Down the rabbit hole.

Today I almost didn't make it into work.

I couldn't convince myself to leave the house.  I have been working from home the passed two weeks (due to a tailbone injury, of all things), and while absence may make the heart grow fonder for some, in my case absence makes the anxiety grow bigger.  And bigger.  Colossal, really.  My anxiety was the Empire State Building.  Or possibly Godzilla (ANGRY anxiety).

But I couldn't make myself get dressed.  Got my husband and my son fed, got them ready for the day, and I somehow couldn't bear to leave with them as I normally would.  So I sent them off, saying I would take the bus later.

And then I sat there, and sat there.  And when my husband called an hour later (checking on me, because he knows), I was still sitting there.  In my pajamas, spiralling into a more and more helpless and panicked state.

I don't know about other mental illnesses, but helplessness is something that anxiety and depression both have in common.  That sense of utter disconnect, that you have no control over your own mind, are powerless over your own actions (which, as it turns out, we are not), and that you are at the mercy of your fucked-up mind.

With all the psychotherapy I've received, I now know that thoughts aren't necessarily (and in fact rarely) a reflection of the facts, or even reality based.  Nor, especially, are emotions.  But knowing that is not always enough to keep me from going down the rabbit hole.  Sometimes you just end up fusing with the badness, the belief in your own helplessness, the belief that somehow you are in fact responsible for all of it (regardless of what "it" is), and that you are the failure you fear.  If you were just stronger, better, more capable, less lazy, you would be able to get your ass off the couch and get dressed and leave the goddamn house like a semi-normal individual.

But there I sat.  I feared having a break down at work.  That I would be ostracized, that I would be seen as someone who was identified as their illness, the one you had to watch out for, the one you couldn't assign any "real" work to, because, hey, she might just crack under the strain and go cuckoo for cocoa puffs.  I feared that being seen this way would lead to a greater sense of failure, and that would lead to further depression and anxiety, and ultimately I would end up so sick again I'd be back in the hospital and maybe kill myself.

Therefore if I went to work I could get sicker and I could die.

Never mind that all the counselling I've received has clearly indicated that I NEED to work, to have that type of productive activity, to have the intellectual stimulation (I work as a policy analyst in an agency of the federal government, work that I love when I'm feeling some kind of normal); studies have shown that productive activity is essential in recovery from mental illnesses. So really, not going, particularly on an ongoing basis, is like shooting myself in the foot.  Or, more accurately, the head.

Believing that you might die if you leave your house, or even get dressed to leave the house to go to your office job, is clearly not the most reasonable, reality based or even probable thought.  In a healthy state of mind, I'd know this and simply ignore the thought, or judge it as ridiculous.

But I believed it. I believed it with everything in me, and sat there.

But here's the crazy thing about anxiety.  You can bring it with you.  It's mobile, take-out, and will go with you wherever you want to go.  So I took it with me.  It was like carrying a forty pound, screaming, flailing toddler in your arms who's slapping you in the face so you can barely see, and sometimes you almost fall over, and doubt that you can go another step without the whole thing going to hell in a hand basket, but I took that fucker with me.  And I went to work.

I had a rough, kind of horrible day.  All the horribleness was in my head - people were actually extremely supportive, and in some cases, shared their own experiences.  I didn't get much done, but I got there.  I showed up, and stayed until the bitter end.  And although it was a close thing a couple of times, I didn't melt down in front of anyone.  But if I had, shockingly enough, the world would not have ended.

I hate to leave you hanging on how I managed, but it is getting late, and my cup full of medication awaits me. My next post, I'll be discussing some of the techniques to use in a situation like this, to navigate through the tidal waves going on in your brain.  In this particular instance, my husband assisted by using some of the cognitive behavioral techniques we've learned in the past year.

I'll leave you with this - recovery is a bitch.  Don't let anyone tell you different.  It's not a straight line - you will go backwards, on not just one, but many occasions, before you go forwards again.  But it is possible. And it is worth it.

But it's still a bitch.