Category Archives: triggers

Sick and freaked

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For the past two days I’ve been sick. I don’t think there’s an organic reason. I think it’s directly related to anxiety. This was the weekend five years ago that I struggled to find a reason to continue living. It was the weekend after the nonconsensual experience with a person I knew.

Then today a friend of mine and I went to an event I actually attended five years ago this very same weekend. I was aware of this when I agreed to go with my friend this weekend. I thought it would be a way to make a new and better memory. But then it was very hot outside, and heat is a trigger for me. I think between the heat, and the event itself my body just freaked, and I became ill.

And, getting sick is a whole other trigger for me. I had to tell all the peeps the following:

“We are not dying. We are just sick. Yes, it is unpleasant, but we are very likely not going to die from this. This is no one’s fault. No one is in trouble. No one is bad because we got sick. Let me repeat … No one is in trouble.”

It’s a balancing when I get sick because I have to take care of myself, and then I have to tend to others as well. Much like being a parent that gets sick when the rest of the family is also ill.

Though I think we’re finally coming around the bend from the sickness.

I have a dream

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I am happy to learn that there is good side to this date, August 28th, because for the past five years this date has been a terrible reminder of the lowest point of my life. In essence, my drinking facilitated a very unsafe situation that had huge consequences. At the five year mark I can finally say that there is some real hope.

In the spirit of the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s delivery of his “I have a dream” speech at the March I offer a few dreams of my own …

I have a dream that one day I will no longer shake involuntarily especially at inopportune times. The shaking will disappear because my anxiety no longer gets so high that all my body can do is shake for relief.

I dream that one day I will no longer have to struggle with numerous selves with competing needs. This will no longer be a struggle because I will have successfully integrated my selves into one, and that one is me.

I dream that there will be a day when I will no longer need to see a psychiatrist two days a week. It will be nice to put that money towards other bill categories instead of payments for sessions not covered by insurance.

I also dream that I will be able to spend time in my own home without losing time. I’ll be able to cook and clean in my apartment without becoming dissociative.

I do dream that one day I will not fight with that demon inside me that tries to convince me that I’m not good enough for this life, that I should give up the fight. I will no longer fight this demon because it will be defeated for good.

Most of all, I dream that one day all of us with mental illness will be able to get the help we need, and we’ll be able to get that needed help without making ridiculous financial sacrifices for our mental health. Even more than that, we will be seen as individuals that can contribute to society in the workplace as well as in friendship.

Popcorn everywhere

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Police sirens = shaking. Always. The cackle of the radio that the officers wear renders me foggy, and makes me want to hide.

I never understood any of this until yesterday’s session.

Doc asks for Ronnie. Somehow we start talking about Ronnie’s earliest memory. She remembers sitting in a red recliner with sister Cate. It was popcorn day at school, 25 cents a bag, and she’s clutching it tightly. There’s a picture of a clown on the front of the popcorn bag.

There was yelling. Mom and Dad were yelling. Dad finds a hammer on top of the refrigerator. He tries to hit Mom over the head with it, but Mom fights him. She grabs it from him. He’s too drunk. They are fighting over the hammer. There’s popcorn everywhere. Ronnie held the bag so hard that the bag ripped right through the clown face on the bag. Then Mom’s crying and flipping through a phone book again and again. Dad is gone.

Doc asks Ronnie what happened between the hammer and the phone book. She does not know. I do not know. He asks if anyone inside knows what happened in between the hammer and the phone book. I start shaking, and Belle starts talking.

Belle said she kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see. She heard the police come, the sirens. Then she knew they were moving around in the room because she could hear the radios with the loud cackle. She heard the handcuffs click.

Doc then asked me if I had been aware of Ronnie’s memories. Yes, I was aware. Those memories were not new. He then asked me if I was aware of Belle’s memories. I was not. I always recalled the end of that memory with hammer, popcorn and phone book, and nothing in between hammer and phone book except for popcorn. This was new information.

And then it dawned on me that this could be why police sounds freak me out. I’m told that this is progress, good news. It doesn’t feel like either.