Omens

I woke up from a nightmare today.

Got up and was ready for work while Erich was still sleeping soundly.

He woke up and I knew I needed to get into bed and snuggle with him one last time before leaving. Work was not as important as these times I spend with him. I know that.

As I am driving to work, a 911 Emergency Management Agency vehicle drove in front of my stopped car. It caught my eye in an unusual way. A few moments later I found myself behind that car. Starting at the words: Emergency Management Agency "Call 911." I was in a daze following this car until it pulled off.

On the highway I saw flashing blue lights from the airport. It has never disturbed me before, and now it's flashing in my side view mirror and rear view mirror. It eventually vanishes as I progress.

Then it hits me. A giant Bill Board. The words STAY SAFE are huge. It's a tire add that says "Stay Safe with Winter Tires." But the words STAY SAFE are burning into my mind. I start to look back at the omens from the airport. I try to write it off as a coincidence but then I look over to the truck next to me which says "SAFETY IS REAL." All Caps. Bold font. Across the top of the truck head, as the bed was gone. I feel my breath shorten.

"Life and Death" by the Dear Hunter starts playing on my radio. I am having trouble breathing.

I pull into the parking lot of my work. It only takes me 10-15 minutes to get here in the morning. I compose myself. I walk in to my office, next to a trampoline park. I am always greeted by their door first, but my eyes fixate on a detail that it normally doesn't fixate on when I see their door. In the corner of the door "No Weapons Allowed."

This could all be nothing. I listen to that song by the dear hunter often. Maybe I look at the tire ad frequently, and the truck was a coincidence. I know I have seen the trampoline sign before but because of everything else my mind decided to lock in on it. Maybe I do see the blue lights at the airport flashing but just never notice it. And there are some days where I have nightmares and want to get extra snuggles in.

Maybe, it's all a coincidence.

But on January 6, I didn't take the warnings seriously, and I am now convinced they were omens that I just wrote off. I don't ever want to write off that again.

Haunted and hunted

The shooter is back in my dreams. I can't sleep at all. I wake up with a migraine. This has been going on for 2 weeks. I cannot escape him. He is continuing to hunt me. To haunt me. I cannot escape my ghost...

Pushing myself too hard?

I am trying. I am trying so hard to be better again. I might be trying too hard.

I am walking into work almost 2 hours early today because I couldn't sleep. The nightmares are back. I couldn't go back to sleep. Every time I woke up from one, I put on one of my Calm app Sleep Stories and it would put me back to sleep, and insert me into danger. I just couldn't risk that again.

I am working 9-12 hour days. It's stressful, even though I love my job. I am also starting classes soon. Decided to try and get a Master's in Social Work so I can be better equip to help others out there like me... I just wonder if it's too much too soon.

I am sitting here, at my desk, with an anxiety level at about a 7, verge or tears, because I just don't know how well I can deal with the day today...

But, I don't want to disappoint people by not trying.

Stay on your medicine

I am sorry to report... Although I've been doing well with my main medication, I've unfortunately I've been slacking with my Prazosin. Prazosin helped me sleep through the night by taking away my nightmares or by not allowing me to really remember them. I know it sounds too good to be true but it worked.

I've been off the pill for maybe a week. Shame on me. The nightmares have gradually come back and it climaxed today. Slowly my dreams started getting worse - something bad, but not horrible, would happen. Today I woke up from an attack dream. Stuck in a shooting situation waiting to be shot.

I will start taking my medicine, all of them, again today.

I am disappointed in myself but I think I'm more disappointed that my nightmares will never stop being about the shooting. It will always return to that. I will never escape my ghost.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Credit for pictures goes to Shawn Coss and you can buy from this series at Any Means Necessary.

So I am going to do this differently. I discovered this series recently and related to so many of the pictures. So I am going to showcase a few of the pictures and tell you how they relate to my mental health.

This is one that I didn't go into much detail about, yet. But for a while - at the airport - I truly believed I was dead. I thought that I was dead and I was merely a ghost. It's a weird feeling, thinking you've actually were the one shot. That there was no way to survive that mess alive. But somehow I did. 

When I first got home, I didn't leave the house for almost two weeks. The only time I left was for my Psychiatrist appointments. Even after that two weeks I hated going outside, or to places/stores/restaurants/back yard or anywhere outside the comfort of my home.

EVERYTHING Made me anxious. Noises especially. I was almost immobilized by my anxiety. I just kept thinking that at any moment, when I let my guard down, that would be the moment I would die. The anxiety of death, of something bad happening to me or Erich, or of leaving the house and being out in public was powerful.

With anxiety, I was also terrified to be around other people. Socializing or being out in public made my anxiety spike. The only person I was comfortable with was my Husband. Eventually other people coming around to take care of me, helped ease this anxiety. With baby steps, I am now able to be out in public spaces.

