Meltdown

Had a meltdown yesterday.

My mom came over and talked with me. I told her I needed her.
I unloaded everything I wanted to unload to my therapist:

• I want to quit my Master's program
• My house is in disarray 
• I do not want to celebrate Halloween - I feel empty
• I don't know if I want to live anymore.

She held me. I cried. She made me do yard work. I cried. She gave me advice. I cried. But somehow, after all of it was out in the open. I felt a huge relief. She encouraged me to keep going with my Master's degree, to find things to keep my mind occupied, and to keep living. 

So, the big news is that I am continuing my Master's degree. Although I feel like I have ADHD with my anxiety and cognitive issues, I am still powering through these VERY hard classes. I just need to find things to keep my mind occupied. If my mind is occupied, my thoughts will not wonder to any negative areas.

My brain makes everyone around me someone to fear

Last night my husband got frustrated at the dog.

He crawled into bed and was mad that the dog wouldn't move or something like that.

I was already laying down. Hearing his frustration triggered something in me. I was now afraid of him.

The fear isn't rational. I know it isn't rational. I kept telling myself it is not rational. But my brain kept playing possibilities in my head. He is going to kill you. He has a gun and since your back is turned, he will shoot you without you knowing. Maybe he is going to start hitting you or choking you. I got so uncomfortable by the thoughts, without saying a word, I went to the couch with a cover and pillow.

He came out to get me. I was already silently crying, as soon as I saw his silhouette. I feared him being near me. What happened next?

He gently told me to come back to bed.

He tucked me in and kissed me.

He offered to sleep on the couch and let me stay in the bed alone.

He apologized for being upset over the dog.

None of those actions scream violence. None of those actions say I should be afraid of him. But my brain couldn't stop picturing him doing unspeakable things to me. I tried to mentally fight it. I made him stay in bed with me, but the fear was still there. I didn't feel safe. My brain was going over every possibly scenario of him snapping and taking it out on me. 

I got up once more. To shut the door to our bedroom. I tried to tell myself that maybe I was just nervous someone would enter our room and that's what I was really afraid of. We never sleep with the bedroom door closed, until I have moments like this. Then the door needs to be shut. It offers me just a small amount of peace to get me to sleep. It worked. I eventually slept.

My husband is not violent. He is gentle. He is sweet. He loves me and cares about me in ways I've never experienced. He literally was ready to take a bullet for me. No one cares about me more than he does. So why is this fear here? Why does this trauma effect my perception of the one person who would never hurt me? 

I hate my brain.

Prolonged Exposure

Lately I've been practicing Prolonged Exposure Therapy. It's exactly what it sounds like: Exposing yourself to re-experience the traumatic event over and over until it's effect gets lesser and lesser. It's what veterans practice to cope with their PTSD and my psychiatrist believes it will help me.

It started with me writing about it. After I wrote about it, it took me weeks, maybe even a full month, before I could go back and read what I wrote. I then wrote about it again in more detail. I still have trouble reading it, but reading it helps me remember, and to never forget. 

Then I had to read it aloud. It caused a major emotional reaction from me reading it to my psychiatrist. It then caused me a very stressful, emotional week after reading it aloud. Then slowly I started talking about it. Answering questions people had, telling my friends in person or via Skype about my experience. Just slowly exposing myself, and accepting, what had happened. 

It worked for a bit, but I was still suffering from the most traumatic experience of the whole ordeal. The hardest part for me to write about, to think about, to say aloud... was the man next to me who died. Who took the last bullet, which was the only reason I am still here typing. Even now, I've slowed my typing and keep pausing after every word because that's the most traumatic experience for me. Not that my life was in danger, which was traumatic, but more traumatizing than that was how I feel and experience what happened to the man next to me. I have to move on or I will not make it through this entry.

After doing those assignments, we started the visualization process. Thinking about the airport and going into the baggage claim area. Thinking about the sounds, what I might see, what it might smell. Just immersing myself, mentally, into the event. And then what it would be like knowing that was an isolated incident: an ordinary average baggage claim area.

Now I am on the third step: Going to the airport. I've recently started my drive-by sessions. Eventually, I will have to park there and sit at the airport. Maybe stand outside or around it. Maybe go into a different part of the airport... But the goal is to make it to the baggage claim area. And do it again. And again. Until I can do it without it triggering me into a panic. Into a crying fit. Into a flashback... Until I can stand there and feel mostly normal.

Yesterday was my second attempt at a drive by. My first attempt, I was alone, went on my lunch break, and drove past the arrival area once and the departure area one. It took less than 10 minutes to do so. It made me slightly panicked (about a 3/10 on the anxiety scale). Yesterday, however, a friend drove me. And it was worse!!

