forgingnewpaths

[forgingnewpaths]

Starfish

We are currently in Day 18 of confinement.  We have required our children to stay home, not allowing playdates or anything of the sort.  We have one person going out to the store, which is me.  I wear and have worn a mask for weeks.  I am one of the most anxious people anyone knows.  People will say things, and tell me to earmuff so that I don’t hear bad news or discover new things to worry about. 

I have these Spirit Animal cards, one of which I pull each morning.  Yesterday I pulled the Starfish.  According to the card, a starfish can be haughty and arrogant.  Not so for me.  For me, I thought of the starfish as something entirely different.  

I have known two science teachers with curly hair in my life.  Both taught science as passionate and crazy inquiry based classes, and took their craft as seriously as anyone could and as personally as anyone could.  Both people were the type of people that suck the marrow out of the bones of life.  They remind me of each other, kindred spirits, one on each side of the country, one is free from the Earth as  spirit, having left this Earth too soon. 

One told me, on a trip to the beach, that a tide pool is one of the most extreme places for organisms to live.  The animals there have to survive dry then wet, then hot, then cold and then rain, wind and all of the rest.  

So, as a starfish, I just have to hang on.  I have to be graceful and lucky and resilient, as I sucker myself and my little urchins to a rock and try to ride out the storm.  There are beautiful moments, where we have sunshine and a beautiful view of the ocean, and there are terrible moments where the rain comes sideways or the thirst is so great that I feel I am a victim.  To me, a starfish, just hangs on for dear life, but manages to thrive, manages to get itself into the situations that it needs to, and is patient. 

I like the idea of being a starfish, especially at this point, as I am supposed to be hunkered, be clung and be as still and graceful as possible.  

[forgingnewpaths]

Soul retrieval

Looking back, there have been a lot of markers for anxious thoughts and reinforcing my snow tracks of negative thoughts.  As a teenager, my parents got divorced. My mom went back to school and would be gone nights.  I was nervous to stay in our house.  It was a big house, spacious with lots of windows.  I would sit in the kitchen with a knife, as it was the one place that I could be where no one else would be able to see me from the outside of the house.  I would put the TV on the floor and watch, ready with the knife if someone came into the house.  I did this nightly for months. 

Years and years later, I realized through some combination of other people’s suggestion, that I can go back as an adult and talk to that teenager.  I could tell that girl that while everything seems really scary right now, all you have to do is call 911, and you will be ok.  I would talk to her, right there on the kitchen floor about how she matters, about how she’s not alone even though it seems like she is.  I would hug her and let her talk to me about how mad she was at her parents for leaving her alone, both physically and emotionally in these hard moments.  

I might remind her that there are people out in the world that do care, and curling up like a little hedgehog isn’t helpful.  I would try to help her to understand how to reach out, how to say, I am having a hard time.  

[forgingnewpaths]

The 42nd birthday snow slide

[forgingnewpaths]

Snow Slide

So, it was my husband's 42nd birthday.  There is a blizzard.  I went outside and instead of shoveling the thirteen steps, I decided to make a snow slide.  I packed in every single snowflake, like bricks into the stairs to make this epic slide.  It took me about 2 hours, and it was meditative time for sure.  It also got me outside and away from the others for a few which was needed.  I had always wondered why my dad felt the need to chip all of the ice off of the driveway every February.  Now I know. 

It was terrifying watching my husband go down it because there’s a rail with one post at the bottom, so if he had gone off he would have ripped off his leg or something terrible.  I refused to go.  YOLO, but you also only have two legs.  

Fast forward to 6 hours later, I was making him chicken piccata, and in my version, which is so far from the recipe I'm not even sure you can call it piccata.   I was cooking away, not realizing the steam building up in the house.  It set off the fire alarm.  

My children have been well trained by our local FD.  They began trying to evacuate the house, as our new system started blaring, “evacuate, evacuate, beep beep beep,” there was crying there was a wine spill and the fire alarms would not stop going off.  While convincing my then 6 year old to take more than one breath, I wine-ishly smiled at my husband and said, I think we need to call the fire department.  I don't know how to shut these off.  As he picked up the phone, I said, yeeeeah, you’re also going to need to shovel the steps so they can get in the house.  Sorry, hon.  I packed it in really well for an awesome snow slide. Happy Birthday?

