thoughts on therapy, feeling feelings

 Last week I went back to therapy for the first time since I wrote my post about my first #metoo experience. It was an interesting appointment, mostly because at first I started with saying how much the prior appointment had helped and that I was less angry, and then minutes later I was finding I'm still angry. That's ok, just a surprise.

EMDR is an interesting experience. I went in to the appointment intending to EMDR what I call my "falling off the cliff" experiences which were in 2015 around my first panic attack and 2018 when I totally lost my shit while my mom was sick and in the hospital/rest home/assisted living for 10 months of the year. As I was driving, I decided my starting point would be the night in 2015 when she had her back fused. I learned a lot in starting there with the EMDR, and I was surprised at what it taught me.

When my mom was wheeled out from her surgery, I only caught a glimpse of her. I was very on edge but I was telling myself it was ok, I wasn't angry I was there, that I could "handle" it, that everything was great! What I saw was not an easily recognizable view of my mother. Her face was enormous - she had been lying face down for 12 hours. I thought she looked dead. Her surgery began a 5 month long journey of seeing her in great pain, of watching her refuse to get out of bed and walk, of learning to do all the things she used to do in places she didn't want to be. I was on edge the entire time, and I was very hard on myself when I would visit, leaving her most of the time feeling worse than when I arrived, mentally berating myself for not doing enough on the drive home, which went on for months. The only emotion I would allow myself to feel was anger at her situation, heartache that she was not happy with anything I did, and guilt that I wasn't doing enough. 

When she went home to my sister's house, it didn't improve much in our relationship. There was the additional guilt about all my sister was doing for her that I wasn't doing. I don't want to go into that time much, but I wasn't any easier on myself.

After my mom went home was when I had my first panic attack.

I ignored all sorts of things at that time that contributed to my anxiety. My startle response was through the roof, meaning if I had to push on my brakes unexpectedly while driving, my body would respond in an electric shock that went all through my body. I was meditating, but I expected it to take away all the unpleasant feelings I was having like some sort of miracle cure-all. I hadn't yet admitted to myself let alone anyone else that I'd had sexual assault/abuse (I even saw a therapist that summer, which was a horrible failure. The therapist was a bad fit and I thought I could leave all sexual things out the story; I went once and gave up.) I was pretending that because my mom went home (even though I didn't like it) that everything that had happened that year was "over" and I was "just fine" with it all.

The second time I fell off the cliff was in February/March/April of 2018. My mom had been in the hospital since December 8th of 2017. I had a massive panic attack on Valentines of that year and I never really came back from it. I low grade panicked through March with one late night ER visit to boot, a whole lot of visits to a pulminologist for the breathlessness I was experiencing, going on a steroid inhaler that burned my throat and esphogas from the top while GERD was burning up from the bottom. April found me a mess, freaking out at body cues that were harmless but felt massive, a panic attack the night before Easter which pushed to me stop all inhaler and start an antidepressant that eventually helped to calm everything down. But the emotional effects of 2015 and 2018, the bewilderment at my body no longer feeling safe or understandable - those feelings stayed with me until last week when I EMDRed that moment of my mom coming out of her surgery.

It went back to 1984 and my grandpa's stroke, death 6 weeks later, Christmas 2 days after he died, funeral (my first ever death experience and first funeral experience and speaking experience (I wrote a poem that I couldn't get through and needed a sibling to come up half way through to help me finish) I learned a lot about emotion during that time and I now believe it was when I started to stuff my feelings down. It was also not just a loss of my grandpa (who, honestly, I didn't really know well and only had limited interaction with. I spent a lot more time with my grandma, and it was her loss that really defined that time, because she was never the same after his death.) I lost both of them in one swoop.

I've sat through 9 months of therapy. I've had some sniffly appointments, I've left and cried a bit. I've talked about one-off sexual assualt, grooming behaviors, sustained mental abuse from gymnastics, the death of both of my parents, sustained sexual aggravation, and other hard things. But I ugly cried in this visit for the very first time.

