 |
| link |
We've not long been back from a wonderfully relaxing holiday in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. I'll do a blog post about it, with some pictures soon. Hopefully tomorrow (Joel finally found the cable that lets me get the pics from my phone).
But, in truth....I'm stalling. I'm struggling. More and more. I had a reprieve while we were away and thought maybe it'd settle on it's own. It's not. I'm at about a 3 year low.
I felt it start on Thursday, before we even got back. We got some upsetting news. Nothing earth shattering, no-one is dying. But someone we care about is moving away. And putting trust in someone we definitely don't think they should. But, as much as I'm desperate to talk them out of it, it's not my place and intellectually, I know this. I'm kind of staying away, because I don't want to have the fight. I'm so bad at keeping opinions to myself, especially when it's someone I love so much.
It seemed to set me off though. Bring the stresses that were building before the holiday to the forefront, every one of them. It was like a trigger and I fell. Hard. And it's so stupid. Because I can see, intellectually that all of these things..they're hard. But they're not really 'worth' (for want of a better word) the level of anxiety they are causing.
I'm catastrophising. I'm at such a high level of anxiety that I'm twitching and my leg is shaking and my fingers are clawing at my skin. I'm holding my shoulders almost as high as my ears, not even noticing most of the time. Until I do. (Does that make sense?).
I seem to have lost my ability to cope with anything now. I mean really, anything. The slightest hitch, and I'm either panicking or disconnecting. The children tonight sounded like a buzzing, I was literally unable to focus on what they were saying. I tried. I looked at Sam tonight and he was talking to me. And I was nodding my head and I couldn't work out what he was saying. I heard him, I just couldn't process a word of it. I saw by his expression, that my head nodding was not the answer he wanted, he was upset. Eventually, it made its way into my addled mind...he wanted me to hug him.
How on earth can I not hear my child when he is asking to snuggle? We're the most ridiculously, unashamedly 'huggie' family around. We live on kisses and hugs and snuggles and gentle words and silliness. And tonight, I couldn't bare for them to speak. It was that annoying buzzing. That damned mosquito that just won't stop.
This has been happening for days. I'm cycling at a terrifying pace. Fine, steady. Panicked. Disconnected. Fine. Steady. Panicked. Disconnected. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Have an appt on Thursday to get a new Mental Health Plan, and a referral to a new psych (the last one was so horrible, that I've now not seen a psychiatrist in 2 or 3 years).
And, thanks to the calming words of two beautiful friends (thanks Tinks and Em) I am just trying to slow my brain down and take it a bit at a time. I've taken every family member except Joel off my Facebook. All of them. I wrote letters to some, explaining that for right now, in the state I'm in, I just can't deal. I have to step back and remove that avenue for getting into disputes or arguments or he-said-she-said.
There's a whole load of crap happening in the blogosphere at the moment. The types of things I'd usually have plenty of opinions about. I'm forcing myself not to weigh in. I'm forcing myself to remember a quote I have saved, and I look at every day. "You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to". It feels so profoud, for something so ridiculously simple, doesn't it? It probably sounds stupid, obvious to the rest of the world. But for me? Huge. Difficult. But I'm working on it.
Working on Alexander, things are back on track at school (I was panicking. Needlessly, it would seem). Very quickly now moving toward a diagnosis for Samuel. Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to getting this over with. I'm utterly overwhelmed at the process (flashbacks - not good. The time of my life when Alexander was diagnosed was terribly dark. Not because of his diagnosis, there were other factors. But I can't help remembering diagnosis, assessment etc without also remembering those feelings). But once it's done, it'll be good. We can finally get on with things. Will talk some more about that soon, too.
So. I'm here. I just haven't been able to write. Or read blogs, for that matter. I'm sorry, I haven't read blogs let alone commented on almost any for more than 3 weeks. I'll do better. But for now, I need to find something to get a decent grip on.
Because, friends...I'm falling and it's just as terrifying as it was last time.
