In the middle of what I would describe as emotional carnage
A lot of the support we seek for anxiety, whether it be a podcast, a blog, or a book, often comes from an educational/informative standpoint. This is very useful when we want to develop a better understanding of our emotional well-being and how we can restore balance. However, I have taken the brave steps to write while I am in the middle of what I would describe as emotional carnage.
As you might have seen, my website has a plethora of blogs, ranging from more entertaining to informative, educational, and spiritual. I use the word “brave” for myself, not least because I’m learning to shift my internal dialogue, using positive words of self-love. I also describe writing in this way as courageous because I do so with fear, uncertainty, and an element of flatness. That is the best way I can describe it. But I considered how it might feel if I were to read about somebody else struggling to survive severe anxiety and stepping up, showing up, and creating. I know that I would feel less alone. I would be inspired to take one step in front of the other, and I would witness another person transmuting their pain.
An incessant dialogue all about my past, my future, my right now
So here I am, on a Monday afternoon, having spent the morning working, and counting my exhalations between each patient, making a chanting noise as my breath leaves my body. I started the day tired, having woken at 03:00. I silently lay in my bed, fighting the tirade of panic attacks, each lasting approximately 30 seconds, before I managed to talk myself down (in my head!). Then I lay for 20 minutes, with a train of thoughts, and an incessant dialogue all about my past, my future, my right now, my lack of sleep, what time it is, was, will be, if I ever fall asleep.
If you didn’t have a headache, you might now. It’s incredible how focused and wired the brain is during fight/flight in the dead of night (another poem?). There are few certainties in life, but one is that sleep will not come when the traffic in your head is like the M1 during rush hour. Night-time is also the loneliest, as your perception deceives you into thinking that you are the only person awake. Of course, in reality, half the world is awake, miles and miles away.
I am convinced that there is a volume button somewhere that, when you have complex PTSD, is turned to max, making your thoughts fast, furious, and in stereo for no one but you. I think the fears I experience when I am dealing with insomnia are that I will not cope the next day. This then has a snowball effect, leading me to a week of not coping, then a month, to leaving my job, and falling behind on mortgage payments. Catastrophizing. My brain is highly skilled in this art, especially when it has nothing else to do. Meanwhile, I am desperately searching for a peaceful corner of my mind to sit in, breathe quietly in, and return to sleep.
Every time I think I have found this little space, when the panic has been abated, the pulse has settled, moments few pass, before I feel the hot water travel up my spine into my neck, my head pulsate, my chest tighten, my stomach knot and the thoughts come racing back, like a hose being switched on full blast. I now can’t understand the theory that thought leads to emotion. Perhaps my subconscious mind is so wired to panic that there is a short circuit straight to raw terror.
I wanted to write this blog for myself and my website visitors. I am as much a learner as you all are with regard to healing trauma. I wanted to return to this article in a future self, and be reassured that I did cope. With the day, the week, and the month. Evidence. The logical brain can be activated during panic, with work and persistence. If it wires together, it fires together, so says my therapist about neuroscience.
The more I count my breaths during panic, and the more I chant during exhalations (as one example of bringing down anxiety), the more this behaviour will become the short circuit that I need the panic to default to. This gives me hope, and it should for you, too. The more you activate new behaviours, new internal dialogues, the more you start to shift old belief patterns.
I have talked in my head, we all do! Remember the article about the voice in our head? I challenged its identity! Who cares who’s talking, as long as we change the script? For example, in the middle of the early hours, I told myself, “I am safe and this will pass, breathe until it does”. I kept saying this in my head. Eventually, it did pass. It came back. I repeated.
As I finish this piece of writing, I say to you all, I have no clue how many more panic attacks I might have in the next twenty-four hours or weeks. All I can say is that I am determined. I am fighting. I am facing each day. It is the hardest work I have ever done. It is the most I have ever felt. I don’t know what the future holds, but like I’ve written in so many blogs, we only have right now. Last night and this morning are as far in the past as a hundred years ago in terms of accessing these experiences.
Each day is new. Each morning we are new. We can allow ourselves the hope of this newness. That we are a stronger version of the person we were yesterday. The challenges from the past have provided us with the skills we need now. Every day that we work on emotional regulation, we invest in the peace of tomorrow. Sweet dreams.
Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash
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Constant anxiety myself, will it ever end
The part about the the anxiety-related insomnia was especially relatable. I especially connected with this line: “Meanwhile, I am desperately searching for a peaceful corner of my mind to sit in, breathe quietly in, and return to sleep.” Thanks for sharing!