Another big boulder has been forced free. The energy behind it keeps surprising me. I've thought for days about the things that happened in my life that I stuffed feelings down in. I wasn't allowed to grieve or feel anything hard.

The only safe outlet I had was in story. Books were my safe haven. I could feel all the feels and learn about others emotion and how they handled it. I could see how a character could struggle and find redemption in pages, even if I never had any in real life.

Thank the universe for books. Stories. Movies and podcasts. Memoirs. Gandalf and Harry and Dumbledore. Harriet from Skating Shoes, Gloria from No Flying in the House, Benny from Circle of Friends, all the girls in All of a Kind Family, Posy in Dancing Shoes (or was it Ballet Shoes?), terrible Cathy from Flowers in the Attic, and especially Leah, Ada, and Rachel from Poisonwood Bible.

I'm going to end with the plea - do your work. It's messy and it breaks your heart but you can survive. And you can understand why things are and why they have happened. This piece right here - knowing this truth about when I learned to really stuff my feelings down and disassociate from them - helps me with processing again my panic attack on the freeway. It helps me think about the deaths of my parents. It reveals the many events in my life that I didn't really grieve or feel or question because there was no space for feelings. It shows me why I was so secretive in my pursuits as a teenager, and why I never told my mom anything about my marriage or life.

Mid-fall 2018: an update post

Whew, 2018 has been something.

A few things to get off with right off the bat.

In April, after much discussion and sleepless nights and a whole lot of other stuff, I went on an antidepressant, went off my inhaled steroid, and started treating for reflux. It was a whole lot of stuff to get through with the stoppings and startings and all that. For a while I thought my body and mind would never feel familiar again. I'm glad to say that it's gotten better. About being medicated...

• I felt the medication hit my brain the first time. Whoosh. 
• I ended up changing from one formula to another because the first didn't let me sleep. I love my doctor for being willing to change things up for me on desperate April day, 5 days after I started the first medication.
• Many many things and beliefs and shit I carried around have fallen by the wayside. Good and bad.
• I can no longer keep things to myself. Probably a good thing. After starting medication, words and conversations fell out of me that had been aching to come out for years. I cleared a lot of air that badly needed clearing.
• I'm finally in a space where I'm not constantly 2 parsecs away from full panic. Panic left me in degrees, which was fascinating to both experience and observe.
• I'm constantly comparing "before" to "after."

It was one of the hardest decisions, and it wasn't easy or fun for months. But things are better. I've grown up in ways I didn't know I could. I am thankful every day for the chemical reaction in my brain that results from a pill I take every night.

Now THAT's out of the way, let's talk about 2018.

