Five Years On

I’d like to blame my current malaise on COVID.

Not the having of the virus, though two times was punishment enough. (I know, it certainly could have been worse. Believe me, I know.)

And while the pandemic and attendant lockdown messed with my time-space continuum royally, it started in the months before.

When I let myself get so low, I had a near-panic attack just going to the doctor’s office to ask for meds.

When I got so low, I let my mind trick me into thinking needing meds was a moral failure on my part.

When I stumbled around in a fog so thick, I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.

And then as I climbed out, I felt the need to tell the story.

I knew I needed to explain how I’d gotten there – for the mental health narrative and for my own mental health.

But the story was so huge. The path so steep and craggy, I knew not where to begin or how.

And the more time passes, the harder a thing is to tell. Details forgotten, edges dulled.

And then the world stopped.

We were all in survival mode. Myself acutely.

I thank God for the fortuitous timing of that first appointment.

For if I hadn’t started meds when I did –

thrown into ‘homeschooling’ and online learning and personal loss from afar. . .

But after months of bizarre, those details began to be forgotten and those edges dulled.

And this was life.

We were expected to pick up the baton and keep time

when time was wonky, hearts were broken, and psyches scarred.

Five years on

I’ve picked up bad habits, sloth and sipping alcohol.

Smack-dab in the middle of perimenopause

and the slog of midlife.

What started as peeling back the layers of over-exhaustion and exertion

flipped the other way into inert.

Achieving perfection and avoiding failure by not attempting at all

has settled into paralysis.

And now, what is life, but this fragile thing that can be taken and wrenched dry in mere months.

When the acute sorrow is gone and you’re left with nothing but the days

and another load of groceries to unpack.

Five years on

and I still can’t tell you how I got here.

But I have begun.

May is Mental Health Month

May 2013

May 2013 was the first time I undertook a month-long theme of multiple posts to mark mental health awareness. Below are some of my posts from that series. A trip in the way back machine that explains a lot about my current state of mental health, motherhood, and life – and how I got here.

The Perfect Storm

Don’t Fear the (Ir)rational

The Brand of Crazy I Am

You Got Some ‘Splainin to Do

The black dog of depression

All the Rage

A Sit-com of Errors

The Blue Chicken or the Anxiety Egg?

Patate Pazze

Destymie-ing Dysthymia

An Imperfect Porpoise

Living

Looping Me In

Drawing a circle over a circle over a circle

That’s how Kate Bowler describes anxiety.

I laughed knowingly as I read it out loud

because I know that feeling, that repetitive loop

of thoughts, of sensations

But now my ‘normal’ anxiety loop is piggybacked by the dopamine loop

of what I use to ignore my anxiety –

or what is causing my anxiety.

And as hard as it is to get out of an endless cycle of anxiety,

I worry if I’ll ever be able to escape this other addictive loop.

Mental Illness

Coming Round the Mountain

After I wrote my last post, I came across notes with the title of this entry.

From years ago.

Ironically, they referenced a book by Emily and Amelia Nagoski entitled, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.

Seriously.

I’d say you can’t make this shit up – but I literally did.

In fits and starts I have been working my way towards this puzzle – for years.

At the end of my last post, I said “I should go back to the beginning of this latest cycle”.

On some level, my mind, returning to that little coffee shop table repeatedly over the last few years, has known it needed release. That it’s been dragging around all the stress and feelings associated with that deluge of depression and fighting my way back to the surface. And three years ago, when I drafted this ‘mountain’ of notes, I even discovered a big part of why I haven’t been able to let go.

“Magazines tell us that if we just drink ten green smoothies a day, we’ll feel great and look great, our kids will say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and our boss will give us that promotion. And if none of those things happen, it’s because we failed to drink the ten green smoothies; it’s certainly not because of systemic bias.

The message is consistent and persistent – whatever is wrong, it’s your fault. It can’t be true that the whole rest of the world is broken or crazy; you’re the one who’s broken and crazy. You haven’t tried hard enough. You haven’t done the right things. You don’t have what it takes.”
Amelia Nagoski, DMA and Emily Nagoski, PHD

It was in the months/year leading up to January 2020 that I made my first ever attempt at bullet journaling – and it was to track the administration of my natural supplements. Increase to two DHA, take Zen GABA twice daily, add 5-HtP. The fact that I hadn’t ‘cured’ my anxiety and depression just meant that I was adhering to the protocol closely enough. And so I went into logistical overload to ensure I’d given it my best shot.

And I realized two things. That the supplemental schedule was untenable with all that my day already demanded of me – and that it wasn’t enough. While it did improve or ameliorate certain aspects, it did not destroy my depression.

But why couldn’t I trust my body, my own intel?

Obviously what bothered me in 2020 and since then is much bigger than a slender bottle of petite pills.

I still must work on releasing the emotional gak associated with that transition – but it plays into the larger cycle of self-actualization and acceptance I’ve been working through for the larger portion of my life.