This is my experience from yesterday:

My friend picked me up and we took off to the airport together. I felt my anxiety rise to about a 3/10 again on the anxiety scale, so the first time around I was about what I expected. She was good at distracting me and engaging me in conversations about ANYTHING else. But then we went around again... and my chest began to tighten. I saw so many people, vulnerable people, just standing there with their bags. The baggage claim area right in the window, the carousel bring bags around. My anxiety level raised to about a 4 or 5. 

I thought that was it. We could leave now. I wanted to leave so badly. But then we I saw the sign directing us back to arriving flights. I started clutching my chest. The pain was extreme. I started to tear up, I started to breathe more heavily. I wasn't in control of the car. I couldn't stop from going to that area again. I had no control. I felt trapped in a never ending loop. That we were going to keep going back over and over again, and then I would wake up and realize I am still on the floor at the airport. It was nerve wrecking.

What we did was almost a blur for me now. I know we also drove past departing flights, but I just can't remember if we alternated or what we did. I just know I had the biggest effect going to the arrival flights area.

Eventually, she dropped me back off at my car. I felt okay. She gave me a big long hug. I started to drive home, trying to make myself see my accomplishment for the day. I saw the carousal. I saw the bags. I remembered the event. I cried on the drive home. I cried at home. Erich held me until it was over.

I die every day

I guess I only have myself to blame. I put myself in these stressful situations. I started my day with espresso, I went to a big, loud event with lots of people in a neighborhood that recently had some shootings, I tried to be a mediator when my family was arguing, and I picked up that book again. I can only blame myself for ending my already intense day with a book on an intense subject. I can only blame myself for dying again.

As you can see from the entry that proceeds this, I had a PTSD episode. I can only blame myself. I was the trigger. I was reading the story and thinking about my weekend. How many times I freaked out because of how dark it was outside or in a room I was occupying - remember, I am scared of the dark - and then like magic, a panic attack comes over me. I've been getting better at handling my attacks. Learning to breathe is the biggest thing - but that's a whole other thing.

After I put the book down, I turned on my side. I started thinking about why I was scared of the dark. What is the connection bridging the attack that happened in daylight inside a lit airport, to make darkness so triggering for me. I figured it out - as I laid on stomach, with my head tilted to the side facing my ghost. It was because that's all I could think about when I was waiting to die. I was thinking about the blackness that comes after your heart stops beating - the nothingness. I started to cry. I just wanted to go to bed.

As I crawled into bed, with freshly washed sheets, I couldn't stop lying like that. On the stomach, head to the side, facing my ghost. I thought of his shoes. I thought of Terry's shoes. I started going back there. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't stop remembering Terry. Everything around me seemed hyper-realistic. It felt like a reality beyond our own, that wasn't meant to be seen. Like looking through a telescope, pointed at a camera lens, that is pointed at a magnifying class. I could see into something that we ignore everyday, a reality that is just out of sight to the untrained eye.

I was there again. I could see him in front of me. I was still on the edge of the bed but his shoes were right in front of me. The ghost's shoes are pacing back and forth from our area. Terry is already dead, I can sense it. I know what I am seeing is not real, but yet it is real to me every single day. Erich helps me snap out of it. I didn't realize tears were streaming from my face. He was asking me questions, but I couldn't communicate with him. Even a simple head nod seemed impossible. That's when the paranoia kicked in.

So what was a PTSD episode like this time? It was a massive panic attack. I mentioned earlier that I am getting better at handling my panic attacks. I can keep them under control to an extent. This, however, I am a slave to. It's like my brain and body forget how to breathe. My breathing is short, fast, and erratic. No amount of preparation can keep me in control. I then think I am going to die.

When I say I think I am going to die, it's as close to literal as I believe you can get. I truly, honestly, believe that I am about to die. I can vividly imagine the gun going off at my head. I know I can never fully put into words how it feels, because it's a feeling most people never experience. Having your brain work so hard against you to make you believe that each moment, a gun will go off and then the blackness will set in... It's something I don't think anyone should have to experience.

I am crying as I type this out because I know how I felt yesterday. How terrifying it is to feel that way. To feel that way almost every day right before a panic attack. To feel that way almost every minute during an PTSD episode. I am not me during an episode. Looking back on what happened last night, it feels like it was a completely different person it was happening to. The me I am now wants to go and hug that girl. To tell her she isn't going to die. To tell her that everything will be okay. To lie to her until she feels better. I am in tears now because my heart breaks for that girl, and I know next time I see that girl, I still will not be able to help her.

