I'm irritated and somewhat saddened. My wife, my friends, my therapist all say the same thing, and I know it's just a slip of the tongue, not meant to be anything more than mere conversation, but the result in me is hard for me to disguise.
Often, people in my life will say such things as, "OOO, you could go to the zoo! It's free on Tuesdays." or, "There's an over eaters anonymous meeting you could attend, they meet twice a week." or, "Make sure you give them a call today." All completely innocent suggestions but it shows me they forget what it means for
me to leave the house.
As I approach the door, a storm starts to brew in my gut. It takes everything...
everything in my being to hold it together. But as I slowly inch toward the door, my panic attack erupts, whether I take a Xanax or not. My cold, sweaty palm lays upon the cool brass brushed door knob and the storm gets worse. My panic attacks do not manifest in shakes or cries, pacing or rapidly staring about, they manifest in angry outbursts. Not violent outbursts, never violent. I reach a level of irritation where nothing is right. And my first target... my wife. My sweet, nurturing, loving, gentle, patient wife who expects me to do these things at this point, but it still hurts me as I hear the words, the accusing words spill from my lips and I see the hurt spread across her face, and even if I saw I'm sorry and she says it's ok, I know it isn't ok to hurt anyone. I try so hard to never say anything but positive things while we are out now, but I still say hurtful things because it is beyond my control. And
that is what people do not understand.
For agoraphobics and people with severe anxiety disorders, the way we react to the world around us is usually beyond our control. Though when we reach awareness of causes to react the way we do, it is still a constant battle to remain in solid control over our reactions. I fail daily. When I finally accepted that I have Mental Illness and it is something that I must struggle with daily, I had to also understand and accept it would take years for me to reach a point of functioning. When my breakdown happened in 2010, it wasn't because it had reached a boiling point, it was because I finally lost the struggle of denial and maintaining the veneer of normalcy. I knew it was coming but I waited too long to seek help.
When someone tells me I can simply walk outside and if I keep doing that I will get better, my follow-up question is always this, "I did that for six years, I went to work everyday that I could, and I never got better, what do you make of that?" And not one person to this day has ever given me a good answer. They just look at me with that therapist look trying to determine if I am either that messed up or if I am a defeatist. I am
not a defeatist! I cannot stress that enough. I hate giving up, I simply hate it. Anyone who knows me knows that much about me.
I wish people could truly understand what it's like for me. When I am outside, I am in a constant state of suffering. My mind is on high alter. My skin is hypersensitive. My hearing is overly acute. Every sound reverberates with such intensity it hurts, it actually causes me pain, like someone is driving nails into my nail. I am not exaggerating. Every person is a possible attacker. I am constantly memorizing people around me, exits, paths to safety, I keep touching my pockets to make sure someone has not taken my keys. I check my feet to make sure they are not wounded in case I need to run. This is every... single... time I leave my house. And then it takes me three days to recover. I am tired, physically exhausted, I sleep, or need sleep for those three days, and nothing gets done around the house. And that went on daily for six years while I left the house to work.
I had to finally give in though, at some point I had to make the pain stop so I could focus on finding the reason behind the panic. I have narrowed it down to two things; 1. my mother is still living, she was one of my biggest abusers, and she lives only five hours from me. She used to come down twice a year on her way to Tunica, MS to gamble. 2. my ability to handle any level of stress has simple gone. I cannot handle the stress of living in a big city any longer and Memphis is big, and crowded, and loud, oh my god is it loud. Boom cars, people yelling at each other from a block away, people yelling in a store, children screaming outside my house, from up the street. It's so loud.
I have decided to just work on my writing while I continue to work toward some state of functioning outside. One day I hope to, I really like the sunshine, I really like walking my dog, I miss the beach, I miss hiking, I miss taking picnics in the park. But I will keep working at it.
