I just want to feel normal. Wait? Is that a thing?
It’s been three solid days with this feeling of impending doom in the pit of my stomach. It hurts so badly that it creeps into my lower back and up between my shoulder. Sometimes, the pain is so unbearable that I’m tempted to finally cave and take one of those little yellow pills that make it all stop but do I really want to take a pill to feel normal? Wait? Is that a thing?
Having anxiety and OCD sucks! Big time! Things swirl around in my head, like a roulette wheel, just waiting for the little ball to pick a number and JACKPOT! In my case, it’s my hyper-vigilance. Some conversation that doesn’t make sense or some item not where it’s supposed to be just spins and spins until it finds the notch and suddenly my mind hears the click as it catches. The darkness is coming. I can feel it. I’ve felt it a thousand times.
I’ve got a fiance, we’ve been together almost two years now. I’m not sure why he’s in my life or why I stay in his, except to say that I think maybe no one else will want me? Maybe there isn’t something or someone out there that can help quiet things for me. He knows I have anxiety. He knows I have OCD but he doesn’t understand. He gets frustrated and loses patience which only amplifies things and sends my mind into a frenzy. He calls it my “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. What an asshole! Or is he? I never can tell if it’s really me??
I know what the other shoe sounds like when it hits the floor. I had told him that and he’s using it against me. My therapist says the shoe is my intuition. I say it’s a curse and it’s excruciating. I can remember feeling the frenzy near all of my life. I know the gradual build up and the gradual meltdown. Did you ever stop and think to yourself, “why can’t I just be normal?” I ask that on almost a daily basis. I wish I had an answer. I catch the OCD sometimes and I just want to cry. I can literally hear myself spin in circles.
I suppose I could take meds to ease it but then it’s not me. IT’S NOT ME! I can focus sure, but the anxiety never really goes away. It just let’s me not feel anything at all. Nothing! I’m stuck between a world where I don’t want to feel the bad but I can’t not feel the good. How on earth will that work? I definitely don’t want to take a pill everyday to feel normal. It’s not me. IT’S NOT ME! I refuse to keep pumping stuff in my body that only makes things worse.
Taking a pill, or pills for anxiety and OCD sucks for me. It does quiet the noise some but not completely. Then there’s the trade-off. Some degree of peace in exchange for leg pain, sore boobs, head spins and irritable bowel. No sleep and the shakes if you don’t engorge yourself with food. There’s also the withdrawals that knock you down if you miss too many pills in a row. How can any of of this be healthy, much less helpful? It’s not worth it for me. I hate it and it can be so embarrassing.
I picked a fight with him earlier. No apparent reason, just feeling discouraged about things and he wasn’t listening to me. He wasn’t listening to me on the phone when I didn’t say that I needed him. I know he’s close to his edge but then so am I; didn’t he hear me not tell him? I only said it a thousand times! Didn’t I? Shit! I don’t know! Doesn’t he follow along? It’s not like OCD doesn’t leave you breadcrumbs. I’ve only said it a thousand times now!
I’ve tried so many. Lithium, Paxil, Klonapin and so many others. They work in the short term but the effect on my body isn’t worth the time I’ll spend with no dignity. When do you think they’ll come along with something that doesn’t destroy your body in the process of saving your mind? I hope it’s soon. There are so many of us out here. We are just winging it as we go along and praying to the gods that someday soon, this all ends and in a good way.
I don’t know how to really blog. I suppose there’s a format to this but I really just started this to clear my head. Maybe it will help slow the spin? Maybe I can feel normal? That’s a thing, right?
