light
The full moon was last Tuesday, but the moonlight is still so bright a week later. I almost always wake at some point in the middle of the night. I stroll out to the living room in the darkness and go to the screen door to look outside. Every night for the past week the balcony has been flooded with moonlight. I suppose I've taken it as a sign in the corniest vein--out of the darkness there will always come (at some point) some light. As cliched as that is, it's been a source of solace for me this past week.
I've been feeling some anxiety since H. left. Since I haven't discussed my history with anxiety attacks on my blogs (at least I don't think I have), I suppose a little background is in order. I used to suffer really crippling anxiety attacks during my drinking days. They got so bad in the last few years of my drinking that at times I literally thought I was going to die. I could be sitting (alone) in a restaurant (Because cooking? Um, no, in those days.) waiting for a meal and I'd put my head down on the table and think, "Ohmygod, I'm going to expire right here." They were bad. And like many alcoholics, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. So my solution was to (of course) keep drinking. I had episodes like that several times a day...for YEARS.
The anxiety attacks disappeared very quickly once I stopped drinking. I'm not implying for even a moment that it would or could work that way for anyone else. But that's how it worked for me. (I also had the most terrifying nightmares every single night for many, many years. Those, too, disappeared once I stopped drinking. Gee, and to think I used to consider booze my best friend...)
Fast forward to 2002. I'd been sober for 12 years. No A.A. meetings required, thank you very much--just some rock-solid sobriety going on. The hideous job I'm still at and my screwed-up boss were at their apex of fucked-up-edness. (I won't bore you with details, but it was bad.) The boyfriend was going through a hard time at his job, too. Factor in the isolation we often feel here (because we live sort of a 'just you-n-me' existence--we're super-tight as a unit but have no social life) and it was a rough year for us. And I started having anxiety attacks. Bad ones. And it freaked me out. This wasn't supposed to happen now--not in sobriety! (Or so I thought.) I suppose it's safe to say (this is not a clinical, but my own diagnosis) that I was probably suffering from panic disorder and anxiety attacks. Because I was feelin' some major panic...over the anxiety. But I got through it somehow, with a lot of help from my mother. I was burnin' up the phone line to Mt. Shasta in 2002. I also did a lot of reading online about both anxiety and panic disorders. Somehow it helped--if only to calm me enough to realize that my symptoms were not unusual.
Some of you may be wondering why I just didn't get some medication. But I have some really convoluted feelings about that subject. And FOR ME (I'm not judging others, just making my own position clear), I will do whatever I can to assist myself first before resorting to prescription medication. (I think my strong feelings are at least partly due to watching several friends over the years go the medication route yet seem almost worse off. I realize medication works for some--I've just seldom witnessed success stories.)
I haven't felt any anxiety in a couple of years. But I've noticed just moments of it flaring up in the last week. And it's been accompanied by the briefest flashes of panic...sort of like: oh, no, not again. But then I remind myself of what we've just been through, and tell myself that these have not been the easiest transitions to make. To go from having something we've waited years for to be handed to us unexpectedly--and then ripped away just as suddenly--requires some gentle adjustment to absorb it all. I can't possibly understate the deep happiness the boyfriend and I felt at the idea that (finally!) H. would be living with us. And now he--and it--are gone. So I guess I'm entitled to a little anxiety at this time. I remind myself of that. And I also remind myself that there's light waiting for me in the darkness. And thank God for that.
posted by Marilyn @ 4:16 AM
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