Valley

I knew it would happen, but I was naive to how bad it would be.

I am on day seven of panic/anxiety.  I want to call it a panic attack because in my experience, panic attacks are way worse than the general anxious feeling, but by definition, panic attacks are short periods of panic that pass quickly, and one of the things I've read is to tell myself is that it will be over soon. 

It's not ending.

I'm going about my life just as I have to.  Classes and coursework, driving everywhere, working in the nursery at church, socializing with people I don't know and people that I do know, party planning, grocery shopping, meal prep, making my child go to counseling because I am out of ideas, going to the gym and working out despite the "I may be having a heart attack" thoughts and feelings, Connect group, volunteering, school concerts, babysitting, laundry...  I keep telling myself that if I just stick to routine, there will be comfort in that.  But there isn't.  There is exhaustion.  Because everything routine takes at least twice as much energy now.  And I'm behind on stuff.  Late for stuff.  And that is heavy on my shoulders.  And sometimes I can't fall asleep. 

I can't stay asleep.  My body has stopped digesting my food and I have no appetite.  I force-feed myself at regular intervals to try to protect myself from things getting so much worse.  If I go somewhere and there is food; I take some and force it down even if I don't want it.  I finish it even when I feel nauseous after the first bite.  I no longer seek and long for my daily caffeine/sugar fix.  Today I actually made a deliberate plan to get a Froster to see if it can help me, but the morning was full of volunteering, and almost immediately after that, my afternoon started - an entire afternoon of watching elementary kids dance - amazing and adorable - while their mothers pretended not to see their little siblings running around the gym and climbing on stuff and falling off stages and chairs, and pretended not to hear them screaming.  I actually stuck my arm out to stop a kid from running away from her mother and off the stage for the 100th time, and instead of a thank you, the mother glared at me.  Nice.

My body has random aches and sharp pains, and I think I need to cry, but I can't make it come out.

I hate that today, my babyest boy's birthday, I am feeling tense and frazzled.  I don't want that on his birthday.

Over a rushed dinner, on the verge of tears that won't come out, I told my husband that I think I need to go to the doctor to get meds again.  I told him I'm not sure I can handle feeling like this much longer.  I have handpicked most of the stuff in my life and put it there because I love to do it, and still I feel like this.  It's some kind of lesson, I'm sure.  One that feels like a big ol' slap in the face.  To the bearer of the hand...f u.

I need to get out of this valley.  I need to blog more; let more thoughts out.  My head and chest feel full of thoughts that need to get out.  Fight, fight, fight.  The fight is just so. much. work.