Get Me Off This Crazy Ride

I've been writing a post for the last few weeks about being super in my body for this stage of pandemic depression, but then I had like one of the hardest weeks thus far for my mental health and my thoughts are all over the place and I'm overwhelmed and I'm talking to my therapist tonight and, for the first time, I have no idea how I'll articulate how I'm feeling and am even feeling anxious about that.

I know, who the fuck gets anxiety about therapy because they want to be prepared for what to say? Who does that? Teacher's pets, that's who. People pleasers. People who struggle with needing to impress any authority figure who they respect at all.

Sigh

So, anyway, I'm going to use this space to word vomit and maybe some clarity will emerge.

SOOOOO yeah. In my body. What I mean by that (I think) is that my brain can no longer shoulder this anxiety and stress and is putting it all in my body. The body is effected by anxiety, trauma, and depression anyway, but I'm talking about my emotional self checking out for a bit and the physical shit ramps up.

I've had migraines, total body aches but especially back, stomach issues (more than usual), acne breakouts, my left eye has been twitching for like 3 weeks, aaaaaand then there's the rash.

At two other times in my life, I've had weird stress rashes. The first time was when I was working at Victoria's Secret and it preceded a complete breakdown wherein I was hospitalized for exhaustion. Once day, weird raised rashy splotched appeared on my chest, back, and arms while I was at work. I was tested for a million things that were all negative. When I was eventually hospitalized, the doc said it was likely a stress-hormone reaction, which was my body's way of warning me it needed help.

The second time was 5 years later when I worked at Barnes & Noble and I'd get the same splotches when I got to work. I tried everything to fix it, thinking could be anything from dust mites to handling cash to the plastic bags, but nothing changed...until my boss quit. Turns out that man (who reminded me of my mom) triggered me so much that my body freaked out. When he left, I didn't have that rash again.

The third time was the other day. I woke up on a Monday morning to find a huge, hot rash on my chest. This one didn't feel like the previous splotches, but I instantly knew it was a stress rash. And I think it's because I increasingly hate trying to get my mind onto work while it's trying to survive a prolonged state of fight or flight. It's exhausting and stressful and, while I'm extremely grateful to still have a job (especially when my entire industry has collapsed), it's incredibly hard to do right now. So I wake up and need to work and am dreading it and my body is like, YEAH BITCH THIS IS HURTING YOU! LET ME SHOW YOU!

You know on Sex and the City when Carrie gets the rash after putting on that horrible wedding dress? It's like that.

And, at least in this instance, while I couldn't change that much about my situation, I have been aware of what my body is telling me and have almost been consciously okay letting my body bear the brunt of this pain. Like I'm observing it, but not interfering. It's a form of compartmentalization and maybe it's fine if I just let that happen for the sake of survival for a while.

But that was last week. That was up until the president of BiNet USA went rogue and the bi online community went up in arms. I cannot retell it all here, but read this article for the gist, but suffice to say I ended up doing what I typically do, what the responsible teacher's pet does: I wrote a letter to the Board of Directors. This is very on-brand for me. I write my college's alumni board and my elected representatives and anyone else I feel needs to hear from a concerned alumna, constituent, citizen, etc. So that's what I did (and my letter is in the article above) and I emailed it off last Wednesday evening.

I woke up Thursday morning to a DM from a friend warning me that I'd been doxxed by the president of BiNet. She'd posted my email on Twitter with my email address and real name. I immediately panicked and asked everyone I know to report it. I couldn't breathe. I had to start work and couldn't process the tiniest thing. But  I also read through the many many comments on the Tweet calling out the doxxing and demanding she take it down and reporting it for violating Twitter's TOS. So I was scared because she'd exposed me to some very real danger on the very big internet, but also warmed seeing so many people in my community stand up for me. I was terrified to open my email lest it be filled with harassing messages, but only found emails from bisexual strangers alerting me to the doxxing and including supportive messages.