1. Went on the best California trip we've ever taken. We went back to San Diego and our home away from home. I savored every moment of running, playing, eating, drinking, strolling, laughing, observing, and being. Not constantly spinning on how something could be different or better (as I did "before") allowed for every moment to count, perfect or not.
2. Sat in the sun for many, many soccer games. My tan has never been so good.
3. Celebrated 43. I spent my birthday on a hike with a friend, then went to dinner with my family wearing a new dress that I never would have dared wear "before." Shane got me a new Fitbit and enjoyed every moment of the day. We celebrated with cupcakes from the grocery store that were amazing.
4. Read a few books. The 1,000th Floor, Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine, The Monsters of Templeton, Britt-Marie was Here, the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy (when I needed familiar, comfort reading because I couldn't face any serious shock or need for my empathy; I was worried for a while that I wouldn't ever enjoy story again. So glad I came out of that!), Night of Cake and Puppets, Weird Things Customers say in Bookstores, Still Me. 
5. Sewed. I made a friend in my neighborhood who has become my sewing wise woman. I fell in love with a black and white fabric line that I ended up using in 3 different projects, and I designed all of them myself.
6. Ranted about politics. I'm so tired of trump. I'm so tired of our broken government.
7. Walked. I hurt my back in June inexplicably, so I haven't ran much this summer. Or really since April, if I'm honest. But I've learned to love walking. Each Sunday I spent out walking on the Mountain View Corridor, watching the thistles bloom and die off, giving way for the sunflowers that make me so happy. I also started walking with friends on my days off. It's easier to reach out to others now, after. 
8. Walked with Shane. Oftentimes, we did nothing but argue about current family events. but lately, we've been in this sweet spot of peace, well, except for politics. Being medicated allows me to listen without being flooded by cortisol. We can actually have difficult conversations now that mostly work, mostly because I'm medicated and I've learned to listen and speak my words.
9. Felt more like myself than I have in 20 years.
10. Wore tank tops and running skirts almost every day. But for sure on my days off. I haven't shown my shoulders in years, because, well, because. And then I realized that there was a whole subset of clothes that there was no reason I couldn't be wearing and so I got some. And then my work started allowing sleeveless tops and so I really could buy new clothes. I was so uncomfortable the first time I showed my shoulders at work. It was liberating though. And I bought a lot of cute running skirts that make me happy every time I put them on.
11. Discovered the deliciousness that is PSL. Why did I wait so long? I mean, probably because of all the mochas I usually drink, but mmmm. There's something to that pumpkin spice fad.
12. Moved my mom into an assisted living center. 
13. Learned to make Dresden plates as well as hexies (sewing lingo for different kinds of flowers. Love!)
14. Started PT for my back.
15. Admitted that I'm #metoo to a number of people. As a result of the trauma that was the Kavanaugh hearings, I realized that I'm not happy living in a patriarchal society. I celebrated my own day (the Saturday of conference, the day that in both arenas of which I'm a voting member I realized the patriarchy gets its way and doesn't really value my dissenting voice) that I called F*** the Patriarchy day and got a tattoo, the tattoo that I've always wanted: a combination of the daisy chain around the ankle with the flower modeled after my beloved marble flower from the Roman Forum.
16. Found every stray photo around my house and put them in albums. 
17. Started learning Canon in D.
18. Discovered the Rachel Maddow podcast, as well as Trevor Noah. 
19. Hung out with my kids. We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings, La Luna, Zupas, Costa Vida, and Salsa Leedos quite a bit all together. Thomas worked at the rec center all summer, and Ben played a lot of soccer. 
20. Saw Florence + The Machine with Amy. Sooooo good. Soooooo much fun.
21. Got a new mattress - heaven.

If you've made it this far in the post, thanks for sticking with me. 7 months between posts results in a lot of catching up and documenting random things. 

41, A year in review, of sorts

Subtitle and spoiler alert: there is nothing to figure out.

A year ago *today!*, I decided I’d had enough of living how I’d lived for the past year and I determined that I would Turn Over A New Leaf. I’d Power Through Anxiety. I would Stop Living In Fear. I had Figured It Out.

As if one can just decide that. (Well, they can.) As a high-achieving sort of person, I could will myself through any struggle. Push through, determination, rah rah rah!, and all of that. It was cute, and a good goal. It was me, setting out to run a figurative marathon that I was not trained for, at a full sprint, wearing spikey shoes and cotton clothes and needing to go to the bathroom.

Cute, as I said.

So the thing with life and milestones and stuff that we want/need to overcome is that we think we can do this. Our sheer willpower will help power us through the things we don’t like, the ways that we suffer. But, a year ago, I still had so many things going against me. Resistance to reality being one of them, thus the cotton clothes I was wearing. I thought that just by not wanting something to be the way it was, it could somehow be magically better. My spikey shoes were my constant self-battering, my internal dialogue of criticism and negative though patterns and feeling unsafe with myself, because, well, I was unsafe with myself. I set out in spikey shoes because were a symbol source of pride and of immense pain. There was no safety or compassion or understanding or forgiveness for that person. She evoked my ire simply by failing to drive to work one day. And I was going to fix it all as soon as possible, so I set out in a sprint, because I had to Win. Needing to go to the bathroom symbolizes just how unprepared I was to go, carrying uncomfortable truths with me that I couldn’t let go even though they begged to be released from me.

