Scared Bunny

One thing people ask me a lot is how I am doing. I know why they ask though. People that know me I have been kind of walking in the razors edge for years. I never really got healthy when I went through therapy, and I had decided that I could get by with just medication and self-learning. Of course that really wasn’t the case, and isn’t for lots of people.

They have seen how things like what has happened can affect me. Well, not like what’s happened because most of them weren’t around for my first divorce and that was a very different situation. But they know how susceptible I am to depression and anxiety and they get worried. I appreciate their concern more than they will ever know, but, to be honest, thinking about how I am is a problem for me.

Right now I go in and out of anxious states every day. Sometimes they get real bad and other times I am just fine. Lots of times there is a trigger for the anxiety, and the things that trigger me that can be avoided I just avoid. That would be like songs that remind me what I gave up, or even certain TV shows. Hell, I can’t even think of listening to country music without a problem.

But the biggest trigger of anxiety is thinking about what has happened and thinking about anxiety. If you take a body that is accustomed to running on the adrenaline and tension of anxiety, it’s pretty easy to get it back to that state. If my doctor hadn’t got me started on distraction techniques I swear I’d be dead by now because the building of the anxiety would never stop.

It’s kind of like the song by Blue October, “Hate Me”:

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don’t lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I’m alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home

In the opening to the song they play audio of an answering machine message from the lead singer’s mother. She is concerned about him because she knows he’s been upset and she wants to make sure he’s taking his medication. I have gotten those calls before, and sometimes the people checking on me now remind me of them. They really do serve not as a comfort, but as a trigger. They really do remind you how alone you are and how bad things really are.

But to those who wonder, no, I’m not suicidal. I am dealing with a huge loss and it hurts like hell most of the time, but I also am always focused on the fact that I can be happy and healthy if I just learn how to do it. I am working with someone who does a great job at helping me cut through the static a person with a mind like mine has, and who teaches me how the same mind can use that power to get better if you let it.

I think there is only one person I am close to who has been there for all of my bullshit over the years, and while he and I talk, and I go to him sometimes when I need to get something out, he also has not once probed as to how I am. He has been through a loss I can’t even imagine, and is just now coming out of the darkness. And he and I are so similar sometimes it’s scary. He knows that sometimes words meant to help cut deeper than things said out of cruelty. When someone insults me usually I can look at that person and realize there is no validity in their opinion. But when a person who is worthwhile says something that reminds you where you are, it really can hurt more than it can help.

So the answer to anyone who wonders is: “I’m alive.” How am I? Depends on the day, the hour or even the second. I’m not happy. I’m not satisfied with where I am in life or what all has happened. I don’t suddenly think I am OK and all is well. And at no point do I look at anything that has happened and say I am right where I want to be. But I am dealing with a situation where the best I can hope for is to be numb, and sometimes that is the best I can do. It’s something I will get through, and maybe I really will emerge on the other side a different person.

Labels: anger, anxiety, depression, hurt, life, pain, well wishers