And fuck me it's so incredibly to see my community be so wonderful, especially since being bi is so difficult to find inclusivity among the Gs and the Ls of the LGBT+ world. It's such a weird feeling being attacked and exposed and then also overwhelmingly supported at the same time. By the way, the tweet is still up and Twitter apparently doesn't give a rat's ass about protecting people or enforcing its own fucking rules. I've compartmentalize that too and am just taking solace in that it seems the only people who saw the tweet are members of my community and not nefarious others. I hope it stays that way since Twitter isn't doing a damn thing about it.

Since then, though, I've just been more exhausted and overwhelmed that ever. Dealing with that kind of fear while also dealing with pandemic stress and then my regular baseline of anxiety and depression was really just over the edge of what I can process and handle. I've just been muddling through in a haze, finding some small joys in watching silly movies, a long phone call with my favorite family member, laughing at dumb shit with my husband, and getting stoned off my ass every night.

Warning: I'm gonna talk about pot now. If you don't like that, fuck off.

I'm getting low on THC gummies. I really like these specific edibles because they give me more of a deep body high, while flower tends to give me a heady high. To get through that kind of full body stress I've been feeling, I need my gummies. And remember, hubs and I moved across town earlier this year, like only a month before the shutdown, so we barely know our new neighborhood. We don't have a new fave pot shop and, while there's one on every corner in Portland, finding one you really like is difficult. Not all dispensaries are created equal.

Anyway, a friend of mine recommended one that does Monday discount specials on edibles, so, yesterday, hubs pre-ordered what we wanted, we grabbed our masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer and got in the car.

NOW, I know I've talked about my growing agoraphobia on here, but this should have been a n easy-ish trip. I wouldn't get out of the car. Hubs would take all precautions and the shop we were going to did curbside pickup, so it should have been fine. But I already had a headache before we left (which is a near-daily occurrence lately) and then ensued a comedy of errors, which I won't regale you the entirety of. Long story short, we drove in the completely wrong direction, it took us like an hour to finally get there, by that point I was near panic for just being out of the house for so long (and the tension was building in the car from the mishaps) and I could feel the attack coming on like a freight train. Then hubs got the pot successfully, gave me an emergency gummy, and handed me his phone to order food delivery on the way home.

And friends? I couldn't handle that. I was near total meltdown and I was supposed to select a menu, get all my dietary shit input correctly and get it all ordered before we got to the house? PSH! Yeah right. And I did not feel that, in this state, I could verbalize my concerns. I mean, I almost got it all done (though I fucked up and hubs had to eat a GF burger for dinner) before I melted down completely as we were pulling into the driveway. Everything just forced itself out of me. I couldn't breathe. I sobbed out loud and ugly cried and couldn't stop. My head throbbed. My stomach lurched.  I sobbed for around an hour, finally got into a hot shower (while crying) and cried the rest (mostly) in the hot water (which did kinda feel good). This was not the cathartic cry that makes you feel better after; this was a panic attack episode that sucked every ounce of energy and emotion out of me.

After I was cried out, my edible was kicking in and I spent the rest of the night in an exhausted but muted haze. And today and I feel so hungover from it. I feel like I was hit with a freight train, which I kind of was, just a metaphorical one. I hurt. A lot.

My survival state

I don't know what I feel emotionally today. I feel drained, almost empty. I feel like I can't process anything, though I know I'll zoom in with my therapist tonight and we will. I don't feel like I'm coping, though I know technically I am, just not well. I don't know what to do about the agoraphobia and I certainly don't know what I'll do when we're all supposed to go out in public again. I am anxiety just thinking about it. I don't want to go downtown with all the people and go to an office with all the people. I just want to stay in my home with my husband and cats and be as safe as is reasonably possible.

And I know that being able to stay home right now is a privilege, that lots of people (including people I personally love) have to work in service jobs and in hospitals where their lives are at risk. I know it. I fear for them too. But knowing that doesn't make my fears dissipate. They are both true at the same time.

But it does piss me off that so many Americans are taking all of our lives for granted and flouting the rules meant to keep us safe. The level of fury I feel at that is also overwhelming.

It's a wild fucking ride and I just want off. I need a fucking break. I need my feet on the ground and for the world to stop spinning.

Okay, enough of that. How are you all coping?