Limbo

I just took a shower. It might seem trivial... A simple task that many people - maybe even most in the civilised world - do every day. For me, it’s a little different. I’ll admit that I don’t shower all too often. At least not to most standards, but certainly more than soldiers in a whole somewhere in Iraq or any other place at least at one time in total ruin, dreaming - praying - for the next time they even get a drink of water. But I’ll tell you why. Even in the most unproductive or seemingly pointless tasks, I become obsessive. I keep on doing more and more, often ignoring the need to take care of myself. I’m a little better, now, though. At least I’m somewhat prompt when it comes to eating or drinking (I’m worse at making sure I drink something for the day than eating, when I have the chance to simply sit down and obsess over something.

But a shower is even more than just a moment where I remember and make sure to take care of myself. It’s my safe haven. It’s where I get a chance to think without limitations or distractions. It’s a place where I can step back for a bit from the troubles of life - of living. It’s where this man of little faith in just about anything gets a little... replenishment of faith. When I’m in a darker place... a much darker place, sometimes only the ‘safe haven’ part is true. Sometimes I lack all faith - in my spirituality, in people, and in myself, if not also in more.

I sometimes pray. It’s almost the only place I ever pray, or ever have prayed. I don’t very much, though. Not in the grander scheme of things. In this last shower, it was different. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’ve been struggling - a lot - lately. In the past... well, almost year. I’ve struggled very much for at least six years, but not nearly as much as now, or the first two of those six years. In this last shower, while praying - if not perhaps begging - I was first upright, and then I fell lower, and then lower until I was completely on the ground. I was fighting and fighting to force tears to prove to a God I’ve had wavering faith in that I truly meant what I asked, and it isn’t until now, while writing this, that I’ve even came close. But, when I was done, and I got back up, a chill ran through my whole body, and in the hot, steaming shower, I got goose bumps all over, and thought to myself, ‘How can I not be sincere, with this reaction?’

My psychologist gave me a little homework to do before our next visit. She said to, ‘write down [my] thoughts every time I’m happy.’ At my last visit, I gave her a list of my main problems, and she had said how I always dwell on the negatives, but never on the positives. I always analyse what’s wrong with me, but never what’s right, or - if nothing else - good. I’ve thought about it, and the only answer I can think of is, ‘I never think when I’m happy.’ I don’t think, I don’t analyse... I don’t obsess. Happiness, for me, is just a moment - a time where everything is merely an endogenous response, a physical reaction, a natural, pure thing. It’s really not explainable. It’s not something that can adequately be put into words. But, being just a moment, happiness is all too fleeting. It lasts seconds, minutes, or probably at most hours. Days would be seemingly unheard of.

Happiness is a time where there’s neither hope, nor lack of it; where there’s no pain, no worry, and no fear. It’s a place where thoughts are essentially non-existent and the soul takes over. Now, this is not to say that I don’t talk, that I’m reckless or without intent, or where I’m totally vacant. I’m there, for sure, and happiness can most certainly be interrupted, or more likely crushed and destroyed, in seconds with a simple stimuli. When this happens - when happiness loses to... the darkness, I suppose - I return to my ‘normal’ self, constantly worried, constantly paranoid, constantly analysing, constantly obsessing, hopeless, struggling with faith of all kinds, angry, fearful, turbulent, broken, alone... sad.

I’ve heard on more than one show and movie at least something along the lines of, ‘Hope can only carry you so far before reality sets in.’ It’s too true. Reality set in somewhere toward the first quarter of this past school year - my 12^th grade year - that grew and grew into an unstable, unstoppable force until I become totally catatonic and had to drop out. I dropped out of my classes, really, and then my... ‘Home school,’ I suppose you can call it (not to be confused with homeschooling) dropped me... without any notice, too. Honestly, I just wanted a little break, not to end it outright. If I completed that year of school, despite all of the disruptions of the previous three years, all of my missing credits would’ve been waved and I would’ve graduated. I would’ve then been able to proceed to college and maybe even a successful life. I want to try and achieve all of that; I just don’t know when I’ll... even be capable of doing it.