[forgingnewpaths]

The pets

My husband and I used to travel all over the country when we were young and gas was cheap.  We would be in a place and he would say, I like it here, send for the pets!  We had two cats when he declared this in Pismo Beach.  Later, we got a miniature daschund, and then another.  One cat died, then the other and then the two dogs a few months apart.  

When my son started kindergarten, in the same week, I had shoulder surgery and my father died.  When my daughter started 3 years later, I had a cortisone shot in my foot and our dog died.  Second child, you know.  

So, I said, no way are we getting new dogs.  We’re taking a break. For a year.  And we are definitely not getting daschunds, and we are definitely not getting two.  One week passes.  That Friday, because we had no pets, I bought my kids hamsters!  Cute little robo hamsters, named Sparkles and Humphrey.  

We came home on Sunday afternoon with two puppies.  Sisters.  Miniature daschunds.  Bear and Rosey.  I told the husband it was fate.  He said, “You know what’s not fate?  When you search the internet for puppies, spending secret hours in there denying it, and then make an appointment and bring our two children to see these puppies.  That’s not really fate, you kind of worked that.”  

Then, in August, we were window shopping at a new pet shop and I fell in love with this little canary with a little toupee looking thing.  I named him Sherbert.  But it turns out, Sherbert was 145 dollars!  

Off we went to the shelter.  They don’t let you leave with birds unless you have a cage.  Off we went to Petco!  And low and behold, they had 4 zebra finches for adoption, 20 bucks!  With a cage!   Keeping track of these birds at this point is a complex math problem.  Three died, we added three, surrendered two because of fighting and then they began to multiply.  Now we have three, and 5 new babies.  Husband is thrilled of course.  “You’re making our house a weird place.”  Direct quote. 

[forgingnewpaths]

Walking with my friend.  She is sharing a story about a really sweet mom.  Her daughter went for a sleepover, and when she couldn’t sleep, this preschool teacher, rubbed her back and gave her honey.  She said, that lady is so sweet.  And I said, I’m sweet too right?  And she reminded me that very, very recently, I had told my children that I was going to wait up and kill the toothfairy if they didn’t get their butts to bed in the next 2 minutes.  So you’re nice, but....sweet doesn’t read here.  

[forgingnewpaths]

Fear

So, I have actual problems now, this damn pandemic has trapped me, made me lose control, made me swear at my darling children and made me cry in a ball on the floor of my daughter’s room.  

I am literally afraid of so many things, wind storms, thunder, a blizzard, too much snow, power outages, ice, mutant cat people, being attacked by a wolf at night, but now there’s an actual threat.  And I am ok. 

I am ok because I feel like I took control of the situation.  I decided before school was cancelled that I was pulling my kids from school and shutting it down.   We were hunkering.  I didn’t leave the house for a week, unless it was to go to therapy.  I waited outside until my therapist was ready and sat in a folding chair in the corner while we talked about my fear.  This ugly fear.  I left his office, and he walked me out.  The waiting room was empty, and he said, “You’re one of the good ones, an I hate most people.”  That made me laugh out loud because of the ridiculousness of all of it.  

I kind of think that all of the panic and all of the anxiety has prepped me for this.  I quit drinking 90 days ago.  Today makes 90 days since the day I went to the ER on New Years Eve with Lynn.  Thats a quarter of a year.  

Sundowning is a thing for me too, when the sun begins to set, I get anxious.  There’s anxiety in transition for me, transition from summer to school time, from Friday to Saturday, from season to season and from day until night.  I used to drink to ease and blur the transition.  It made me a nicer person so I wasn’t so crabby.  I find myself now not even noticing and welcoming the dark as a time to be able to sit quietly with my family and veg, something we had never really done before, as there was so much perpetual motion.  

Many people I have talked with are trying to handle it day by day, moment to moment.  And I really think many of us do not give us enough credit.  Because it’s day 19 of our shelter, and I am ok.  More than ok.  Because I am doing what I need to do to keep myself safe and my family safe.  And I am doing it in sweatpants which is even better.  

Its hard though.  My husband believes that I am going to work to escape, and I am - it is a routine for me.  I crave that normalcy.  I was able to work from home today and it was fine.  We have been for a lot of walks, spent a lot of time together and together separately.   

He got furloughed this week, which was hard because one of his bosses is, incidentially, Lynn!  I felt compassion for them both because it has to be so hard to have to do that, but she is doing what needs to happen for her family to be safe.  And I am grateful because I need him at home to help us be safe. I need him and they gave him up, I guess.  