I feel like I have more to say, but I just can't right now. I am too emotional and I have to put on a fake smile for work. Please, everyone who is reading this, go hug someone you love right now. Please do that for me. Let everyone in your life know that you love them. Pray for those who cannot find love in their life. Pray for me, because I feel like I will not feel love today.

That small line

I've been sitting on this thought for almost a week. I haven't really been able to put into words all that is going on in my head lately. I've been pulled towards stories of mental illness. It's a new magnetism I have picked up. I seek out stories of disaster, heartbreak, and tragedy at the cause of untreated mental illness. As a sufferer from mental illness myself, I wonder what makes me different than the people I read about?

This weekend I picked up A Mother's Reckoning. I mentioned doing so in my last entry. What made me actually do it is all profits go to mental health charities, including Mental Health America (MHA), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), American Association of Suicidology (AAS) and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. I have to admit, I am not very far into the book. I will definitely dive into it soon, but I after making the purchase I've been questioning my own brain health and what keeps me from crossing the same line others have crossed; the line that stops me from becoming one of these tragedies.

I imagine myself sitting at the edge of the line. I am there alone on my side, but look out and see so many others on the opposite side: Columbine Shooters, Virginia Tech Shooter, DC Snipers, Sandy Hook shooter, The Facebook Killer, Aurora Theater Shooter... It's massive on the other side of the line. The person staring directly at me is, of course, my personal demon, The Fort Lauderdale Airport shooter. They have all been accused of mental illness and shooting their victims, or participating in a mass shooting. Most of them went into it knowing they would kill themselves after. Shootings, suicide, and mental illness. It's been a slight obsession with me lately. I can't help it, it's apart of my magnetic pull.

I've read their stories many times trying to understand them. Trying to figure out why each and every one of them stepped over the line. Why are they on the other side, and I am over here? I have been wondering if it is inevitable that I will end up on the other side. Not that I would ever kill anyone else. Let me say that again: I will never kill. Not an animal, not a human, not even annoying flies buzzing around my head. It's why I chose to go vegetarian; it's why I am a humanitarian. But I have to admit that the thought of killing myself has been coming up often. But why?

I think it's just apart of my journey. Just a phase where I ponder the meaning of life, of living with mental illness, and living with survivor's guilt. It's something that I know will pass and even now, the thoughts are more passive than anything. Typing this all out scares me. I am scared of the stigma that will come about me even talking about the line existing. Talking about the thoughts that come into my brain. But that's just it. We all need to talk about it. We cannot allow mental illness, and all that comes with it, to be swept under the rug. We have to bring awareness to it. The more we stigmatize it, the less likely we are to seek help, the more likely we are to cross over.

With that said, I am going to do something extremely scary. I am going to post this blog's link for everyone. I am going to open up my thoughts, my suffering, for all in my life to read. With this act, it will be my first step on the road to helping others out there. I will talk about it openly, and if they choose, they can talk to me about it openly. Then we can help and support each other. I am also signing up for peer support specialist training, if I can find a date that I can attend! If I can save one person, that would give my life meaning...

Until then, I will sit on my side of the line, and look out to those who were so unlucky to be sitting opposite of me.

Safety

I am obsessed with the idea of feeling safe. I need to get my hands on a tally counter or something similar to see how often these thoughts come up a day.

Lately, I suppose I haven't been feeling too safe in my home. I keep imagining (to the point where I make myself audibly gasp), that someone will break into my house and kill me. Then what would my reaction be if confronted by that person.

For example, sometimes when I am showering, after Erich leaves for work, I just imagine the door slowly creeping open. A man walking stealthily through the house, and opening the bathroom door. He points a gun at me and I turn around and face him. I imagine not begging for my life, but for him to please at minimum to call my mother and let her know what happened, so Erich isn't the one to find me. I wonder if there is any reasoning with a person like that, but I cannot help but try and imagine it. Then I imagine what it will feel like after the gun goes off. How do I fall to the floor/shower? How does the blood splatter? Would he shoot me in my head or chest? Will he turn off the water after?

When I am in my basement, I imagine something similar, but my urge to hide overrides my urge to reason with him. I try to figure out what is the best place to hide if an intrude forces his way in, upstairs. Should I grab my animals and take them to another room and lock the door? Should I try to escape out the window? Should I lay flat and play dead? In this scenario I always imagine the choice I make being the wrong one and him finding me and shooting me.

Obsessive thoughts.