Message around the other side of the mountain . . .

Mental illness is not a failure on your part.

Mental Illness

Harnessing the Seether

“Seether” hits differently as a middle-aged woman.

As a 16 year-old, I was obsessed with the song from Veruca Salt, with its hard-hitting guitar, sick riffs, and angry lyrics – but I was a bit mystified by who exactly the seether was.

I saw it as someone or something outside of her, trying to control her or change her actions – which makes total sense, seeing as how the rage of teenage years is totally self-righteous and almost always directed outside of oneself.

A nasty break-up. Parents trying to tighten the leash. Managers not giving us enough shifts or pay.

Now, as a middle-aged woman with real reasons for rage, I see that the seether is within me.

In January 2020, I had hit the bottom of a very low low. Not as bad as, but the lowest I’d been since, post-partum depression.

Two and a half years earlier, I had weaned myself off the antidepressants I’d been on for nine years. It was a combination of that often false sense of good health that medication management can give you and refill snafus. In the ultimate combination of Yankee can-do attitude/Catholic flagellation, I figured it was time I was healed enough to handle it on my own.

And I was, for a while.

Whether the meds hung around in my system for awhile or my naturopathic/lifestyle aides helped or I got worse in only slight increments, I was doing okay. Until the increments started stacking up the other way and there was such a big pile of mess, I was fucking depressed. Like bad.

I relived the ridiculous feeling of failure/guilt that I felt the first time I went on meds and went to see a psychiatrist nurse practitioner for the first time.

My anxiety for this appointment was beyond. I was all wrapped up in avoidant behaviors, irrational thoughts, nerves, worry. Of course I was running late. Of course there was road construction blocking the entrance to the building I stared at as the clock ticked by. Of course it was raining as I realized I parked in the wrong lot and rushed my then toddler over the adjoining stone wall. Of course I busted into a podiatrist’s office like a crazy woman to get directions to Unit 8.

When I arrived breathless and sweaty at the reception window, the sanctimonious office manager asked me how I was doing. I think he actually thought he was creating a pleasant atmosphere. I was so amped up with anxiety, for once, I answered honestly.

“Horrible.”

I still haven’t figured out whether he had no personality or I set the tone for our relationship with my snarky response.

Late that afternoon, when my husband had returned from work and all the kiddos were settled, I stole away to a quiet coffee shop for a writing session. I still hadn’t processed all the high-energy feelings from the day. I was likely feeling some sort of post-adrenaline slump. I managed a journal entry and this.

I knew it wasn’t enough for the blog that usually helped me think through major mental health journeys. But it was all I could muster. It was all I had.

I was devastated by the complete control my irrational thoughts and fears had over me. And that was coming at the tail end of a harrowing descent into depression.

Periodically, over the last four years (that also included a worldwide pandemic, Holy Mother of God), that little table in its dim corner, complete with coffee cup, has come to mind. The incompleteness of my thoughts that day – and since. How that is a story I have needed to tell. But haven’t been able to. How I should go back to the beginning of this latest cycle – but haven’t been ready to.

I still don’t know if I am.

But “Seether” helped me recognize the strength and sorrow of that rage within.

Perhaps it’s time to process it – and harness it.

anxiety, Living, Survival

A Day Such as This

On absolutely amazing days like this, when the air moving around you feels like the wind’s caress, the pockets of sun and shade dance across the ground as the leaves move, your very skin feeling lighter and less oppressive. On a day such as this, which you can’t even imagine in the dark dank days of winter – how can the horrors of the world coexist?

Thoughts of war, cancer, needless violence, anorexia and body dysmorphia, seizures and convulsions, burns and heartache, loneliness, listlessness. . . how can all these exist on a day such as this?

When some unnameable something grips your head and heart, a firm and gradual tightening of the vice. When everything around you says, be well, enjoy – and your brain clamps down.

It must be for times such as these that the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique was created.

But I’m not in acute stress. And when I’m done counting and grounding, the things that wound me up will still be there.

I am living my low-level constant state of anxiety that seems to be this season of life – with friends more like family and family who need support and kids who need parents no matter what age they are. With health scares and inconsistent schedules and interrupted sleep.

On a day such as this, I need to sit right down in the center of it and soak it in. If only I could exist there.

may is maternal mental health month, News

May is Maternal Mental Health Month

My first contribution to Rhode Island Moms is live. Check it out!

In a month dedicated to moms, it’s also important to focus on maternal mental health – the most important gift we can give to ourselves.
— Read on rhodeislandmoms.com/health-and-wellness/may-is-maternal-mental-health-month/

Mental Health

Even Executives have Support Staff

Can we talk about executive dysfunction?

I feel like this absence of function is everywhere!

On reels about Adult ADHD to menopause to thyroid conditions, to depression, anxiety – the list goes on.

The proliferation of social media content sharing symptoms with clickbait titles like, “Sure signs you have trauma-informed . . . insert syndrome here”, clarify some things for us, giving us those, oh that’s why I do that moments. But they also can make us (me, we’re talking about me – maybe you, too) paranoid, thinking we have every flipping struggle under the sun.