[forgingnewpaths]

The Swan, a balance

The swan, which is the card I pulled this morning, represents balance.  Balance in all of this pandemic nonsense is tremendously difficult.  So, this post is to all of the mamas out there, hunkered down in the pandemic isolation of the coronavirus.  

The way you are feeling right now, is that way that I feel almost everyday.  Not good enough, mediocre at everything, muddling through and thinking, do I even like these people?  And then there’s a moment where its all great and you think, I am killing this, my kids are amazing, I love my life, the sun feels so good on my face.  And then theres a moment of oh my God how am I going to protect these babies and never let them grow up at the same time, or be okay with them being out in the world without me.  And then I feel guilt about not being in the moment.  And then we attempt to make pizza dough and everyone is mad about drums.   

So balance. A lot of times when we think of balance, we think of a tightrope walker, never falling never tumbling.  BUT, my new ideas of balance are more cyclical, where there are two truths with which to reconcile, or at least bring closer.  

Balance does not ever mean perfection, it means taking a shit sandwich one day and then the next day, getting a great piece of fried chicken with a side of homemade mac and cheese.  

You don’t have to feel like the way you're feeling is wrong. Its your feeling and you OWN it.  It’s ok if it lasts a minute, five or a few days.  It’s a balance of having great feelings and having terrible feelings and wishing things were different.  You are allowed to feel sorry for yourself, just try to balance it with a healthy dose of reality.  (For example: These idiots in the grocery line are the most irritating people in the world, and I am at least grateful that I....can buy gum if I want???)  I hate that I can’t go about my normal life, but at least I have my health as do my children. 

I am not built to be a stay at home mom.  I need structure.  I need, as it turns out, a place to go each day, something to do, something to focus on.  

This brings me to the stress wave.  In the partial hospitalization, one of the therapists and I talked about a wave of stress, crashing on me.  I realized, I never let it crash.  I add more water, more projects, more tasks, more expectations to never be still with my own thoughts.  I stall the wave break, but this only makes it more powerful.  When it breaks, I go ass over teakettle into panic and stress, and it takes me a long time to find my footing.  And that, in itself, is unbalancing and incredibly distressing. 

I had to take a long look at this.  I never want to be alone with my own thoughts.  I never want the power to go out because I will have nothing to distract me.  I can’t have anything to do because being alone with my brain is too much.  

I came to realize that I have to shed stress each day, or every few days.  I found meditation.  Meditation allows my brain to relax and to clean and wipe away the stress I feel each day.  It’s like a new snowfall on my carefully grooved snow tracks.  Since meditating at least a few times a week, I have found it so much easier to stop my negative thoughts.  

I have not meditated at all this week.  I feel unsettled, miserable and unmoored.  I have not done much self care and now I am seeing the negative effects of it, meltdowns, swearing, crying (all by me).  But the two truths tell me I am ok, as I am tucked into a blanket watching Brave with my kid.  

[forgingnewpaths]

The Crocodile

I have a job in leadership.  I believe I have to be powerful and strong as a leader.  I felt guilty for leaving my post.  The second day of partial hospitalization, I chose the crocodile card.  

This energy is an ancient, primal energy capable of love and capable of so much potential energy.  This energy makes me remember the gathering up, the introspection and skill to survive and protect and be courageous to quietly observe knowing I have this resilience to act if I must.  

The crocodile waits in the depths, gathering.   Watching.  Silent and patient and powerful.  This was another water animal, suggesting I am in the depths of emotional turmoil. 

[forgingnewpaths]

After the ER visit on 1/5, my family and I went to Great Wolf Lodge for a night.  It did not fit the J LO spa wish I had, but a self contained entertainment venue where I could safely take Ativan and know my kids were safe and happy?  Bonus.  And, we would never have been able to afford it but we went on a Monday, so that was perfect!  My husband and kids had been continually asking to go, but I always said no, I can’t miss work.  Nothing like a nervous breakdown to free up your calendar! 

On Wednesday. I went to the partial hospitalization.  Another friend, Liz, had been there before and said it was very helpful. I had seen it.  Of course, on a side note, this prevalence of moms having nervous breakdowns? Another day.

So, I had my intake, and my very first experience in what it is like to cry for an hour and not be done crying.  The poor intern had to go and get the director to talk to me.  

We agreed on Monday to start.  