I just cannot shake them. I still constantly have the thoughts that I have posted about previously, but I never realized how often I have them in my own home. My home is supposed to be safe, but I guess I never fully feel safe there either. Will I always have these thoughts? Will they keep me safe, or are they just taking up useless space in my mind? Will I ever feel safe?

There is too much ugliness in the world. Too many attacks, shootings, and evil doings. I don't think I will feel safe anywhere in the world.

The Ghost known as PTSD

I want to clarify something. In my last entry about it, I may have been too fanciful describing how my ghost feels and acts. Although everything I wrote is true and is what I experience, it might diminish what I am actually going through. In this entry, I am going to be straight forward. 

You know that feeling you get when someone is hovering over your shoulder, breathing down your neck. I feel that. That is where the shooter always is. On my left shoulder, hovering over me, watching everything I do. This isn't a delusion as much as it's just a sensation. If I turn to look over my shoulder, I expect to see someone there because the feeling is so real, but I know he isn't there. So why my left shoulder? Because that is where the bullet would have entered. Where he was towering over me. Right side of my head to the floor, exposing the left side of my head. It almost feels like the shadow of him has weight. Like that side of me feels heavy. It's always the left side of my head. Almost never the right side. I am thinking back now and even when I hear a noise on my right side, I think I still feel the gun on my left.

The gun sensation. It is as close to real as any imaginary friend I've ever had. I don't think I was one for imaginary friends, I don't remember having any. It's hard to describe. I am sure it feels completely different than having an actual gun to the back of the head, but it's almost real. It starts with intrusive thoughts. Usually thoughts about someone coming in and shooting me from behind or something similar. I have these thoughts several times a day (or maybe all day?). The medication usually keeps them at bay, but if I get stuck on one of those thoughts too long, it starts to materialize. I start feeling a pressing pain on the back of my head. I start to feel what I believe to be the cold metal of the barrel. It does feel like it presses into my head, and the thought actually causes a headache (or maybe the headache triggers the thought?). Either way, it doesn't stop until it goes off and "shoots me." It usually only happens if I hear a loud noise, or vividly imagine a loud noise. Then, after realizing I am not dead, the headache starts to go away. 

My crying fits are suppressed. I am sure my medication suppresses it. There are moments where I am so upset I want to cry but can't muster it up UNLESS I am really bothered or upset by it. I've tested it with sad movies and thoughts. It's officially very hard to make me cry. I did cry at my sister's reveal party and my movie friend date.

My panic attacks have been suppressed as well. I still get nervous, jumpy, and panicky. Those moments just go away faster. My panic attacks last mere seconds if not less than a minute. Except at my sister's reveal party and the movie friend date.

What I am saying is, that the attacks, both crying and panic, have gotten so much lesser. But the fact that I still feel the ghost over my shoulder and the gun to my head is still worrying. The intrusive thoughts are impossible to get rid of as well.

Cognitive Distortion

This is an article about Cognitive Distortion that was given to me.

This is what Cognitive Distortion feels like - referencing the first time I tried to grocery shop with my husband:

As soon as I walked into the store my heart started racing. When people walk behind me I start breathing heavily and I have to turn around immediately and face them. From the moment I am in the store until I leave I truly believe (as in, it seems like an absolute fact to me) that someone is going to shoot up the store. I have to identify the exits, I have to identify all the places I could successfully hide, I have to identify who might be a shooter. I am usually super panicked and glued to the cart or my husband. I weep silently because I know it is coming, that someone is coming to shoot up the store. I know that many people will die. It seems like an absolute fact to me.

This is something I have been able to slowly overcome. I still have those thoughts, where I have to identify all exits and hiding places, and I still imagine people coming in to shoot up the place. But I no longer feel super panicked. My anxiety used to be around a 7/10 or 8/10 (with 1 being not anxious at all, and 10 people total meltdown). Now my anxiety hovers around a 3 or 4, depending on how long we are in the store. I have to thank my medication for that. My mind still reacts, but my body doesn't - definitely the medication working.

I still cannot retain memory well. My short term memory is almost useless. Sometimes people have to tell me the same thing over and over again. I hear them, I know what they say, but a few minutes later I cannot recall what we were talking about. Absent minded is the word. I also cannot think clearly. I have no idea how I am writing these blog entries lately. I guess I am powering through the absent mindedness? Without going back and rereading it, which I haven't, I have no idea what I typed just yesterday.

It's a pain. I cannot concentrate on anything. I cannot focus. I cannot remember. It's like a big hazy mess in my head. I cannot even spell properly. I cannot hold conversations, I cannot focus on tv or reading.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste and I feel like it's wasting away now.