Perhaps my biggest, baddest habit is avoiding... running away from, anything and everything that causes anxiety and depression, making my bubble, my safe zone, smaller and smaller, yet I get more and more anxiety to run away from, and that bubble gets perpetually smaller and... well, I think it’s quite obvious that it simply wouldn’t end well. Probably utterly petrified of the world, holed up in some deep, dark place, hiding from... everything. That is, of course, if it continues to perpetuate to that point.

But, there I am, with my likely second worst habit, dwelling on all of the negatives. I suppose that, when you wear the dark, roseless-colored glasses long enough, it’s hard not to only see from that perspective. When every attempt at doing something good, something productive, and something hopeful fails, crashes, and burns right before your eyes, you also start to pick up on the view that the world is a big bad, hopeless place that you simply don’t, and can’t, fit into. A puzzle piece trying to fit into the wrong puzzle. And you start to wonder, ‘What’s my purpose? What’s the point?’ And it gets harder and harder to see the light as you fall deeper and deeper into the tunnel that seems as though it was designed - tailored - for just you; a hole that you now fit into that no one else does, designed to ensnare and confine you to. And, when other people tell you that they’ve been there, or that you’re words ring true to them, you have the hardest time believing them because, well, obviously no one could possibly be like you. No one could possibly understand. And the darkness blinds you, and extinguishes the fire... at least until a little spark manages to ignite, only to eventually be extinguished again.

Now, there’s mania. Mania can be a great respite from all of this... awful, tiring shit, but it’s... well... manic. It’s crazy, nearly uncontrollable, frenzied, and... often enough, euphoric. It’s like a drug, and with any other drug (at least illicit ones), there’s a terrible crash, and you desire with all of your primal heart to get just one more taste of that ecstasy, regardless of any consequences. And when you taste it, you think that the crash is worth it, but it’s not. And when the crashes get longer and more frequent, that euphoria becomes just a problem. The higher you go, the lower you drop, but damn do you want to go high. It’s like a rollercoaster that’s both fun and frightening, only it’s constant and seemingly never ending, and you’re heart can only beat so fast, your lungs can only take so much, and it ends up taking a toll on your body, mind, and soul that feels as though it’ll be the death of you.

Lately... I’ve been in a weird state. My mind has been... turned to slush, my body put into a daze, and my consciousness in Limbo. I’ve felt as though I’ve been taking my opiate pain relievers every day, all day. I’ve had headaches, but they’re just slow, long, dull headaches. I’ve felt like I’m in a dream state, my body on autopilot. I react to things, even in ways that I don’t mean to. I’ve been in this sort of Limbo before, but not so... strongly, or dominantly. Not so long, either. It’s been weeks, and for months it’s been becoming more and more frequent with longer durations each time, building up with time.

If you’ve never taken an opiate, or at least something like it or a benzodiazepine, you probably couldn’t fathom what this feels like. You’re there... but you’re not... I suppose it’s a little like dissociation, which is common in some mental disorders and rare, often spontaneous states, similar to a fugue state. It’s relaxing, but it can also be disturbing at the same time. On the show Prison Break, the character, Doctor Sara Tancredi, talks to one of the... many antagonists about his addiction to a benzodiazepine, and - being an addict to morphine, herself - says, ‘It feels like you’re walking underwater, doesn’t it?’ That’s probably not an exact quote. That’s perhaps a very simplistic way to describe this feeling, this ‘Limbo’ as I’ve been calling it.

I suppose that it’s somewhat peaceful. From this whole, long ‘stream of consciousness,’ as they call it in the literary and psychological worlds, it probably doesn’t seem like it, but I’ve actually been dwelling on the dark, negative things less while in this state than usual. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism... Maybe my body knows something is seriously wrong and it’s trying to remedy that problem to the best of its abilities. I really don’t know.

I suppose that ever since I got on meds, I’ve felt like a great deal of my mind was locked away in a vault that’s seemingly impossible to break into, which I don’t have a key or combination to. It feels like the only... logical, if not a perversely logical, way to open that vault is to get off my meds... and let my mind run rampant once again. Much of the part of my mind that is still accessible tells me that that’s crazy and utterly stupid, but some other part - a very seductive part - says that it’s the best thing to do. My mind is split, in the sense of being indecisive as well as in the sense of being broken.