So, on Monday, I went.  I was nervous, uncertain, like a hermit crab without my shell.  A friend got me Animal Spirit Cards, and through this whole journey, I draw one every day.  The second day was the first day, and I got octopus.  The octopus is a great and cool animal. I was really struggling with my time being exposed on social media and public awareness of my medical leave.  

An octopus is sensitive.  But an octopus can also hide and camouflage and set a boundary.  The theme of an octopus according to the card, is boundaries.  No one is allowed to invade my boundaries without permission, and may not be in my inner circle without my invitation.  There is a protective shield around me.  I embodied the octopus all day long, when someone texted me about work, I set the boundary.  When I was done with therapy for the day (6 hours!) I went to one of those sensory deprivation tanks and floated in salt water for an hour.  I pictured an octopus, swimming freely and beautifully in the murky, unencumbered water.  

Then, I left my coat there and did not realize where it was for a week.  In January, in New England.  Grown up and classy, I am. 

The next morning, I would fail in an attempt to experience full octopus, while trying to climb into the aquarium at the local pet smart. 

A few things to know: I am not religious but I am highly spiritual.  I believe in energy and I believe that the natural world has a lot to teach me (and us). 

I see water as emotion, fire as change and land as grounded.  I am afraid of the wind but I am working on accepting it.  

[forgingnewpaths]

The beginning

The first time I was diagnosed with an official problem was in 2008 after a “triumphant” expedition to Europe.  I had gone on a school trip to be a chaperone...to London, Paris, Spain and Portugal.  I lasted one night.  Well two if you count the plane ride.  I had my first ever, full blown panic attack which culminated in one of the other chaperones bringing me to the emergency room, getting me a lot of sedatives and me bailing from the trip.  In all honesty, I couldn't be responsible for the welfare of the kids, and I had already pulled myself and another adult off the trip.  It was my only real choice.  

When I returned to America, I saw a therapist, who, before appointments gave me electronic questionnaires.  Every question it seemed, I answered “all the time.”  Questions like, Do you feel that you are in imminent danger?  Do you worry about leaving your house?  Do you feel overcome with emotions so much so that it interferes with your daily life?  Yes, yes yes and yes. I felt so small in that waiting room.  There was something wrong with me.  

After a while, with meds, I began to stabilize.  I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder, panic disorder and OCD!  I was FANCY.  

Fast forward to now.  10 years or so later, living on the other side of the country, two kids, married, and still the same triple threat...many of my panic episodes and subsequent extreme anxiety would last 2 to 3 weeks and then subside.   They were all brought on by stress, the death of my father, birth of both children, medical complications....the usual.  This last one was different though.  

On December 31, 2019 I went to my therapist, a psychic gentleman who knows me and has worked with me for about 9 years. He knew I had been under extreme stress at work....my boss was removed, leaving us with all of his work, a public outcry, feelings of guilt and anger about his removal in general.  I had been consistently drinking every night to cope.  It helped to blur the reality of work to home, so I could be a friendly mom right away.  It soothed me and made me less edgy.  To keep keto, I drank copious amounts of vodka and seltzer.

A week before, I was barely staggering through the holidays, with my foot in a boot for plantar fasciitis, a crown I lost in a caramel accident, and three ruined batches of said caramel for my neighbors’  Christmas gifts.  (We went with fudge in the end).  

I was tearful, a wreck, upset about going back to work.  I was afraid of everything.  He told me that I needed to cut waaaay back on my drinking as it was interfering with my medicine.  

That night, New Years Eve, I aborted our plans early and came home around 10.  I walked the dogs six times around the block.  I practiced grounding, I practiced breathing.  I lost the feelings in my arms, dread coursing through me as my heart pounded out of my chest.  I called my therapist, who called right back and suggested the ER.  I was able to leave my kids at home for normalcy, and get my dear friend Lynn to come with me to the ER. 

Everything was far more urgent for me than for anyone else.  I NEED to get to see someone.  I NEED to go in the back.  I NEED water.  There could have been a person with a knife sticking out of their neck and my needs would have come first.  No question.  Unfortunately, no one else felt that way.  

After a few hours, I sent Lynn home thinking I would be there for a bit.  Since it was New Years Eve, this was not an option.  I had to call Lynn back and have her come to get me.  I spent the first moments of 2020 standing outside of the ER waiting for my friend to collect me.  It was quite a moment, where I could see the scene zoomed out with some kind of caption.  I have not picked the caption or the background music yet.

