A dance to the edge
A good friend recently mentioned that she felt like she was going to fall, and fall deeply. Part of her was expecting, and almost wanting the fall to happen. Thankfully, her fall hasn’t happened, and I hope it doesn’t; but what she describes is a feeling I know all to well. It’s like standing on an edge, waiting for that last push to send you over into a mental health free-fall. The scary bit about standing there, is that you have an awareness about where you are. You know that one more negative thing is going to push you over, and part of you wishes that it would come so that it’s over with; but another part of you hopes that you can still claw your way back to safer ground. It becomes a tug of war between different parts of you… This alone is so tiring that it can be enough to tip you over…
I know I’m also moving closer to the edge. The stressors in my life have kicked into high gear and I can feel the pressure building. At the moment, I’m far enough away to know that I’m in danger without being too close to it. A part of me niggles that I’m thinking myself into moving towards the edge – why do I think of my ex-husband, why worry about the ACC assessments etc. But the rational part of my brain knows that I’m experiencing PTSD flashbacks and my worry is justified based on past assessments. This is the beginning of the tug of war that intensifies over time. Soon other issues will come in to muddy the waters – denial, and a need for validation have already started to appear. All of this increases my anxiety levels. I’ve experienced this often enough in the last few years to notice the pattern… It becomes like a dance, to and fro… ever closer to the edge…
The problem becomes, how do you stop the dance? If I called a crisis line, they would take me through the individual stressors I am facing and encourage me to break them down into solvable chunks. This would work for some of the issues I’m facing, but they can’t help with the PTSD symptoms. I saw Jo today, and she was recommending trying to ground in the present, and while I agree with her reasoning, I also know that I can be very grounded in 2010 and still keep on dancing towards the edge. Some of the grounding work can make the situation worse – repeating “it’s the 26th of January, 2010 and they are just memories” can morph into a denial statement about the memories all being made up. The most effective way of keeping the anxiety at bay is to consciously breathe deeply – this also tends to by one of the first things I forget to do. Like many survivors who experience anxiety, I have a form of hyperventilation syndrome, with my breathing being short and shallow. It takes a conscious effort to alter my breathing pattern to a healthier depth and pace. Changing my breathing will temporarily ease the anxiety, but often this isn’t enough to stop the dance towards the edge. I’m not always sure what moves me away from the edge, I think this time it will be the formal dissolution of my marriage and completing the ACC assessment. If this is the case, I’ve got about another three weeks of doing the dance around the edge. I don’t think I’ll fall, but a part of me thinks I will… A part of me wants to fall, because they think that this is what I deserve…
And so the dance continues…
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Now playing: The Feelers – Stand Up
via FoxyTunes