If the cost of my sanity is to lose a very large part of myself, sanity doesn’t seem like a very good option. Even with my sanity, I’m obviously not doing too well. I think with a more... I wouldn’t say rational mind... but one that is fully intact with reality. I almost envy my old self, delusions, hallucinations, and all. The only real downer - from where I’m standing now - is the very, very serious sleep problems. If I could be off antipsychotics/mood stabilisers, but still manage to get at least the sleep I get now... it seems almost perfect to me. I found comfort in... what was beyond reality. Sure, I was plenty aware of reality, too, but I almost lived in two different worlds at the same time. They didn’t collide, but rather overlapped. The things that were perhaps most clinically considered ‘wrong’ with me, which the meds then at least mostly got rid of, where the things that made the most sense to me. I was happier then than I am now, in the sense that I had more and longer moments of continuous happiness, but I also had much, much darker places, too. It was crazier in the most literal sense, but it was me, as a whole.

I suppose I’ve been in a sort of Limbo for a pretty long time, now, but it’s most obvious right now. It... surfaced into the physical and conscious world, rather than more just the subconscious. ‘These are turbulent times,’ they might say in some cliché movie or show, but it’s fitting, I think.

Manic Panic

I had a panic attack the other day. Not a hypothetical one as in my last post, but a real, scary, physically and mentally tolling one...

Really, the attack occurred in the early morning, around 4:30-5:00. The day before that, around noontime, I had gone to a class held by a clinical psychologist in the behavioral health class on the Air Force base. It was me - a plain, young civilian - in a room full of soldiers. The class was about relaxations, and covered the differences between calm and stress - both physiologically and psychologically, though less on the psychology. Rapid heartbeat versus normal or slow heartbeat, fast, shallow breathing versus normal or slow breathing, muscle tension versus looseness, and so on and so forth...

Later, nearer to when the panic attack happened, I was told to get some yard work done - racking some leaves off of the concrete areas of the backyard and doing a little weed whacking, or at least getting rid of some of the tall grass and weeds. When I was asking for the sheers, since it was quite obvious that the weeds were too thick to cut with a weed whacker, I was told it was in the shed, but that the shed had a hornets' nest. It was also suggested that I should take out the nest, which I said should be fine while they were still dormant. However, despite all of this, I knew that those sheers weren't what I was talking about.

At this time, and maybe even earlier, I was going through a bit of a manic phase. It was obvious once I got up and moving around. I was searching for those sheers like a madman, turning over everything that they could've been hiding under. I went all over the house. My overhead light in my room hasn't worked in probably over a year, now, but I needed light to search my room - where I thought they most likely were. They're just scissor-like sheers with two or three inch blades put back into their original package.

I got my brother to replace the overhead light and, voilà, there they were, under a pile of... well, assorted things, after a manic search with a heart beating a million miles per hour and breathing like a hot dog. After I found those, I decided that the next thing I needed to do was deal with the hornets' nest. Something to note is that I'm deathly afraid of wasps, and basically any bug that bites or stings - but especially the first (and spiders.) So, can of deadly chemicals in hand, I slowly crept up to the nest hanging just over the shed doorway like mistletoe, I started spraying and spraying and spraying. I could see several wasps just drop down dead, but even then, I started spraying the grass they fell into, then switching back to the nest itself. The nest was soaked and dripping, the spray all over my hand, having had held the trigger on the can for probably thirty or more seconds without letting go.

They were undoubtedly dead at that point, but I was also hyperventilating. Mix that with my meds, which have sedating properties, I was barely in my right mind, woozy and stumbling. I climbed up the deck stairs up into the house. The world seemed like it was spinning and I felt like I was going to pass out. My hand - the one that got the spray all over it - was burning, so I read the back of the can which, at the time, was quite a feat. It said to immediately rinse the skin which it came into contact with for fifteen to twenty minutes with plenty of water.

I went into the bathroom and got to the sink. I then just let the water pour and pour and pour, as I laid my head on the faucet feeling the warmth of the hot water passing through it on my forehead and the steam rising to my face. I was still breathing rapidly and shallowly at this point, my heart beating faster than I could've kept up with counting, even with a clearer mind.