“But Becky, here you are again, saying you know so much more than before, and NOW you’re going to be so much better?!” I hear you, dear reader, and see the irony.

But the thing is, there isn’t a race or anything to figure out. That’s the huge irony and wonderfulness of it all. It’s just my life. It’s changed and I often hate the changes that have happened more than anything, but I also love them too. “Who knows, what is good and what is bad?” It’s all bad and good. It brings us to our now, and whatever the reality of that now is.

I’d like to acknowledge some of the things/people/books/whatever that has brought me to my current now.

Shane, who read a marriage book with me and then went on to find a source of peace for us that is as surprising as it is effective. He found us a common language, a gift that can never stop blessing us. Who has been patient with me even when I’m kinda crazy in an effort to make all of this work. I told him things this year that I’ve never told anyone.

Podcasts (and the personalities in the podcasts) 

•  Secular Buddhism
• 10% Happier
•  Happier with Gretchen Rubin
• Waking Up with Sam Harris

Books

• The Places that Scare You – Pema Chodron
• 10% Happier – Dan Harris
• When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chodron
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) handbook/guide – Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Wild – Cheryl Strayed

Playing the piano, which is finally something I can say that I do. I love it dearly. I love when my left wrist aches from playing chords. I love when I can learn a single song in a night. I love that I can’t think when I play the piano and so it is a source of pure delight and enjoyment.

Meditation: podcasts, learning about emotions, learning how to meditate from Pema Chrodron’s audiobook How to Meditate and finding out what meditation can and cannot do for a person. Knowing that it won’t solve all of my problems and not asking it to. Knowing that it gives me space to react. Feeling it bleed into parts of my life that need calm. Feeling so damn grateful for this bit of craziness. When I compare the feeling in my body and soul today to where it was 2 years ago today – I don’t know how that person made it through a day, she was so wound up and hard on herself.

My time spent in Young Women, and now being released. It’s strange, but since I’ve been released I have a sense that things are easier, that a force that has been unrelentingly pushing against me has left. It’s surprising and I don’t really know what it means, but that’s ok. I loved the girls and women I served with.

Friends and family: watching my kids get older and wiser, texting and hiking and running and everything with Amy, seeing and texting and playing the piano and all the things I do with Melanie, my piano teacher Nicole, my high school friends and our long-running group text, God for letting me tell Him I was angry and for helping me find answers in places that are strange but are a blessing, for letting me see the path ahead sometimes.

And now I get to be 42. But I’ll admit, 41 wasn’t too bad.

Tools in my backpack

Remember in January when I wrote that I never wanted to write about anxiety on my blog again? I still hold to that, in that I don’t want to have post after post chronicling my day to day successes and missteps with anxiety. But in a different way, I want to still write about it if only to help me remember when times get tough again, and to maybe somewhere, somehow help someone else.

Last Friday, I spent all morning trying to write a post about podcasts. But all of the words that I had were about anxiety, not podcasts. After multiple attempts at writing, I thought I figured out what was missing. For months, I’ve been thinking about drawing a…map of sorts about my anxiety, but I couldn’t think of a way that it would work. I decided that I needed my map for the podcast post, and so I dove in to making the map. And then I had a super exciting creative breakthrough. My quandary was still how to illustrate the nuclear bomb that was my meltdown with what lead up to it and what came out of it. All the vaporous clouds and squiggly lines that were in my head didn’t make a very interesting or satisfying depiction of what I wanted to put on paper.

