NO clear and present danger

I just went through an interesting thing.

I was driving to pick up Ana from school. I had been having a lot of anxiety all day.  Then these questions came to me:

Is there someone who is trying to hurt you?
NO
Is there an animal that is trying to eat you?
NO
Are you in a natural disaster that you are in danger?
NO
Are you in any actual danger at all?
NO!!

I'm safe. I was on my bed, in my house, alone, and feeling afraid.  Looping in my head over and over trying to find a way to feel safe, and I AM actually safe.

So what is the danger that I feel?

I'm going to freak out.
What does that mean?
I'm going to have a panic attack.
Well, you're already starting to panic, so what are you worried about.
That people will see or know that I am panicking and will think I'm disgusting.
Do people usually think you're disgusting when you're showing your anxiety?
No, but they don't understand.  They think I'm crazy or weird.
Do you know that, or think that?
I don't know what they are thinking, but I know that I feel very uncomfortable when people are acting crazy around me. And sometimes when I let someone see my anxiety, they avoid me in future.
Do people who love you think you're disgusting or avoid you?
No. They want to help. They want me to feel better.

Do you think that people can't love you if you are anxious.
Yes.
Why is that?
Because I know my ex husband left me because my anxiety was too much to bear.
Did he say that?
No, but I think that's one of the reasons that he left.
Why else do you think he left.
I was yelling at him all the time because he wouldn't stop working with that con man. He hated it when I yelled at him, and it definitely pushed him further away, rather than draw him closer to me.
That seems to make sense.
Yes, and I think he worked so much to avoid me: his angry, yelling, nagging, needy wife.
That doesn't seem like it has much to do with anxiety.

No, I know that was hard for him, but it wasn't what drove him away.

Ok, so your ex husband didn't leave you because you were anxious. Do you think he stopped loving you because you were anxious?

No. He loved me. He wanted me to be better.

So is there anyone else, that has stopped loving you when you showed them anxiety.
No. (scoffs)

So can you think of any actual danger to you when you are feeling anxious?

Well, people might think less of me.

Is that a danger?

It isn't a good thing.

But is it dangerous?

No. I guess not. It just hurts.

Have you ever thought less of someone because they were anxious?

I guess I have. I know when my mom didn't go on the plane to Utah, I thought she wimped out.

Even though you know the fear she must have been feeling?

Yeah, but I wasn't able to empathize as much because I wasn't suffering from anxiety as much at the time.

Can you think of another example?

I know this one time my older daughter decided to turn around and go home when she was stuck in traffic on the way to my younger daughter's performance. She knew she was already late, and decided she didn't want to go through the anxiety for the small bit of concert she might catch.

Did you think less of her?

No! Not at all!  I was disappointed, but I totally understood.

That sounds a bit more empathetic.

Yeah, I'm actually thinking about many times I've tried to help by giving understanding when someone was anxious. It seemed to help.

I wonder if you would like someone to be understanding. If you would like it if people are compassionate to you when you're afraid.

Oh! They usually are!

Can you think of someone who isn't?

Me. My Mom.

Your Mom?

Yes, she sometimes gets upset at me when I can't make myself visit.

What do you imagine that she's upset at you for?

That I don't love her enough to get over myself.  That I can't make myself stop feeling anxious.
That ....I don't know. That I'm letting down the family?
That actually is true. I'm sure they don't understand.

They don't understand what exactly?

They don't understand that I'm too afraid to visit my Mom's house.

Can you see how they wouldn't be able to understand that?

YES!!  It's crazy!! I'm not in any danger, but it feels like I am!  It feels like I'm in the biggest danger in the world!! I would never ask them to feel that in order to see me!

But, are you in danger?

no.

So you just feel like you're in danger?

Yeah. I guess I'm worried I'll freak out. I'm in danger of freaking out.

Well, I'm sure that freaking out doesn't feel very good, but are you in danger while it's happening?

I guess not. If I could run away, I could feel better, but sometimes I'm already in my safe place. The place I imagine I need to be in order to feel safe.

So you're running to a safe place, that may or may not be a safe place?

Yes.

Maybe this safe place is just an illusion.

Yeah. Like being in control is an illusion.

Why do you say that?

Because I think that if I can just control all the circumstances, I can avoid anxiety or panic, but that's an illusion. I can't control everything. I can't control whether the traffic is bad, or the bridge is closed. I can't control how other people will react. I can't even control my own feelings and thoughts!!

Can you say more about that?

Well, a friend of mine keeps losing his temper and "freaking out" in a sense.  He always feels really bad and anxious about it afterwards, but he still keeps losing his temper.  I guess I kind of judge him because I feel like I've got my anger under control.

There's that word control again.

