A Glimpse

I have a doctor's appointment today.  Nothing untoward, just a simple check-up.

I will make it a multi-purpose trip - the doc is up near mom's place so I'll go wash my shirts in her laundry machine (mine eats my shirts, hers is far kinder to them) while I'm at it.

My brain is screaming at me, telling me to cancel, not to go.

This is nothing unusual.  It is why sometimes I don't listen to my instinct, because my instinct is often irrational.  My instinct is in league with my Variety Plate and cannot always (or even often) be trusted.

Don't get me wrong, when it comes to confrontation or real, imminent danger,my instinct doesn't mess around.  It does a good job and, when I don't ignore it, saves me a good deal of grief.  But I am not currently in imminent danger.  What is wrong is, I have to leave the house.

Going to the doctor for a simple check-up begins with an internal fight the moment the appointment is made.  A small voice tells me "That's a bad day to go, you should cancel" as soon as I walk out of the office.  Then, as the day approaches (and it's every six months I go, so there's lots of approach), my mind tells me all kinds of things that mean I'm too busy to go.  When I refuse to cancel, things escalate.  I start to think about my horrible diet and how I am not at all practicing self care and he's going to yell at me.  By the time it's the day of the appointment ohmygosh I have to leave the house help help help I am, internally a mess.  The xenophobia and agoraphobia kick in and I don't even want to go into the garage, let alone all the way out into the world.This appointment is going to suck.  I have not taken my meds as I should.  I have eaten and drunk many things that I shouldn't.  This is part of a self-destructive cycle, and it will mean I shall be chastised by the doctor (who is really a terribly nice fellow and very good at his avocation and I did warn him that I am a difficult patient at best).  The cycle has to stop.  The way I am eating, the way I am living, will kill me.

So today I am fighting with myself.  No kidding, my heart is pounding!  I wasn't always like this.  Depression, yes, and then OCD and paranoia, but this...this...anxiety...is only a couple of decades old.  It's probably the youngest of the things on the plate.  It is mighty big sometimes, and vigorous, and just going to the grocery store can feel like a trial.  Leaving the house to be confronted by my own actions?  Too much.

My new shrink says I have anxiety and depression with a psychotic element (but I'm harmless, really!!!) (it's the paranoia, my old and faithful bugaboo, that is the element, in case you wondered) and my counselor is helping me sort it all out, but I have to leave the house to make things better.

My brain doesn't seem to grasp that logic and is screaming at me as I type that I have other things I need to do and can't I just this once reschedule and look, the sky may fall at any moment and people are horrid and there is gun violence and religious hatred and politicians run rampant in the streets and...and...pant...pant...pant...

My mind goes around and around and gnaws on itself, and this is constant, constant, every damned day, exhausting and occasionally overwhelming, and it's all internal so nobody sees it and it's easy to dismiss as not-real, irrelevant, because the cracks and leakage and rubble from past tussles are all in my head but if you could see in there, just catch a glimpse, it would rival any photograph of war-torn landscape you've ever seen!

I know it's not real.  It feels real enough, but I know it isn't.  It is my imagination on steroids.  It is the voice of the child I was who had no control over what others did to her, said to her, made her do.  It is the voice of fear trying to shatter the seemingly fearless shell I wear and I cannot let it win, not today.  Other days I can choose to change plans and stay in bed or curled up on the lounge with my kids watching movies, but today I can't.  Today I have to gird up my loins (which sounds much nicer than "suck it up, buttercup") and adult.

I don't want to adult.

I don't want to do anything.

Up and at 'em.