Anxiety and Depression

[kittyhasclaws]

Well, I do believe it's time to start writing again.  I know it's been a while, and I think that is a leading contributor to my anxiety and depression lately.

My anxiety has gone through the roof.  And it really is unwarranted.  I find that seeing my mom's number on the phone any day other than Sunday throws me into a panic.  My hands will shake, I will feel my heart start to pound in my chest and I find it hard to answer the phone.  My fear now is that my mom will be calling me and telling me that my dad has died or that my grandma has passed on or that Ashley or Maddy got hurt or killed.  Or it's my dad saying that something has happened to my mom.

I know that this is an irrational fear.  I know that there are some days where my mom just wants to call and chat.  Or like yesterday, she needed to know exactly what my diagnosis for my thyroid had been so she could tell HER doctor about it since she's finally getting hers fully tested.  But yet I still fear that one of those non-Sunday calls is going to be the herald of bad news.

I know worrying like this is not good for me.  I know that it definitely can't be good for my blood pressure.  But even when I force my brain to rationalize that she's just calling for the sake of calling and checking up on her only living child, I can't keep my heart from pounding. 

I'm sure it will get easier when we get out of here and stay with them for a while this winter, considering I'll actually know what's going on. But until then, I'm going to have these bouts of anxiety.

Now, with the depression, well, that's sort of self explanitory.  I'm pretty damn depressed still with what has happened.  It takes everything I have not to keep asking myself, "what it" because that just makes things worse.  I'm still trying to comes to grips with accepting what Glen did without knowing truly why he did it.  I know I will never understand fully.  And in a way, I'm grateful that I can't understand because the torture he felt is the reason that he took his life.  But on the otherside, I wish I could know how he felt so I could understand and perhaps find it easier to accept.

A psychiatrist recommended a couple books for me.  I bought one of them, and will buy the other on the next paycheck.  He recommended "An Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison and "Necessary Losses" by Judith Viorst.  I have the first of those two.  The author actually does suffer from bipolar and describes in it what it did to her.  I have yet to start reading it, but I will start soon enough.

I feel like I fall apart if I have any time to myself.  I have to keep myself busy or I will just sit and cry.  It seems like even driving home from work at night a song will come on the radio that will make me think of Glen for one reason or another and I'll end up finishing my drive with tears running down my face.  But only when I'm alone.  I have a block about letting it out in front of other people.  I keep feeling like I need to stay strong in the face of others.  But I really shouldn't feel that way.  What happened was a tragedy and I should be able to acknowledge that tragedy without any holdups.  But I can't yet.  I'm working on it though.

Anyway, I'll end this here and leave you with one of the songs that I think will forever make me cry for Glen.  The lyrics seem to fit the things I imagine might have been going on in his mind.

"Carry On My Wayward Son" -Kansas

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more
No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

[jramsaran]

Sep. 2, 2009 at 3:27 PM

((HUGS))

[wearygram]

Sep. 2, 2009 at 6:16 PM

Aww Kitty, hugs to you. The book the Unquiet Mind is excellent by the way. Hang in there girl.

[mars33me]

Sep. 2, 2009 at 10:48 PM

Unquiet Mind is an awesome book.  Have you thought about grief counseling?  Is that something you could try?  My daughter and I went to a therapist for almost a year and while at the time I wasn't sure it was helping looking back I think it did. 

While I've not been through what you have I've had many losses in my life and nothing you wrote here sends up a red flag, they all seem like normal reactions to a horrible thing that has happened to you. 

I strongly suggest you get some counseling if you can though so you can get some coping skills to help you through your grief. 

Oh and btw, I LOVE that song by Kansas... I'm singing it now!! *hugs*

[KristiS11384]

Sep. 6, 2009 at 11:25 AM

(((HUGS))) Oh kitty!

[Frankenoid]

Sep. 9, 2009 at 6:56 PM

Hi sweetie; just sent an e-mail off to your parents, and thought I'd check in on you, too.

I know those feelings... perfectly normal, if in an abnormal situation.  After Rhys died, but before Ian was out of the hospital, I'd jerk awake in the middle of the night, sure that the NICU was going to call and tell us Ian had NEC.  Then after we got him home, I'd jerk awake in the middle of the night, sure that he'd stopped breathing.

And then there was the "day of the twins" -- it was after Christmas, month's after we'd lost Rhys, and I'd gone to the mall.  And every damned time I'd turn around there'd be another set of little twins.  I ended up racing out of the mall like a madwoman with tears streaming down my face.  I'm sure I scarred one woman emotionally when I looked at her twins in their stroller and burst into tears.

And it was years before I could hear Eric Clapton's 'Tears in Heaven' without crying (which was really bad when Emo's elementary school class sang it at their spring concert.  Jeez, what kind of idiot has elementary school kids singing that song anyway!)

If you can't find an appropriate grief group in your neck of the woods, see if you can find one online.  That's what I ended up doing: I joined a group for parents of suriving twins.  Helped a hell of a lot -- and they were always as close as my computer.