And then came my breakthrough. A comic strip!  I loved the idea of a comic strip because I could use all the pictures and words that I wanted. It didn’t have to be one concise depiction. It allowed me to tell the story that I wanted to tell using bits of words and, mostly importantly, memories of moments that are already like a comic strip in my head. And while I’m a stick-figure person with no natural art talent, I could still get across exactly what I wanted to. I mean, it’s not as if I will ever share it with the wide world. I just needed it for me. I eagerly grabbed my markers and sketchbook and dove in.

The journey I’ve been on in the past year has been interesting. I got a lot of answers at the end of 2016, but the answers weren’t enough. I had made resolutions, such as:

·         Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

·         Dropping the story line that constantly ran through my head

·         Not looking for the magic solution to my emotional states

Which are all great things to realize and want for oneself. However, I kept realizing in January and February that I had what equated to backpack (I’m going with backpack instead of purse, because, well, if you know me in real life, you know that purses aren’t my thing. But I’m currently carrying a backpack around, so it works!) with nothing in it that mattered. No wallet or keys or gum or hand lotion or chapstick or notebook or pen or half-read novel, all the things that make a backpack a helpful item.

One of the most important pictures in my comic strip is of my empty backpack. After the initial creative rush that I had on Friday morning (which was essentially an hour and a half of filling up 3 pages of my sketchbook with little boxes of words and stick pictures and one airplane that looked more like a UFO) I spent time on Saturday coloring in some of the pictures and finally working on the items I’ve discovered help me that go in my backpack. Because I can say finally, that I can spend whole days now in which I’m not terrified of remote but terrible things happening to me. I don’t have the electricity flashes that used travel through my body on a regular basis, resulting in my heart beating extra fast and my breath being hard to find. The vague underlying fear that I couldn’t put a finger on but made me withdrawn and stuck in my head and unhappy to the worst degree.

I will say it did not happen overnight. And just like a hammer can’t stand in for all of the other tools in a tool bag, there hasn’t been one figurative tool that could have gotten me here by itself (not for lack of trying - I looked high and low for that one magical tool for almost two years!) But I finally have multiple tools that can all work together to make it so that I can now get on the freeway without fear. And on the days that I do have fear, I can handle that fear. I didn’t think that would ever be possible.

I want to do a series of posts on my tools. Now that I’ve explained where they come from, I won’t feel like I have to go back to the beginning each time. I can now finish the podcasts post, write a post about playing the piano, and another about a book my husband and I read together, because I don’t have to start with anxiety. Which means that maybe it will stop being a major theme in my life.

I’m looking forward to those posts. Mostly because of the pleasure and healing that those things have brought to me. I couldn’t have gotten to them earlier – I had go through the hell of 2015 and 2016 to have them be so meaningful.

If you have tools that have built up your backpack, I’d love for you to share. I don’t think a person can have too many tools. And if you are searching for tools, come back and maybe some of mine can help you.

Thoughts on thoughts part two

I’m tired of writing posts like these. I’m ready to tell a different story – here, in my mind, in my writing, to other people. But I still have this story to tell, because every story needs an ending. And so I have this,  that if I get back to where I’ve been again, I can find my way out. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked up the escalator between the food court and my side of State Street, coke from Mcdonalds in hand, thinking about finishing this post. Thinking about how much better I’m getting at not…thinking.

It gets sorta meta. Ahem.

But that’s really what it’s come down to. In the summer time, I sort of set myself on a mission to figure out a way to “accept” my anxiety. It led me to do all sorts of things – drink lots of water, eat breakfast before work, take lots of snacks, change how I used my asthma inhaler, read books, do art projects, journal my food. All searching for the answer to why I still couldn’t get on the freeway in the morning without my heart racing. Or to finally figuring out the initial event almost a year previous. Like a key that would unlock the gate. Sigh

.

Exhausting. That’s what I discovered the most. Figuring out what causes anxiety is exhausting, and causes one to think about the anxiety on an almost obsessive level. Because I felt terror at feeling that feeling again, but nothing I did could keep me from feeling it. And coming up with scenarios to prevent it – yep, just more meta thinking.  It’s also a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you think you can’t, you can’t. Shrug.