She drove me home, and I spent the next day sandwiched between my two kids on their I pads, sleeping.  Normalcy came with a walk.  I went back to work.  I continued to avoid the fact that I have ZERO, and I mean ZERO effective coping strategies.  I was walking around, shaking, trembling, not eating and assuming it was because I had quit drinking.  

Sunday morning, I walked to the nearest convenient MD.  They were very nice, took my blood pressure and temp, then gave me a hug, some saltines, apple juice and suggested I go to the ER.  (Later they would charge me for 45 dollars for that visit).  

This time I called Christine to get me, who was there in moments.  She brought me to the ER and they let us into the padded room, where there is a chair bolted to the wall, a camera and a small screen.  When you go to this room, you are considered....extra fancy?

Several hours pass.  Then, a woman came in and explained to me that I had gotten where I was because of anxiety and fear.  Anxiety is a gift to make me work hard and make me think of so many things at once.  It helps me to complete seven million things in a day!  Sometimes, though, she said, it can turn, as everything has two truths.  

“What do you want to do?” She asked. 

“I want to be like J Lo and go wherever celebrities go when they are suffering from exhaustion.”    There was a long pause.  Christine and my stepmother were with me. They looked skeptical.

“Ok.” The woman said. 

“I want to be with my kids and my husband, and I want a break.  And I want to swim.” 

“Ok.  Then let’s figure that out.  And, I am going to set you up in a program to help you get some coping skills.  Do you think you have some time you can come off work for a few weeks?  I think it would really help you.”  

I wish I could tell you that I did not panic anymore and that I was never anxious because they fixed me.  That did not happen. 

I had to fix myself.  I have to work on it every day.  This is my incomplete, messy, ever evolving journey to understand my thought patterns, my complex structures of anxiety lasagna, where I still wake up in fear but eventually realize that a feeling is a feeling, not reality.   And I do this in the process of being a wife, mother, friend, school volunteer, professional person.  It’s a hot mess in general.  

But then, add in a pandemic.  That’s cool, universe. 

[forgingnewpaths]

Tracks in the snow

There I sat.  In a bright room, among about a dozen other patients, listening to this handsome 20 something telling us about our negative thoughts patterns.  He describes them in detail as tracks in the snow.  When you go to a sledding hill a few days after the snow, there are already grooved in paths that people have made.  There is not much choice but to choose one and head on down.  As a metaphor, this is your negative thoughts.  You go down them and once you start, it is next to impossible to veer off course. Here are some of my patterns, my tracks in the snow: I hear wind or get a nice wind advisory on my phone, I think, oh my God, a tree is going to fall on my house and crush us all as we sleep. I hear a sound in the dark, oh no, a werewolf or mutant cat person approacheth and I literally look to see if the moon is full.  I get on a plane and this is the one that is going to beat all of those odds and crash, killing me and all around.  Literally I get on a plane, walk to my seat and think, oh, okay these are the people I am going to die with.  They seem....nice? I could go on and on and on and on.  My mind is so busy thinking of possible ways that catastrophe could happen despite the fact that none of them ever have.   Folks will ask, what do you have to be anxious about?   Um.....everything?   During my partial hospitalization program, I took a day to go sledding with my kids at one of those ski resorts.  Their sledding tracks are literally grooved into the hillside.  As I got to the top, butterflies in my stomach, I looked at the kid (employee, ski bum) at the top and said, wow, these are a total metaphor for my negative thought patterns.   He stared blankly back, and politely said, "I don't know what that means."  Instead of explaining, I  repeated the same question I ask every ride operator, every flight attendant, every haunted house attendant...." What are the chances I am going to die on this?" Another dopey smile.  Gosh if I were 20 years younger, I would be smitten.  As a 40 year old mother of two with an anxiety and panic disorder, some of what I saw in that smile was reassurance.  I clumsily heaved myself into the tube, and said, wait no, really, like a percentage would be helpful.   He called, zero, as he shoved me down the hill.   Asshole. I am confident that most people on the lift were hearing my screams thinking the screams were....a.) anxious lady, facing her fearsb.) what the heck is happening to her, is she being murdered on her way down the hill? c.) chuckling to themselves that five year old is having the time of their lives! d.) those damn teenagers going sledding while on acid.  This is a family place! Skidding to a stop on the weird stopper things, I looked at my six year old who had arrived a few minutes before on her own tube.   She said, look mom, you survived!  I took a breath and said, that was fun, let's do it again!     Point: The only thing to fear is fear itself.  Bullshit thing to say to someone in the midst of a panic, but it's true.