When having a dissociate episode, Acute Stress or Post-Traumatic, I felt like a stranger in my own body. I felt like everything around me was fake and that I couldn't see the true reality in front of me. I still don't know if I have fully explained this feeling, although I've written about it several times. It's unreal, thinking you are not real.

Ah... Insomnia. Something I've been battling with off and on these last few months. Eyes wide, scared of the darkness, scared of the nightmares, wanting nothing but rest... If you read my previous post you know it was something I was suffering from to the point of being a danger on the road. It's miserable.

 This one is pretty self explanatory. When I get anxious, I start to panic. Then I have panic attacks. I am averaging between 1-3 panic attacks a day. The BusPar helps keep them at bay, but sometimes an attack can be triggered by nothing at all.

Everyone, meet my ghost. This is the image I relate to the most. Feeling chained to him. Have him being in control over me. The emptiness I feel inside. How it's bigger than me. Monstrous. This is the epitome of how I feel living with PTSD.

Last... Depression. This is how I've been feeling lately. This is how I feel now. This is the drowning feeling I've been talking about...

No official diagnosis for many of these things. I know I am depressed, have panic disorder and anxiety, and PTSD, but the other things - like Cotard Delusion and agoraphobia didn't last, and I guess that's also why I don't talk about them as much as my present diagnosis. But I understand how it felt living with those temporarily. I feel like a nutcase sometimes. Like I truly don't know what's in my head - which illness is controlling my thoughts. All I can do is try to keep pushing forward. I am going to keep trying as long as I can.

I encourage you all, to look through his full set of pictures on his Facebook page. This was an inktober challenge, so there are 31 mental illnesses that he drew and showcased.

The Nightmares I have during the hour I sleep

Okay, this post is just going to describe the nightmares I have when I get just a tiny bit of sleep. No one really likes reading about other people's dreams so, you don't have to read it if you don't want to. Warning, I didn't sleep more than an hour last night, so I hope this entry makes sense:

Last night:
I dreamed that after a bad "friend date" at a restaurant, in which my friend ditched me, I walk out to my car. I greet my sister there. Then a ton of people start running past us. I grab her by the arm and start running too. I hide her behind a car and put my body over hers covering her. I look up. I see a white male, in a red jacket, with a long rifle. I think "Not again." I tell her to go under the car to hide and I will be the lookout for her. I hear gun shots. I wake up.

Another Dream:
It's weird. I had a very similar dream last week. It was night time. My sister and I was out walking. People start running and hiding in houses. I knew there was a shooter out. I heard gun shots. I find a parked car in a lot. I tell her to get down, and stay quiet. I shield her as she slides under the car and the foot steps of the shooter get closer and closer.

Sometime this week:
I had a dream that I was out in public with friends. I start getting anxious so I look for my medication bottle. I open it to dump a pill in my hand. Two dead flies come out instead. I wonder how they got in there and I determined they were in there for a long time (since college). Then, one of them comes back to life. Then the next. Then there were more in the bottle. All coming to life and swarming around me.

Another dream with Erich:
I think a common dream I have is where I am doing something mundane, like shopping. I remember a dream where my husband and I are in a Target shopping for things. Then from the back room gun fire starts. Every one drops to the floor or runs away. Erich has vanished. I cannot call out to him because there are multiple shooters in the store. I start crawling around, looking for him, knowing each move makes me a target. This type of dream is the second most common.

Pregnancy:
Everyone around me is pregnant so I won't go into detail on who this dream was about. Basically someone in my life who is pregnant was over my house. I was cooing at her belly and rubbing it. Then all of a sudden she goes into labor. A dead, grotesque looking baby falls out. The pregnant girl starts wailing, screaming, crying. The imagery is awful. Dreams like this, where the images are twisted and grotesque happen all the time.

Getting shot in the head:
I dream I get shot in the head a lot. One that I remember most vividly is I am walking in my grandmother's neighborhood. I hear gun shots. I duck us between two parked cars. The gun man, a black older male, sees us. I am shielding my grandmother and I put my hand in front of my face. He shoots me in the head. This type of dream is the most common.

End of the world
Another type of dream I have is when it's the end of the world or the Apocalypse. It's usually in the form of an unstoppable force. One dream I had recently is a giant asteroid, as big as a planet, is crashing into Earth. There is no stopping it. My whole dream is panicking, chaos in the streets, and then the eventual death of every living thing and the destruction of the planet.

In conclusion, these nightmares most likely contribute to why I am not sleeping. Why go to sleep when something awful happens, my life is at risk, or I die? I am begging for sleep though. It has gotten to the point where I am scared to drive. Driving makes me want to fall asleep behind the wheel. I need to remember to tell this to my psychiatrist tomorrow. I hope I remember to and do not downplay it.

Can't keep my eyes open

I am so tired from lack of sleep.
When I blink while driving I feel I could pass out then.
When I get home I am wide awake.
Friday is my next appointment.
I am going to ask her about sending me on short term disability or stress leave.
I cannot function properly anymore. I need time off.