~A Bitter Swallow~

  I'm having a difficult night.  I went and saw a pretty cute movie called Trainwreck with a friend of mine.  It was like watching a comedic chick-flick documentary on my life.  The way she handles relationships with men, the running, the emotional blocks, the walls...  and then the way she completely and utterly freaks out when feelings hit her unexpectedly.   The only problem is it got me thinking about things again;  things that have been going on recently and things about myself that I'd rather not be thinking about.

 Then I came home to more bills in the mail.  Then even bigger ones in my email.  Things seem to just keep snowballing on me and I can't seem to catch any footing here.  I'm falling and floundering and I can't keep myself upright.  I'm getting buried over here, and I'm just about to the point of defeat.  I don't know what to do anymore.    I'm at my wits end and I just don't have anywhere to turn.  Every which way I look is yet another failure in this great tragic comedy that I've made my life.  The only good thing I've done with it are my kids.  I try desperately hard not to let them see just how damaged and broken I've become.  I don't want them to see me weak.  I want to be strong for them. I want to give them a good, strong role model to look to.  I just can't help but see how drastically I am failing at that.  

It hurts.  I want to reach out, but  I don't really want to talk with anyone.  I care about the  people in my life, and I know that there are those who care about me.   I truly do.   I just don't want to talk about anything with anyone.  I do feel the desire to be near someone, however I'm quite certain that the only person I really want to  have near me through this wants nothing to do with me anymore.  This makes me ache in ways I didn't even know I was capable of.  In ways I never, ever want to experience again.

 My trust levels about opening up emotionally with people have been severely damaged again.  The depths of the wounds and scarring suggest that there won't be a good recovery this time around.   You poke a vein too many times, it's bound to collapse irreparably.   I'm sitting in the middle of my castle of walls while my world crumbles around me, and there is nothing I can do about it.  I watch as all the beautiful, empty words people have said to me whisper through the haunted walls on hollow winds.  All the empty words, tormenting me with their broken promises and deceit.  Words I foolishly believed and fell for, opened cracks in my walls for; cracks that became fissures; fissures that weakened me and left me vulnerable.



    Emotions.  Health.   Finances.  Work.  Abode.   All of it in disrepair.  All of it chaotic.  All of it a whirlwind of pandemonium in my head, threatening to tear me down to my very core and break me into little pieces;  to shred me bit by bit until there is absolutely nothing left.   Confetti of flesh and bone and blood and brain and mind and thought....  raining down where there was once a person.    Could I be reborn from such a bloody mess?  As the Phoenix is reborn from its ash when it burns, could I rise once again from the detritus of my own implosion?

      Here I am again, about to divulge to you what's been going on in my head.  It's been a chaotic mess in here lately.  I'm pretty certain I'm having a nervous breakdown.  I don't say that in the metaphorical sense, but in a quite literal one.  I looked up the symptoms the other day, when I was having yet another moment of just not being able to cope with absolutely anything at all.   I found this website that gave signs and symptoms and I pretty much have every single one. 

10 Common physical nervous breakdown symptoms

1. irregular heart beat - you can feel your heart pounding. You may think you're gravely ill, yet tests are unlikely to be convincing.
2. tensed/painful muscles
3. clammy hands, sweating
4. dizziness or light-headedness
5. trembling or shaking - you may feel these are the most embarrassing symptoms of a nervous breakdown as you worry people may notice
6. upset stomach and bowel problems - your body/mind reacts as if your life is in danger and digestion is secondary to survival
7. exhaustion - all your energy is being used trying to manage/cope with this crisis
8. pains - 'unexplained' ones
9. coughs and colds - you seem to be catching every bug that's floating around
10. tension headaches

10 Mental symptoms that make you think you're going mad

1. Anxiety about every day things
2. Panic and phobias
3. Inability to cope with stuff you wouldn't have thought about twice before
4. Loss of libido - you feel 'dead below the waist'!
5. Impotence - and a sense of shame about that to boot
6. Sleep problems - not being able to fall asleep, frequently waking up and not being able to go back to sleep with racing thoughts
7. Withdrawal from loved ones - my clients describe it sometimes as 'living in a bubble'
8. Irritability and angry outbursts - you have no spare capacity
9. Difficulty concentrating - you probably can't even read a page in a book, or even keep your mind on the headlines in a newspaper
10. Depression - this is almost a 'given', when your life seems to be 'unraveling' (See my pages on depression - links further down.)