After maybe ten minutes of the rinsing, for some reason, I thought I should still go back out and start cutting the big, prickly weeds in the backyard. I don't really know why I did it, but I did. Being on the brink of fainting and trying to do yard work while simultaneously being paranoid about every little sensation just doesn't make a good fit. I was accidentally passing through small spider threads and would frantically - almost psychotically - start trying to pull the threads off as if they were laced with some sort of neurotoxin. After five or ten minutes of trying to cut weeds, I then frantically ran up the deck stairs in the backyard, neurotically looking for any wasp nests or spiders, until I finally got back inside.

I went downstairs and frantically searched for clothing and a towel. When I did, I went back upstairs as quickly as I could, stumbling around, until I got back into the bathroom. I jumped into the shower as quickly as I could and just sat there. I began to settle down, but it seemed so mentally exhausting that I somehow went from manic, to frantic, to exhausted and nearly depressed in just thirty to forty minutes. I was so mentally and physically exhausted that I nearly fell asleep in the shower.

When I was finally done, I was calmer but had absolutely no life in me. I went to bed and nearly slept the whole day away. I kept on thinking to myself, "If I get up, then I might be told to do yard work." There was no way I was going back outside; at least not for a few days. I didn't want another panic attack, and I didn't want to even spot a single wasp. When I finally woke up past 19:30, I just casually went to eat something and then went downstairs. I did also bring up the whole debacle with mom, trying to make sure that it was understood that I wasn't going outside. A bit of an agoraphobic episode. I still don't really want to leave the house - not even a single foot out the door.

I never thought it could be so... traumatic. The hornets weren't even awake, though they did do a number to mom's arm the day before. That probably didn't help, nor did the visual my brother gave me of the wasps seemingly spewing from a relatively unknown location. All of that added to the suspense and anticipatory anxiety. I've always had a fear of wasps, and I've always had some pretty panicky reactions whenever even a single wasp got within ten feet of me. I had never had a full-blown panic attack, though - not that I can remember. So this was certainly unexpected and extreme.

If a single hair on my body moves, I automatically think a wasp or spider is crawling on me. If I get even the smallest poke, I think I'm getting stung or bitten. If I see a tiny shadow pass over the ground or just over me, I think a wasp is flying over or around me. The paranoia kills me, and it's not actually unusual for me; it's just been unusually bad since the attack. Every year, during summer especially, I live in fear for at least moments of almost every day, submerged in the paranoia of little creepy crawly things. I love winter because most of such critters are dormant or dead, just how I like them. My anxieties and paranoia become less frequent and bothersome. But summer... the worse season of all for so many reasons, creepy crawlies at the top of the list.

So... that was a real panic attack - not some hypothetical example. That was real, genuine fear I felt, fear for my life. I felt like I was going to die, like I was going to drown without even an ounce of water. It seemed as though I was going to suffocate, or fill my blood and muscles with carbon dioxide. I've had that happen once before... and it was probably one of the most traumatising moments in my life. It happened in an entirely different situation, and altered my life quite dramatically, but the symptoms were all too similar.

I'll give myself a few days break from the outside world... more so than usual. Hopefully I'll get over it soon, but I'll just give myself some time to try and shake it off. But... one thing's for sure - I won't forget it for a long time.

Panic Attack

The jaw clenches, the neck tenses, the forehead tightens, hands shake. Breathing becomes shallow, scarce, and trembling. The mind’s shaky, dizzy, blurry, as the world begins to melt. Palms become sweaty, head heats up. Is that light real? Those blacks spots? I feel like passing out, but I won’t. Chest is tight and I feel like I’m drowning. Every joint shocks and tingles with pain. The storm builds up within me.

All of my senses become overloaded as I forget my extremities. I get sucked into my head, sucked so far back that my eyes become tunnels as I dwell in the darkness. My vision begins to blur as I don’t know whether I’m going to faint or explode. I want to wake up from this dream.

Finally, the adrenaline begins to dissipate, my muscles begin to relax, as a wave of exhaustion - both mental and physical - crashes over me. Is it over? Was any of it even real? I lay down, tired and stunned. My eyes are wide open, jaw dropped. ‘Go to sleep,’ I tell myself. With double vision, my eyelids begin to slowly close until, finally, I shut down and go to sleep.