Yeah. And after I spent so much time discovering that I'm still angry lately.  And I can't control my own thoughts. Or feelings.  And yet I judge him for not being able to control his. Am I really more judgmental than others? Am I just harder on myself and others than most people??

I'm not in danger.  Control is an illusion.

My story 1

July 9th, 2018

When I was born the doctor told my parents in his best broken English that he didn't think that I would make it through the night.  As a child I never understood the significance of that. I'd never seen someone be pregnant and see all their hopes and dreams of having a baby.  I didn't know personally what it meant to feel a soul nibbling around yours. The feeling of having a fully formed human stretch inside you.  The unknowable-ness of having a child, and yet, not yet having a child.  It must have been very upsetting news. Other than the fact that she must have been exhausted from labour, I don't know how she rested. If she even did.  The next morning I was still there. "Tubes all gone! Baby OK!" was the only explanation I have heard told. I had made my first ado on this earth.

I don't have many memories of or stories about my being sick, other than the usual childhood ailments, until I was six years old.

I was so uncomfortable. I couldn't find any position in which I could be still. I know I walked into the family room and tried to get comfortable in an arm chair.  I tried a couple positions, but nothing worked. I just didn't feel comfortable! I walked into the room and told my Mom that I just couldn't get comfortable.  I know she looked at me hard, and then said something to the effect of, "that's it, we're going to the doctor." She has told me my lips were blue.

I remember waiting what seemed like forever in a doctor's office, and then I remember waiting in another office for another eon.  I briefly remember a doctor saying that he wanted us to go to the hospital.  The next thing I remember, I had been in the hospital for days.

I had a mucous plug that was causing one of my lungs to partially collapse, and I believe there was a problem with the other lung as well.  I am going to need to speculate a fair bit, as I'm going on my patchy memories, and my memories of my mother's memories.  Hopefully it is readable. 

My theory is that due to the fact that my asthma doesn't act quite typically, they weren't sure what was wrong with me. I don't really wheeze, for one thing. All I know is that I was in the hospital for weeks and had to have a lot of tests. One test involved my having to have a plastic bag taped around my hand. I particularly remember that as I was eating my lunch at the time. 

I had to have a surgical procedure where they suctioned out my lungs, which required a general anesthetic.  I could tell something extra was up, because my Mom brought me a present from my Aunt Julie and was acting really weird. Then she told me.  I'm sure she tried to act all casual, but as a kid I could tell that something was up.  That she was hiding her emotions.  Then my Dad came to stay with my for the morning before my surgery.  This was back in the olden days when parents didn't stay with their kids in the hospital. My Mom visited during the day, and my Dad would come in the evening. I knew he was supposed to be at work, so I knew something major was happening. I couldn't understand why my Mom was there at the time, but I know now that she must have been very anxious, and that wouldn't have helped me at all. 

I was fasting, of course, and complained to my Dad about it.  He was very understanding.  I think I expected him to have more of an attitude of, "well, you can't eat." The same attitude he might have had if we were driving down the road and I stated I was hungry.  He seemed to feel guilty about it.  He decided to try to distract me by taking me to the games room.  We played "Sorry" until they came to get me.  The next memory is of groggily calling for my Mom and asking for a drink.  A nurse answered me and helped me drink.  She said that I could open my eyes, but I couldn't. My eyelids seemed too heavy.  I thought she wasn't my Mom and thought it was weird that she didn't correct me, but was too sleepy to care.  She had the most kind and gentle voice.  She was using a tone like she was dealing with the sweetest little thing, that she needed to be careful not to cry or laugh. Little 6 year old girl coming out of anesthetic.  Bless that nurse's heart.

Then I was in my room, and my Mom was there with this anxious/joyful look on her face.  I know I was confused because I thought I'd already been talking to her, and that she had helped me drink.  Then I got to eat jello.

Here I am again.

Too anxious lately to even publish these posts, but at least I'm writing them.

The new struggle for me is that sometimes I wake up and if there is something I've deemed something to be anxious about, I start getting anxious. And don't stop.  But I'm working on it.

This morning I started stressing and actually managed to stop and I think even fall back asleep for a while. Then I started all over again. WHY!!!

I was thinking a lot about Munchausen syndrome.  I was thinking about how I must get something pretty significant out of being anxious, or I would have let it go long ago.  I guess I still need to be sick. I wonder if one can get better from it. ....That's silly. I already have gotten much better. I hardly ever fake anything, and I enjoy getting attention from being sick way less.

I guess I mean can someone like me. Someone who has been that sick. Can I ever be truly rid of it? I mean it's not as though everyday I will long for it, like an alcoholic.