While the A-ha moments can make our lives easier, especially if we take our new questions and epiphanies to our therapist to work through them and integrate tactics into behaviors and routines, most of these posts offer no solutions – just a new title to add to our tally of neuroses.

I read an interesting article this week positing that while such posts have helped decrease the stigma surrounding mental health via awareness and exposure, mental health practitioners aren’t 100% appreciative. The phenomenon of ‘therapy-speak’, this widespread use of therapy vernacular, has assigned mental health diagnoses to non-clinical behaviors by untrained people.

“Mental health professionals urge, you should embrace nuance and avoid pathologizing normal – albeit annoying or painful – behavior.”
Allie Volpe, “The Limits of Therapy-Speak” in Vox

Enter my paranoia (and my comment about bringing such concerns to a trained therapist).

I’m not walking around diagnosing my friends or strangers on the street, but more than one of those reels has given me pause with my own concerns.

Which brings us back to Executive Dysfunction (and yes, I see the irony in my sidebar).

When a Gen Xer such as myself was raised in a people-pleasing, perfectionistic-inducing atmosphere, it may have been easy to mask symptoms of ADHD. And just like my depression didn’t fully manifest – or become a real f*$%ing problem – until my third postpartum go round, I’ve been able to function and keep all.the.plates.spinning – until now. A friend, helping to manage her own child’s ADHD and discovering her own possible similarities, found in her research that women approaching and going through menopause is the largest group of new diagnoses for the disorder.

Now, my people-pleasing, perfectionist tendencies (see above) doth protest. I’m not having a problem functioning, says the woman with unfinished tasks all over the house. I don’t have a problem managing, says the woman who is running late to every single event she attends.

And those freaking reels do not help, with their peppy, easily digestible, eye-candy way of pointing things out.

But how much is a lack of executive dysfunction and how much is the untenable expectations put on modern mothers? How much is the lingering effects of a global pandemic? How much is my lack of sleep? My wonky thyroid? My anxious tendency to flee from the overwhelming? How much is the reality of four freaking kids and their often inattentive attitude to my pleas for help? The very people-pleasing, perfectionist feeling I have to, promising to, do all. the. things?

The answer likely lies right in the middle.

But that’s not something I can suss out all by myself. And I suppose that’s the point.

Not only would my executive dysfunction likely not let me (insert self-deprecating laugh here), I am not the professional trained for that job.

Identity, Living

Fallo

Why do some people have a fear of failure and others believe they can do anything?

It isn’t as simple as ego,

for some people possess profound confidence without arrogance.

For some, anxiety factors in somewhere,

looping a lasso around self-esteem and dragging it down.

Is fear of failure fueled by perfectionism?

The idea that an ideal is unreachable

so the motor is cut before passing go.

In what way are we programmed?

How is failure default for some and left to previous versions for others?

How do those infected with the virus

code switch

and update the mainframe?

Living, Perspective, Spirituality

Soaring and Grounding

As a child, I looked to the towering clouds, capped with billows, and imagined walking atop them like I’d watched the Care Bears do. I imagined that’s what heaven would be like when I got there someday. As a teen, Jonathan Livingston Seagull brought me such joy, such heights to which to aspire, the tips of his wings touched with light as he soared to such transcendent levels. As an adult, I watched birds glide on the wind, effortlessly floating above the rest of the world and its worries. I dreamed my own body could fly and always felt great disappointment when my legs started to drift back toward the ground. I gathered images and ideas for tattoos with silhouettes of birds, wings spread, to serve as a physical reminder of opening up, letting go, and ascending.

There is a line, though, where metaphysical musings turn into depression and anxiety.

I began to feel a great sadness watching birds wheel through the sky, their wide open wings and swooping motions a freedom I would never have. Watching the clouds edged with light filled me with a longing that I would never have the peace I imagined lived among their water crystals. No amount or configuration of ink etched on my skin would seep that sense of freedom into my soul.

And then as I sat on a shaded deck this morning, forcing myself to focus on a wisp of cloud and nothing else, staring into the middle distance, forcing all thoughts from my head or repeating a prayed mantra – a pair of birds streaked across, running a parallel line with the shore in front of me. Their pointed wings reminded me of the swallows with which I’ve been obsessed. They darted and swooped and disappeared behind a house a few doors down.

It occurred to me then that I can continue to stay focused on the peace and quiet in front of me while noticing the promise of freedom. I can long to be truly free, but that doesn’t stop me from embracing the joys in the here and now while I wait. I will not be free until my soul flies up to heaven, but I can open my heart now to accept what this life has to offer. I can use this time between now and then to wait and lament and be miserable or live in each moment mindfully soaking up what is there instead of not seeing it because I’m so fixated on what I don’t have.

Photo by Jennifer Butler Basile

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Tag Archives: anxiety