My head thrums all day with “deep” nonsense about all sorts of junk that my mind thinks it can solve. It reviews existential world problems, all my physical and personality flaws. It diagnoses what could be wrong with me physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. My mind continues to thrum and thrum; it questions my identity, tells me what I’m doing wrong as a mother, that my kids are doomed, it makes me question my relationship with my spouse. It analyzes every body sensation I feel, it tells me I’m dying or that I could have some horrific disease. It’s a barrage of NOISE, constantly going on tangents that 99.9% of the time are untrue about who I am and what my values are or what could happen in the future. I’m being taunted. It feels like a bully is whispering into my ear all day. He’s questioning, second guessing, doubting, asking “what if, what if, what if?” He tells me I’m stupid and doubts what I know to be real and true, causing me to analyze and reanalyze everything. Physically, it feels as though there is a thick layer of film that sits between myself, my thoughts, and the rest of the world. This detachment can make me feel more afraid and question whether it is safe to engage outside myself. The layer of film makes me want to isolate more, the thrum tells me it’s safer to stay inside my head and hide. Unfortunately, this only fuels the thrum, making it louder and louder.
On a good day, I can keep the thrum to a low simmer. Don’t get me wrong, the thrum is always there and if I don’t watch it, I can be carried to doom town in an instant; but some days it’s easier to detach. On days like this, I find it’s easier to engage in the world, to mother my children, to be a spouse, to think about immersing myself in my career again. My hope is sparked that things will improve and will move forward in the right direction, a healthier and more sustainable direction. As the thrum hushes, I cling to hope that I will start to experience living again rather than existing in a clouded over version of reality obscured by constant thoughts. My hope is that lightness will emerge out of the darkness and some grand lesson will have been learned from all of it.
On a bad day, the thrum turns into an angry boil threatening to spill over to a place of no return. My body reacts to the rapid fire thoughts and feels tense, fiery, terrified. I feel like hiding under my weighted blanket, crying, and creeping further into my darkness. It feels like I’m being pummeled again and I’m not strong enough to resist the pull. I’m terrified of returning to the darkest place I’ve ever been because I don’t know if I’ll be capable of crawling out. The hope dwindles and I have to comfort myself with easy low level activities that will get me through the day- writing down my thoughts, crocheting, yoga, tea, rest, petting my trusty dog, walking outside....one minute at a time.
Thank God for vocabulary. I now know words like dissociation, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic attacks, masking, intrusive thoughts. Throughout my life, I’ve dealt with these things off and on, but I didn’t have the ability to express what was happening to me and I thought I was broken. I honestly thought that nobody had ever experienced the things I was experiencing and there was something inherently wrong with me. It hit me right in the shame center. I thought….”the way I’m feeling is not normal and is therefore bad/scary and I need to push through it and be afraid of these thoughts, feelings, and sensations.” Now I know I just have OCD, anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. I’ve read enough about them to know it’s a very similar experience others with the disorder go through. Just knowing that others experience it is a comfort. It allows me to get through the day. It allows me to know I’m most likely not dying right now, I’m just anxious, I’m just experiencing derealization, I’m not broken. I just have a chronic illness and what I’m experiencing is one way to experience the human condition. It’s not my fault, I didn’t choose it, my childhood didn’t cause this, it just is. I use to think if I tried hard enough, if I did enough yoga, if I prayed enough, if I found the right solution, I could magically be healed. But instead, I've found yoga is another tool to help me manage and accept it. Yoga and other spiritual practices help me learn that the more I dwell on it, hate it, and fight it, the worse it gets. So…I’m learning to accept, I’m learning to keep doing the things I want to do. I am learning to stay true to my values and focus on what is most important to me and my family. When I need rest, I rest. When I feel like I’m starting to overdo it, I peel back. When I need to push through, I push through. This is my reality. I hope it gets easier, but it might not. I hope I can learn to manage it without having to think about it all the time, but it might not. I do the best I can, one day at a time, and in the process I talk about my experience with the hope that I might be able to help someone else experiencing something similar feel less alone and afraid.
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