It's not your fault

Today I am excited to be alive.  Excited to write. Monday I admitted to myself that I have Munchhausen syndrome, now called factitious disease.  Tuesday I struggled to want to be alive. I was fantasizing about ways to kill myself without anyone knowing it was a suicide. Or how old would my kids need to be before I could without totally screwing them up.  Answer of course, never. I felt like I couldn't bear the pain of knowing that I had this horrible thing true about me. That I couldn't bear how ever many years I needed to live, if I had to feel this terrible anxiety.  Then I got up and decided that I would need to bear it at least one more day.  That's what I do.  Break it up into manageable chunks.  Sometimes it's minutes. Sometimes it's breaths. I knew I could totally do one more day.

Later that evening, after a quarter dose of a sedative and a lot of being out of my negative thought cycle, I had a thought. Why am I spending so much time trying to figure out how to die? Aren't there so many more things I could work really hard on? That doesn't really say it.  It was a realisation that I was giving so much more energy to wanting to die, then trying to live!  There were so many ways to try to work on living than the not-an-option dying.  

I knew that I couldn't do it. That it was just a fantasy like thinking about finding my ex husband and strangling him until he fell unconscious. Not anything I would take steps towards doing it.  I was choosing again to stay mentally sick, instead of choosing to be well. Then I could see the other paths. I think that is the tricky part. Seeing any other option.

 I get so terrified that I can't see any other choice other than staying exactly where I am, trying to fight off the fear. Talk myself out of it. Getting up is actually what I should do most of the time, but sometimes I am so fatigued that I really need to rest.  I'm probably partly anxious because I am so fatigued. But I haven't yet gotten skilled enough at getting out of my negative thought loops while resting. I'm working on it.

I started out yesterday being in a fog about this new diagnosis. Self realization. How could I ever tell anyone about the Factitious disease. How could anyone understand the exaggerating? People would shy away from me or worse.  I couldn't handle thinking about it.  I kept saying to myself that I didn't need to tell anyone.  As long as I'm as I'm not actively faking disease, no one needs to know. That didn't feel right to me though.  As hard as I am on myself, as much as I find it disgusting behaviour, as practically impossible it was to admit out loud, I knew it wasn't a dirty little secret. I chose a close friend I trust to talk to about it. He knew about a few occasions that I had faked things. One of first things he said was that it wasn't my fault. I had already started coming to that conclusion, but that was really good to hear.  He couldn't understand why I would choose to be sick to get attention, but he knew that it wasn't something that I had really chosen.

I guess that's where I got to with it's not my fault. I must have felt that the only way I could get the attention I really needed, was to be sick. There's no way I can blame a 6 year old girl for getting sick. I can't blame my parents for not being able to give me the attention I needed. They did the best job they could with the skills they had been given (or lack of skills). I guess it was just a perfect storm. I was very sick, a lot of the time, my parents were raised by parents that were missing some basic emotional skills, my older sister resented my being born, and I some how didn't gain the skills I needed to deal with the things life had thrown at me from any other source.  I was sick, I was alone, I was scared, and no one knew to tell me that I was loved and that I would be OK.  Except in a way, the nurses and doctors.  

Imagine you are one of four children, a bit socially awkward, and then all of a sudden, you are a STAR!!  People bring you presents. People come to see just you. You get to share a room with other little girls like it's a camping trip. You get a toy room with a TV.  You get to order your food off a menu, and then it is brought right to your bed. Especially for the severe asthmatic I was, I felt great in the hospital!  I felt better than ever. The medications gave me lots of energy, I was able to breathe better, and all my pain was gone.  Heaven.

I'm wondering right now how much the knowing exactly what was expected of me was a factor.  You have nurses that completely structure your day.  You know when to eat, when to shower. When to be resting, when to be out of bed. You know what you're supposed to do, and if you do something wrong, you'll be corrected quickly. Not a lot is expected of you, so it's easy to be really good at it.  Don't complain. Be cheerful. Be accommodating.  The only problem I was, was that I was too happy and well, hyper. I got asked to go to another room for a while a couple of times because I was being entertaining and the other girls needed to rest.

I know that is a big factor in why I was so religious for so long. Knowing exactly what you are supposed to do. And when. And when you were doing something wrong.  

I do believe that there is something in me that isn't just made out of cells. A soul, or a spirit. How much was I born with wanting to be reassured. Was I already insecure? Was I aware from the womb that my mother was worried about me living? Was I already receiving messages that I wasn't OK, and being not OK is something unbearable? Was this from a previous life?

I know that I have the ability to give myself the love I need. I can choose whether or now I panic. I can change the way I think, and feel, and act.  And this time, I'm not giving up from fear.

March 22nd, 2017

Decided that I really need to start journaling my psychiatrist visits.  I definitely type faster, so even though I will lose some of the expression from my handwriting, I'm doing it here.

