This. This has been me for the past week.
I have been so, so blessed with a good summer without much turmoil. Everything has been manageable, and peaceful, and completely and utterly normal.
I almost thought that moving here had cured my brain...
....unfortunately, chemical imbalances don't quite work like that. I went to bed fine one day last week - absolutely nothing more on my mind than had been all summer. No underlying anxiety, no reason to worry.
BAM!
I woke up the next morning and had been run over by the crazy panic train. What triggered it?? I can't think of a damn thing. There are plenty of stressors present in our lives, but they have long since become everyday routine and don't cause me any undue worry.
I literally find myself unable to breathe. My brain has stopped functioning properly - trying to do things that I had no problem doing last week have turned into a battle. Reading, cleaning, showering. It all takes a very long pep talk before I can get myself moving, and I always pay for pushing myself by being rendered completely immobile on the couch during nap time. Unable to sleep, unable to do anything except desperately try to un-clench my muscles while clinging tightly to my sanity as though it is going to fly out the window like a wayward balloon.
It has been months since I have felt so helpless. It makes it so much worse that I allowed myself to become comfortable in that cozy, calm lifestyle. Someone flipped the switch in my brain. The filter through which my eyes view the world has turned bleak and unfamiliar once again. I am shaky and sad.
I hate this.
I have to suck it up and get through it. I'm trying to remember all of the happies I collected over the summer, but seeing as how I am having trouble just getting myself to breathe and eat and sleep, I'd settle for simply not feeling terrified for just a little bit.
Brain chemistry sucks when it drags you down into the hole of desperation.
Hanging on. Reminding myself that this will NOT last forever. I just need to keep doing what I need to do to function and one day I will wake up and that anxiety switch will be turned back off.
Fingers crossed it happens soon.
Be good to yourselves.
- B
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