In November, I found a website, I can’t even remember where it was. But it told me what I needed to hear – there is no answer. No key. Doesn’t matter what you eat. Or if you drink enough. I mean, those things can totally influence it. But they are correlations and not causations and where it really starts is in the story that I tell myself about the pounding heart. I can’t stop my initial reactions to certain stressors. As any anxiety book, website, professional, whoever, will tell you – it’s hard wired. Fight or flight. But the story I tell myself? That’s all me.

It sounds, well, corny and all that, but I watched this webinar about getting hooked on your thoughts right after I found the website that told me there wasn’t an answer to anxiety. Have you ever driven through Las Vegas at night time and saw the Luxor Hotel? How the top floor turns into a massive cone of light? It was sort of like that. A giant light that couldn’t be turned away went on and I looked back on my ruminating habits and and how they were making me more anxious and unhappy and how they always had and that they would keep doing so as long as I kept encouraging them.

 I went to yoga one day and the teacher started the class by telling us that we could turn out the outside world for an hour, that I was safe in the 4 corners of my pink yoga mat. I thought a lot about that during the hour. At some point I started saying this mantra: You are safe with yourself. The first time I said it, I wanted to shy away from it, because I hadn’t felt safe with myself for 1.5 years. Every time I got on the freeway by myself. Every time I felt short of breath. Every time I stood up and felt dizzy or light headed. Catastrophe was waiting. (I know, dramatic. Eye roll!)

So I’ve been telling myself a new story. That I’m safe with myself. And when I lose myself in a story that causes me stress, I try to remember to drop the story line and find myself in the moment I’m in. Not the moment that I imagine myself to be in, that probably won’t happen. I’ve started trying to believe that if something bad does happen – because shit happens – that I’ll deal with it at that time, I’ll fight like hell in whatever situation that is, because I can’t prepare myself for every scary event, and trying to is killing all the normal events that I’m actually living. 

It’s working. It isn’t foolproof, but I’m feeling so much more like myself. I feel off when big, emotional events happen, like Christmas Eve. We went snowshoeing. I was super anxious on the mountain (because we were on a hiking trail that was steep and I felt so vulnerable that my kids were there and it’s snowy and I imagined bad things happening, and then they act like the boys they are and I just panicked, hard, until I realized all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other up and then down and, again, fight like hell if something bad happened.) I didn’t drink as much water as I should have, and then I had a big dose of caffeine without any food. I went home and felt like the world was just out of reach, because on top of the exhaustion and caffeination and hunger, I was also worried about a family tradition that we weren’t doing that day, one that had endured a lot of drama and reconciliation followed by more drama, only to finally fall apart this year because we just couldn’t be the ones to do it anymore. So I did what I could to address the physical part and didn’t let the emotional part get to me as much. I said out loud what was bothering me and even though it didn’t change it, it didn’t have to roll around in my head anymore, creating more stories and imagined dialogues and angry feelings directed at me from imagined others. And eventually I felt real again and so I took a long shower, ate some clam dip, looked at some goldendoodles on the internet (omg, more on this later!), and enjoyed the real Christmas Eve happening around me.

If you have 45 minutes, click on the webinar above, or here. It’s been so helpful to me. But if it’s not to you, and you are searching, my heart goes out to you, and I hope and pray you find your Luxor cone of light one day.

If you want an excellent book, read Pema Chodron’s The Places that Scare Us. She’s a Buddhist nun and the source that the guy from the webinar mentions. I haven’t done everything she recommends, but her insight is powerful.

I didn’t think this would be so long. But I’m ready to leave it all here, in this post. It’s January 1, 2017, and I want a new story. I hope you never read another anxiety post from me. Not because I never feel anxiety again, that’s unrealistic, but because I don’t need to keep searching and finding and searching again when it’s not working. If I can live more real moments, this post will have been successful.