We talked today about what seems to me to be the last layer of personalities that hold me back.  This really needy little girl. I mean she's starving for affection, that was really standing out last week.  Unfortunately she's learned that love looks like someone that gives her pills, or attention for being sick.

After spending the last week thinking about this aspect of myself and wondering what she needed, or how I could separate her from my true self, I hadn't come up with much.  It seems obvious now, but the problem with her, the little girl, is that she is linked with the malnourishing mother. My Mom really gave me all she had, I believe that.  Only, she wasn't shown hardly any love, and a hell of a lot of disapproval.  She had to comfort herself, and learn how to grow up and survive without anyone to show her how.  So she taught me that I should take pills to deal with my fears, and sedate myself if I got too upset.  Indirectly, she taught me that I shouldn't reach very high, or try too hard, because she was constantly needing to protect me from dying!!!

I actually had a conversation with her today about "the Power of Now".  I love that we can have these completely different conversations about trying to use healthy thoughts to defeat anxiety now.  That we don't just talk over each other, each of us wanting to be heard how hard our lives and health were.

So back to 6 year-old me.  The one who's always in my dreams with me when I'm stress dreaming.  That I have to take on a ferry, or pack up and leave a hotel to drive back home.  The one that I'm struggling to take care of.

This week has been really, really challenging.  I don't think that it is an accident that this week is so difficult after last week's discovery of the little girl. My son, through a variety of events, some of which weren't his fault, ending up being AWOL overnight.  The police were involved, very little sleep was had, and anxiety was being put off.

In the morning, my daughter got up feeling really unwell, at the same time that I was shaking and feeling nauseous.  The combination of my being unable to care for her, my son missing, very little sleep and what turned out to be rather vicious diarrhea, just about did me in.  I was sitting ( I won't mention where), and telling myself that this could be a turning point if I let it. I could let myself panic and beg someone to take care of my sick child, and medicate the hell out of myself, and possibly lead to a downward spiral.  Or I could choose to calm down and try to do the best I could.  My daughter is able to take care of herself well enough. I didn't need to take care of her right then.  I was getting rather sick to my stomach, but just to get through it instead of imagining all the horrible things that could happen.  Son was most likely asleep with his buddy and would call me soon.

I had been trying to decide whether or not to take some ativan.  I couldn't decide if that was just giving my inner child more of the nourishment that just makes her sicker or not.  As I was trying to take out just a half a pill, a full pill fell out and landed exactly on my foot.  I took that as a sign from the universe and took the pill.  When talking about it today, doctor told me that maybe it doesn't have to be only bad for me or good for me.  Once again I'm forgetting that there are nuances to everything.  Just as I phoned my friend and asked him to be a cheer leader for me, to which he responded (which we have previously set up), "what do you want me to say?"

I told him that I didn't think I could handle what was happening, and could he tell me that I could and that I was strong, etc.  Which he did, and wisely suggested that I try to get out of my head by literally getting out.  Doctor asked me why I wanted friend to say those things to me.  Why wasn't it enough for me to say it?  I just don't believe myself yet. There has been so many years of my filling myself with glue like poison that I don't trust what I say and need others to confirm that what I'm thinking is true.

Don't trust myself.  Don't trust my thoughts. Or instincts.

I have been meaning to start writing again since Christmas. I just started having a panic attack and decided to come on here, and as I was looking up my blog, which my laptop didn't even have saved, I found this article on this woman who suffered from Munchhusen syndrome.  The article was called, "addicted to illness". As I read this article, which was basically a lot like me, my anxiety started getting worse. I forced myself to keep reading.  I wonder if my shrink has diagnosed me with it. I know he knows that I have either exaggerated symptoms, or flat out faked them, but does he call it that.

Have I ever flat out faked symptoms? Hmmm. Not sure.  Not that that makes a difference really. I had this feeling like I was all shaky at times when I was pregnant, so I exaggerated them to the point of being hospitalized twice.

I had a sore stomach, because I often made myself feel ill from avoiding pooping. I was getting attention from my Mom for the pain in my lower stomach, so I avoided pooping even more.  She had my Dad, who was around because he was dropping one of us off, take me to the hospital, where I was given the odds that there was a 60% chance that I had appendicitis, and if I did, an 11% chance it would burst. I chose the surgery. I knew I didn't have appendicits.

Right now I think one of the main reasons I'm feeling so much anxiety is because I took marijuana to try to help with the MS symptoms I'm having. Real MS, real symptom. Shaking. Similar to the way I felt when I was pregnant. Instead of taking the normal CBD, I took the other one. The one that isn't recommended for anxiety.

Gah. I will write about going to others for compassion later. I need to get up for a while to get rid of some of this anxious energy.  And to probably poop more from anxiety.

Ah the ironies of life. I get anxious and have to poop becasue I never learned how to deal with feeling anxious from needing to poop.