(The only ones of these I'm not having a problem with are #4&5.  In fact, it's the opposite way, and it's already high to begin with.  To the point where it's becoming problematic in its own right. )

5 Typical emotional problems with a mental meltdown

1. crying easily, and seemingly endlessly, at the drop of a hat - whether you're male or female!  No need to be embarrassed.
2. feeling guilty for all kinds of reasons: 'not pulling your weight', not being there for someone else, not being your 'normal' self, etc
3. feeling alone - you're embarrassed and don't want to bother with anyone. You don't even recognise yourself.
4. feeling joyless - increasingly withdrawing from all the things you would normally enjoy - no wonder with all those symptoms!
5. being/feeling 'paranoid' - feeling that people are out to get you and single you out for every scrap of negativity.

 If you've spoken to me within the past couple of weeks or follow me on Facebook, you've probably heard about me complaining about my heart palpitations.  They've been a bit obnoxious and even a bit on the worrisome side lately.  It was them, actually, that made me really sit down and start analyzing what was going on with me that might be causing it.  I had the rest going on as well, but just assumed that it had to do with some personal issues I had going on.  However, the severity of it all made me start to question if that was really all that was going on.



  Both of my kids now have walked in on me having fits of uncontrollable crying.   I think even some of my coworkers have noticed, though they have been kind enough to not mention anything.  I have had to make many sudden trips to the restroom in order to hide myself away while the tears flow uncontrollably down my face.  It's the last thing I want my coworkers or patrons to witness.   Usually I can curb my emotions and swallow them down, but lately it's been impossible for me to do that.  The merest of memory, thought, visual or verbal reminder, anything that triggers it just causes that flood gate to open and there is nothing I can do to stop it other than to let it run its course and dry out on its own.




I can't seem to concentrate on anything for any length of time.  I can't even read for more than a chapter or so at a time.  This is so horrifying for me, as reading is my main means of escape, and if ever I've felt the need to escape, it's been these past couple of weeks.  However, I just can't get my eyes to focus on the letters, or my brain to process what the words are saying, or my mind to form the pictures, etc...  I find myself rereading the same sentences over and over and over before finally just giving up and finding something else to do that doesn't require as much... well, focus.  Even writing this blog post is taking a tremendous amount of effort, and I'm having to stop and start again.  Move away from it and come back from time to time in order to keep my train of thought on track.  Is it from the lack of sleep?  Perhaps.  I'm not averaging more than a couple of hours per night, with a cat nap or two thrown in throughout the day.  Nothing I do seems to help that.  I've cut down the amount of coffee I drink, started putting in some physical exercise, tried getting my eating habits better (when I remember to eat), etc..   but nothing works on it.  My brain won't shut off, my body won't relax.  I just toss and turn in both body and mind as the hours and minutes tick by until my alarm goes off and it's time for me to start the next day.

This in turn also makes me feel guilty, because I'm not getting stuff done.  It's hard to feel like you are pulling your weight when you are constantly drifting in thought, or lack of thought, or running to hide your latest batch of tears, or just do not have the oomph in you to get things done.   However, there are these random bursts of crazy energy in which I get so much done, so it's hard to explain to people why at other times I'm just not doing anything.   How do you make someone understand how you can feel absolutely miserable and sick at one moment, and then the next you are bouncing off the walls with a completely chaotic energy that you cannot explain?

I've been feeling almost borderline manic lately.  The extreme highs and lows.  I'll have those bursts of energy I was talking about, where I'll get tasks accomplished and work done.  Or I'll just go spend all of my money that I cannot afford and do not have on frivolous things just because I don't care anymore.  Or, more dangerous, I'll go into what I call my "predator mode" (because that's what it feels like).  In this mood all I want to do is find a male and have copious amounts of sex.  I usually don't care who it is and don't put a lot of research into his "character" other than whether or not he will be capable of satisfying what I want.  I don't even care to know his name and have no interest on seeing or hearing from him afterwards.  I take what I want and I leave.  It's incredibly dangerous on a multitude of levels and in my lucid moments I know this.  In my manic moment I don't care.   The only thing that has kept the manic side tamed down is the fact that my kids are home 95% of the time.  My instinct to protect them still outweighs my desire to just let go and throw caution to the wind when it comes to myself and my own primal desires.  The flip side is this causes me to feel like a tiger caught in a cage, and I feel like I'm just pacing back and forth waiting for the moment the lock is not set right.  So far only one weekend has gone by when they have been away, and I've been busy with previous made plans for most, so my time frame has been limited.




