Debilitating Accumulation

 "You are like me; your baseline is depression and when thing get bad or uncontrollable, it goes catastrophic." ~ words from a dear friend which I found to be one of the most profound insights about how I feel and respond to life

I drove home last night screaming, crying, and feeling on the edge of a heart attack (though I knew it was actually panic). Woke up at 3am sobbing and in hysterics. When all attempts to calm myself failed I took a valium to try and sleep...or just pass out. As I've attempted to crawl my way back to semi sanity and being able to function and not be this sad little wreck of a person, the blows keep coming. Between CPTSD, and the history of what went with it, when something happens to be it's not an isolated incident, as my nervous systems experiences it in accumulation. 

Coming up on 2 years of compounded incidents, and I'm sure more than a few triggers from the past saying "See....you just weren't dealt a nice deck of cards in life and it's never going to stop.". I wanted to title this "Catastrophic" but looked back at previous writings and see I'd already written it. Looking at the words I saw I was about to write nearly the same piece again. It feels like getting punched in the face again and again. No, you didn't die, look how resilient that you kept getting back up. Just hold on....another blow.

I'm having a health scare and it's one I've had before. Though a new symptom, and a highly concerning one, I know what tests I'll have to go through, and I do know that as scared as I was the previous times I ended up OK. The collapse I'm having now isn't because I'm scared I'm going to die. I'd welcome it if it didn't involve more suffering. My nervous system is saying here we go again. Another period of uncertainty. Another threat. Another emotional impact before I've recovered from the last one. It's reacting to the uncertainty, and in uncertainty it goes down dark roads trying to figure out what it will take to survive this or if it's even worth it. 

It's another spotlight on not having a safety net. Another reminder that though I am deeply cared for, I'm still walking alone. I was thinking about when I was married and I'd read a woman saying, "I don't want to be with someone who if I'm dying of cancer would sit on the edge of the bed asking me what we should do." One of many things I thought about when I was divorcing as that's how I felt my husband would behave. All on me. No matter how many people answer the phone, at the end of the day I'm still the one who has to walk back into an empty home, lie awake at 3am, fear my future, and somehow keep functioning.

I have no lived experience of what it feels like to be able to collapse and have someone else hold part of the weight. This is mine to survive. When I see someone with a soft place to land, I envy them, but I don't resent them. I grieve that I have no idea what that feels like.

And the accumulation just won't seem to stop.