral into one of those horrible made-for-tv movies you watch even when you don't want to, but you can't help yourself.
Hugs.
Alice, so so many hugs. You are well and well loved.
Oh Marisa - when I used to pray (16 years of Catholic school does that to you), I would get anxious just trying to make sure everyone was covered by my prayers, like god would try to catch me out and send something awful to that one person/group I missed. That Buddhist prayer is what that younger me needed. I still haven't figured out what the older me needs.
Hugs I've been there and it's no fun. Have you ever tried progressive muscle relaxation? I used to have horrible panic attacks and I bought this CD and would listen to it every night. Eventually I was able to focus on the feeling the CD would give me when I felt a panic attack coming on. It helps.
Kristy, thank you for that reminder. I believe you're right and that my PTSD was triggered by this week's events. Am seeking psychiatric help today.
And thank you, everyone! You are all the best.
I get it, I get it, I get it. A week and a half ago -- it's strange to even say this, because it feels like I'm being dramatic even though I'm being realistic -- I had a medical emergency that could have killed me. I'm lucky it didn't and I'm thankful to be alive. Except now I think everything is going to kill me all the time, and it is terrifying.
So yeah. Nothing but empathy for you over here.
You are being too hard on yourself, but I think a lot of mothers/parents are. You are human and humans make mistakes. I make mothering mistakes each and every day, I'm sure. Think of it this way - our kids will end up in therapy ANYWAY, no matter what we do - better to give them something to talk about, right? *wink*
On a more serious note, I too have struggled with panic attacks in the past and I do so know how that feels. I think it was not a hamburger - but your panic attack that brought on the nausea. I don't have a real, true solution, unfortunately - hopefully writing this post for you helped a bit. Just wanted to say you are not alone, many of us have been there (or somewhere similar) before.
I don't know if you're a "God person" or not. But it really helps me when I allow myself to believe that I can trust and rely on God. It lets me turn that anxiety over and know that it is all out of my hands. And I learned in addiction recovery that even if you're NOT a God person, sometimes it really does pay to "fake it until you make it." I've seen that my life just works better when I do. YMMV.
Alice
Though I am sure this was a hard post to write, I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing it. I, too, am stuck in those moments of bad mothering, of yelling too quickly, of touching my son with a cold hand before washing it but AFTER eating a chicken satay with peanut sauce, and this caused a 5-day hive outbreak and a panicked trip to urgent care because he had swelling on his vocal cords. I don't know how to turn off the groundhog day of the last few weeks, but I'd really like to. What helps is reading your post, and knowing that other people have these times too, and that we will all, thankfully, get through.
I told a student who has had an AWFUL February, "Hey! March starts on Thursday!" And I'm really trying to believe that with March, life will get a little easier and a little better.
Good luck. And thanks.
You need to talk about it. And you need to go back to those woods and re-experience being there without losing Henry or feeling panic, so that you can start re-programming your brain to recognize that every time you go to the park or cross the street, bad things will NOT necessarily happen. I'm not just making this up. I know this because it's precisely what my therapist told me about why I need to take my dog for a walk around the very block where I watched a car plow into my eight-year-old four weeks ago while we were walking the dog. She tells me I have three to six months to do this in order to ensure that I get the new images and the healing that I need. I have taken the dog for a walk since then, but not around that block. Baby steps.
I'm also here to tell you that it gets better. And that part of the way it gets better is by reaching out to friends and letting them reach out to you. If it would help to know how others of us cope with things like this (my son is recovering, by the way), try reading this. The comments are also useful, as they contain more mothers with their own stories, all doing their best to help re-program the crisis.
Take care of yourself.
Sorry, my href didn't work up there. Just click through to my blog if you think someone else's story would be helpful. I really am not trying to drive traffic, just to offer a coping option, if you think you want to try it. For me, community meant everything.
I am feeling alone with my thoughts that won't let up, old, patterned nonsense, triggered by new anxieties and embarrassments and the fear that everything I'm doing and saying is wrong wrong wrong.
It always happens when I try something new, or trust without thinking. It's a prison, of sorts. I had a breakthrough this weekend that I'm trying to cling to and to work with a little before my horrible patterned tape talks me out of it.
I was in Nashville when the plug on my sanity came out and what I did was the opposite of what I usually do, which was to shut down and feel ashamed. I told people and then they let me talk and I couldn't shut up. And then I made a major life decision that I have to follow through on tomorrow or all of the people of the blogs I promised I'd do it with come after me with Nerf pitchforks and lovingly passive-aggressive tweets and DMs.
It's a bitch. Our brains can be little bitches. But they are also awesome. That's the part I keep hoping will stay lit, at least long enough to beat down times like yours on the platform and mine in some elaborately candelabra'd/chandeliered conference center ballroom. Because the fact is, he's okay now. He is. And so, in many ways, are you.
I'm with you, though. I really do get it, the horribleness of it and the need to kick its ass. I'm glad you talk when it's hard, because it helps me talk too, and all of these other people, just all blahblahblah. It's good.