But I don't WANNA.

Sometimes, or - let's be honest - most of the time, I'd rather just give in.  Give in to the urge to be all twitchy,  and scratch my arms till they bleed without realizing it, do what my husband calls the "one hand clapping", where I open and close my hands non-stop, until I give myself tendinitis, give in to the urge to hide from the world,  give in to the urge to believe I'm not capable, give in to the fear that pushing myself and my limits will end me back up where I started, or will lead to my death, because of suicide, or because I'm too anxious to drive and maybe I'll crash the car, or I'm so out of it from my medication that I'll walk in front of someone else's car, or I'm so involved with what's going on in my own head I forget the stove is on (again) and set the house on fire.  I want to give in give-in givein.

Because of the relief.  The blessed relief of not having to try, of not having to work at three different things so I can manage to do one (1. the thing I am trying to do; 2: have multiple fears and be continually distracted from what I'm doing; 3. Constantly refocus on what I was doing because of the non-stop distraction in my own mind; 4 (oops, more than three!) manage the fears and work on accepting that they're there; 5. pay attention to my son, who at three years old, is a distraction machine; 6. Refocus on what I'm doing, trying to be mindful and accepting that I'm anxious while I do it, 7.  Explain to my husband when he comes by and wonders what I'm doing and why it's taking me half an hour to unload the already mostly-empty dishwasher. 8) Go back to 1 and start again, and....you get the idea.

If I give in, then it's only one thing. One thing to do, one thing to be, one thing to feel, one way to act.  One thing I don't even have to try at.  (Or maybe two -  since my breakdown I generally suck at multitasking, but I can be anxious and depressed at the same time with one hand tied behind my back.)  Sometimes (liar, all the time), I want to just be.  To just feel what I feel and do what it tells me - hide, sleep fourteen hours a day or not at all, work non-stop in the garden until it's so dark I'm tripping over things and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and have completely ignored any other parts of my life.  Or don't get out of bed for days.  Spend all my time with my son until I don't want to spend any time with my son.  Lean on my husband until I resent it, and want to be alone.

Note the complete and utter lack of moderation of any kind.  In my head (the land of extremes),  if you can't do it all the way, then you can't do it at all. Ever.  So you'd better do it now.  All at once, until you're to exhausted/sore/bitter/burnt out to do anything.

But from my year of intensive therapy, I know (and they were right, damn them!) that when you give in, to the symptoms, to the extreme feelings, the urgent need to react to what I'm feeling RIGHT NOW, it's a merry-go-round you can't get off of, and if you just let things go, it starts to go faster and faster, and the music gets louder and louder, and you think it's all fine, you're fine, but then suddenly you realize maybe that it might be a good idea to get off, but, oops, too late, you're stuck on that fucker - at least until there's a catastrophic mechanical failure, at which point you've been going so fast the stopping is violent and damaging and maybe the pain is so bad you want to die.

I hate it when that happens.

But at first it's all pretty and shiny and it feels good.

So.  No giving in ever? I can't imagine it. Even the idea feels unbearable (a feeling I'm not acting on - see? see!?)  My current project involves me trying to find that horrible M word, moderation.  Turns out if I occasionally do the infamous one-handed clap at the office, I am not labelled a freak.  In fact, no one even notices.  If I occasionally give in to the urge to scratch my arms for a very short period, s'okay.  And if I'm going to push my limits on something significant that day or week, well, it's okay to pool my resources and not do other, smaller stuff that makes me anxious.  Little give-ins.  The big, significant difference is that I choose.  I am not driven, the anxiety doesn't make me, I choose what I do, how I behave.

At least that's the theory.  .

Is it perfect?  No. Does it always work?  No.  Should I expect it to?  Probably not, but I've come to believe the word "should" is a bad word.  So let's just say my expectations are something else I'm learning to live with, but not necessarily believe as the gospel truth.  Same thing with my gut instinct - I shouldn't follow mine.

All that being said - 'm here.  And I'll be here tomorrow. Peace.