I haven’t been at my best. My anxiety has really been acting up. I’m finding it hard to stay mindful and have a positive outlook. All the tools I learned to stay mindful and avoid the worst of Complex PTSD are almost useless.
I can never relax. I’ve been filled with a free floating sense of awful, black dread. I can’t take naps in the middle of the day like I used to, or even sleep in late because at some point I feel like my heart is slamming in my throat and I’m jumping out of my skin. Often I wake up early in the morning with a jolt, all that oppressive black anxiety weighing down on me like a lead blanket, and I almost feel like I can’t breathe. Sometimes it’s so intense it borders on full blown panic.
Some of my anxiety is very specific:
- Worry about the future of our country under the current president;
- Worry about my personal freedom and rights as I get older, especially since I’m what most would consider poor and under this horrific regime, I will be VERY vulnerable to exploitation or early death from lack of social security, Medicare or other old age benefits that older generations took for granted;
- Worry about what will happen to my children (or any children they have) should we become a real dictatorship;
- Worry that the payout from my insurance company won’t be enough to allow me to buy any kind of decent vehicle, which I need for work;
- Worry about my daughter’s new husband not being capable of providing sufficiently for her or any children they have.
- Worry about a likely move in the future: will I be able to afford it?
- Worry that one of my adult children will be in a terrible accident and possibly die;
- Worry that my own family is using me financially and talking badly about me behind my back (this is probably the most irrational fear I have). I know this is due to my past as a victim of narcissistic abuse. When I’m very anxious and triggered, I have a hard time trusting people, even people I know aren’t out to hurt me.
There’s also the free floating, nameless anxiety I’ve lived with all my life, magnified by my specific (and possibly even rational) fears. It’s this overwhelming feeling that something awful is about to happen, though I have no idea what.
All that anxiety is debilitating, and yes, it’s painful. It’s hard to function properly or maintain healthy relationships when you’re constantly fretting or ruminating about something that might happen in the future — or might not. I irritate my family because of my constant need for reassurance that I’m not being used or they are not going to be doing something dangerous that will get them hurt or killed. I get annoyed easily at work and just in general. I snap at others, not because I’m angry, but because I’m so anxious all the time.
There have even been days I’ve contemplated suicide (though I know I won’t actually do it) just to escape from the oppressiveness of all this anxiety and dread.
Every so often though, my anxiety gives way to depression. I know that depression is actually worse than anxiety because it means you have given up. You’re no longer fighting (anxiety definitely feels like you’re fighting for your life sometimes). Oddly enough it feels almost…comforting. When I’m depressed, I can just lie in bed or in front of the TV and not feel like my heart’s about to slam right out of my chest. I feel no guilt about being so slothful. When I’m depressed, I can actually sleep and escape my emotional hell through dreams, or just the oblivion of featureless slumber. I can find food comforting even though I can barely taste it. Though tears come rarely, when they do, it feels cathartic.
But mostly, when I’m depressed, it’s like boredom turned up to 11. Depression is very, very boring. There are elements of sadness and sometimes grief, but more than anything else, depression is boring. Yet, I have no urge to do anything to relieve the boredom, except maybe sleep or eat. The boredom is there, and while it’s intense, it isn’t painful or intolerable the way normal boredom is, the kind of boredom that makes you have to go DO something about it immediately. It’s just there, like gray wallpaper.
When I’m depressed, I don’t suffer much (or any) anxiety or dread, because in my mind, the bad thing has already happened. Even though my belief it already happened may be irrational, I’ve emotionally succumbed and accepted it.
It’s like that moment you know you are going to die. You go through your whole life fearing death, but when you’re finally face to face with it, staring into its infinite maw, knowing there’s nothing you can do, your fear disappears and you just accept you’re going to die at this moment, right here and now. I know this is true because when I was 18 I got raped. The man had a knife, and I thought he was going to kill me. At one point, I was sure I was a goner, and at that moment a strange calm took over and I just accepted this was how I was going to leave this earth. Obviously it didn’t happen, but I remember that sense of peaceful calm and acceptance.
That’s what happens when I’m depressed. It’s like I’ve already accepted something that might not even have happened and may never happen. No, of course it isn’t healthy, but it’s oddly comforting and far more tolerable to me than the almost constant high level of anxiety I’m forever doing battle with.
Lucky Otters Haven 