I didn't write in the #challenge30 yesterday because I was having "a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" (Judith Viorst)
My mind was constricted and not from writer's block or blogger's brain.
I had feelings of being unsafe and was on danger alert.
My poor body was purring with alarm bells and on call for action.
On the outside, no one knows. I look normal. I dress well, have a decent hair cut and wear makeup. People say I am a bright light and I smile. Inside though, that is not the person I see or feel.
Inside I feel stuck.
My body feels either like it won't move at all or that I am going in slow motion. My sight is affected - pixelated, like still frames from a camera and I can hear the ratcheted sound a sprinkler makes as each frame passes. My hearing is heightened to the point of needing a quiet room or ear plugs. It's exhausting to be honest. I smell burning paper and it swirls inside my head making it difficult to think straight.
My mind constricts. I think of it like an hour glass, tight in the middle and my thoughts like the sand–squeezing through the tiny opening. My emotions are incredibly heightened which causes pain somewhere in my body I can't always pinpoint. In these moments, danger, 911, emergency, rings through my mind and the feelings are all I can pay attention to.
The body remembers what the mind forgets, so I feel things in my body before I can register them in my mind.
The anxiety messes up my ability to process what is happening around me or what people are saying to me.
I find it hard to process words. Things get jumbled when I read, words seem to swim on the page. The harder I try to concentrate, the tighter my brain becomes.
My memory suffers. What I see or hear or read one moment is gone the next.
What triggers an attack is sometimes unknown. I do have known triggers and I try to work with those but I'm not always able in that moment.
A core belief that I need to challenge constantly is that I am flawed, bad, ruined, unwanted. I feel like I was born with a target on my back and that's all I'll ever be. High alert is all I know.
I was diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) at age 50. I thought I was a calm person. No, I have an anxiety disorder - anxiety on steriods!! I have been attending dialectical behaviour therapy for a year and have a marked control of my life. I still have a long way to go and I'm no longer at the total mercy of this disorder. The work I am doing right now is helping me learn how to deal with the distressing emotions which in turn, will help me through the upcoming trauma therapy.
For years I refused to admit I had this disorder. I thought I didn't deserve to have it; I wasn't a war vet or a front line emergency worker. I didn't see the carnage or know the fear they had experienced. I wasn't brave. I didn't lay my life down for someone.
What I was told though is that trauma can happen to anyone, anywhere - the body and mind don't care where it comes from.
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photos by Pixabay.com
@countrygirl