Here’s to 2017.

Thoughts about thoughts

A very clear memory from my childhood is of doing the dishes. Once my oldest sister got married, I was assigned to a night of dishes, just like my other sisters. I can remember being bewildered at first, and it didn’t really improve from there. 

My mom didn’t skimp when it came to meal time. She used as many pots and pans as needed to create a main dish, one or more side dishes, and a vegetable. We all sat at the table together, which had been set with plates and silverware in their proper placement, a butter dish, filled glasses, and salt and pepper. We served our meal from the table as well, which meant serving dishes and hot pads and anything else that was necessary.

After a meal like this, doing the dishes meant doing everything – clearing the table, rinsing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, putting away the leftovers, washing the pans, cleaning counters, and sweeping the floor. And most of the time, it was really just up to whomever was doing the dishes to get it clean. My parents or sisters (or me, when it wasn’t my turn!) didn’t take pity on you and pitch in. It was just you and a very dirty kitchen for the next 45 minutes to an hour.

What I remember from this chore isn’t really the amount of work involved, even though it was a lot. What I remember is standing at the kitchen sink, angrily washing pan after pan, and ruminating on how unfair it was that I was left to do them. I thought about what jerks everyone was for not helping me, I railed against my mom for how many pans she used, I would internally complain at the latest way one sister or another had been mean to me, or I would think about how I was the best dishes-doer in the family and that no one appreciated it.

I’m sure that all kids have these exact thoughts when doing a chore (in fact, Ben said just as much to me this morning when I asked him to clean out the dishwasher!), so I realize I’m not really unique in this. The important thing about this memory is remembering how loud my thoughts felt, and how those thoughts made me feel such anger towards my family, and yet: I never spoke those words to anyone. Oh, I might complain here or there, but I had real, honestly painful feelings or thoughts that I would ruminate over but never felt safe saying them.

Which is really

I didn’t feel safe telling my mom my feelings. I couldn’t tell my sister I was angry with her. I didn’t have words to express any negative emotion. I didn’t have confidence that it would matter to them or that it would get solved. I taught myself to think about my feelings instead of feeling them. I taught myself to bottle up my words, which caused resentments to build that could have otherwise been worked out without much trouble.

Rumination became my way to “solve” my problems. Ironically, tasks that occupied my hands like dishes or cleaning freed my mind to wander in all the places that it wanted to. A slight from a friend was irresistible thinking fodder; all of the words wanted to use to defend myself could be thought over and perfected; their words could be imagined, although often, ironically making the point that really showed me how it was my fault, just so I could justify myself again. I would replay situations over and over, wishing for a different outcome, playing all the roles of myself, the other, and the morality judge (an internal moderator who was never on my side because they could always point right at the element of guilt that I was really at fault.) It was automatic and I never made any attempt to corral it or think it irrational, untrue, or undeserved.

This approach to life would have been great if I could have locked myself in a cabin where I never interacted with another human being. This inability to let someone know that they had hurt me was later extended to friends and boyfriends and coworkers and pretty much anyone with whom I eventually had conflict. And I never saw any reason to change it.

It served another purpose to work out my anxieties. I say “work out,” which is completely inaccurate. If I couldn’t find something that I had done wrong, I would find loved ones to worry over, replaying their situations and thinking up better solutions that would make them happier or safer or whatever-er. Often these worries came with an extra dose of internal guilt at my own feeling of failure in not being a better (insert relationship here) to this person, because obviously, I could save them, but was too selfish and caught up in my own life to do so. (I told you a few paragraphs ago – it’s messed up.)

It was the perfect forum where everyone was fair game, and no one, including myself, got off too easily. 

Enter midlife crisis. Enter an internal dialogue that already turns to over-examining each detail of painful events and thoughts. Enter panicked event that eroded my faith in my physical well-being and ability to be safe in both my thoughts and my body.

It was bound to turn on me eventually.

To be continued. And sorry for the swears.