For the most part I've just been telling people I'm okay.  I'm fine.  I'm just fucking peachy.  I know some of them know I'm lying, and they let me.  I just continue to put on a smile and say "fuck it" and "fuck the world" and do my battles and fight my wars.  What the hell else am I going to do?   Some days I want to just lie down and never get back up.  I want to get into my car and just drive until I run out of gas, and then just get out and walk until my legs and feet can carry me no more.  I want to just dig myself into a little hole and hide away from all of the world and just not fucking deal with it anymore.    There are days when I don't want to be the strong one anymore.  When I don't want to be the one that always pushes through and keeps going.  Who keeps her sense of humor about things and continues to laugh at herself.   Sometimes I want someone to see past that mask.  When I say "I'm okay" I want them to see that the yelling and splashing is not me laughing and having a good time playing in the water.  It's me floundering and starting to drown.  It's me losing my ability to keep myself afloat, and hoping someone will notice before it's too late, but at the same time not wanting to ruin anyone else's good time and bring them down with me.   A couple do, and they try their damnedest to help.  But I don't think they realize just how deep I've sunk, nor how to help me.  I don't even know how to help me.

Fuck I miss you.  And I don't even feel like I can tell you, because I want to give you your space to decide what you want to do.  But god dammit I miss you so fucking much it hurts' so much that I can't breathe..   Fuck it hurts.  I miss you.

  You know those days where when you're crossing the street, and you kind of really hope that the truck coming just runs the light and hits you?  Not hard enough to kill you-  just enough to put you in the hospital for awhile; keep you in a coma so you don't have to feel, and then when you wake up you're on so many drugs you're all foggy and hazy and don't really remember.  If you're really lucky, you won't even remember why you were hoping to get hit in the first place, and then it will all be worth it.

  Now, before you freak out, I know I don't really want to get hit by a truck.  I know the likelihood of being physically and probably mentally maimed, if I survive the accident, for the remainder of my life would be high, and that the damage done to my loved ones would be significant.  I would never wish that on them.  But fuck, I just wish I could not have to think or feel anymore. Just for a little while.  Just to forget.  Just to be numb.

It was so stupid of me to let my defenses down so completely.  It was even stupider to do it in the scenario I was in.  I know better.  I knew better.  There are reasons I have my walls built so thick and so strong and so tall.  There are reasons that I don't let people inside those walls.  I cannot stand the pain that they bring with them.  Every time.  It doesn't matter whether or not they bring it on purpose.  They bring it regardless of intent.

I've also found my judgement entirely lacking.  I can no longer tell whether someone is trustworthy or not.  I can no longer tell whether their intentions are true or not.  I've fallen for so many lies, so many smooth talkers, so many tricksters.  Now I just expect them all to be suspicious.  They are all just after their own agenda, with no care to what it will do to me.

Not that I am without fault, for I'm not.   I did not expect him to break through so easily, and then once I realized he had, I did not know how to react.  I misunderstood things at first, and then once I realized I had misunderstood, chose to ignore instead of addressing it right away.  I buried it instead of bringing it to the surface and in doing so caused myself anxiety and distress, which in turn caused me to overreact and my fight or flight instincts would kick in.  I would not / could not ask for what I wanted, so how can I blame anyone other than myself if I never let him know what was on my mind?

This is a pretty standard reaction from me.  It's rather pathetic.  I just don't know how to handle feelings.  They are awkward and foreign.  They feel heavy and dirty on me.  Mainly because often times they are not returned, so I want to just shake them off of me like some kind of gross germ that might make me sick- which really isn't all that wrong of an analogy, if you ask me.

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend last weekend.  If it hadn't been for knowing what I was about to do, it would have been perfect.  I knew what would have happened in the long run, though.  I knew I was about to be phased out.  Maybe not right away, and maybe not completely, but it would have happened.  I have no doubt in my mind that it would have happened.   I would not have been able to handle that.  The pain that watching and feeling that happen would have caused me.. I can't even describe what thinking about it feels like.. let alone what experiencing it would have done.  I knew I had to do something before it came to fruition.  So I did.  It didn't go down the way I would have liked it to, which would have been face to face, but I did it.  I did it terribly, as I always do, because I can never express myself accurately when it's an emotionally charged topic, which this definitely was.  And then I proceeded to finish my only glass of wine and bawl on my couch.  So much so that my daughter heard me and came out to sit next to me with her arm around me.  She didn't say anything- just sat there.  I don't think she knew exactly what was going on, but I think she might have had an idea.  I don't just break down like that.

These past few days at work have been murder on me.  Memories or phrases will go through my head and will set me off.  I'll see specific trademark images that are direct specific reminders of him that I have to see often and I have to keep my composure.  I make many trips to the restroom in order to get myself under control.  It honestly pisses me off how badly this is affecting me.  It's been a very long time since I've been hit this hard.  It caught me completely off guard.  Completely.

I've cried, a lot.  A.  Lot.  I figure it's just a thorough cleansing.  Wipe it all clean.  And this time, instead of walls, I'm going to just fill the whole thing in with concrete.  I don't ever want to feel this way again.  Ever.   It's not worth it.  This girl is officially off the market. This item is no longer available.   But I miss him.  :(