Bumper Sticker

I saw a bumper sticker today that said:

Things To Do Today

• Get Up
• Survive
• Go Back To Bed

Yup .... that about sums it up

Concerning Thoughts

Suicidal thoughts are cropping into my concsious mind. Sitting here in my recliner chair with dog and cats piled on top of me, and watching our Prime Ministers daily press conference on the covid 19 pandemic, I'm feeling a profound emotional malaise. A sense of hopelessness is washing over me. And the thought crept into my mind ..... pills ...... how many would it take. I just want to sleep. To escape from this empty void masquerading as my life.

Something is wrong with Tahree and I can't help her because I have no money. If the universe is kind, it's nothing more than an upset tummy. But .... I feel I'm failing her. I can't use the mortgage money because if I bounce the loan payment this month it will put me out of good standing and disqualify me for the mortgage deferral plan that is being offered to help people through this pandemic.

I can't seem to motivate myself to do anything. I look around me and there's so much to be done and yet I can't seem to lift a finger and do anything, even though I know I'd feel better if I could get things done. I sit here. I tell myself to get up. My brain tells my body, “ get up!”. But it's like the message doesn't seem to get through. It's like there's a weight holding me down. As I write this I'm sitting in the recliner (I write my thoughts long hand before transcribing to the computer), and I'm hungry (haven't eaten yet today and it's 12:30pm) and still, I can't force myself to get up. Not even to quell my hunger.

Finally Got Up

Well it seems being peed on was the motivation I needed to get me out of my chair! Thank you Shelby. Shelby is 14yrs old a bit incontinent. She sometimes pees in her sleep. She was sleeping on my lap when her bladder relaxed. Welcome to my glamorous life!!

Fear

I remember having a conversation with Sean about how I feel that fear is a terrible emotion. I think he asked me why and said that fear is meant to help us. But for me fear is a terrible feeling. I can't even properly describe how it feels. In the trauma group they teach us to be aware of our bodies and how different emotions make us feel on a physical level. So fear ..... how does it 'feel'??

1. tightness in the chest
2. sometimes light headedness
3. stomach flutters
4. pressure in the head
5. voice trembles
6. shakiness
7. sometimes nausea
8. heart races
9. body tension
10. sometimes I feel cold

I feel a sense of panic and urgency although I don't know for what

Fear brings a feeling of 'no way out'. A feeling of being trapped; cornered. It's like being under attack but there is no attacker. Fear brings a sense of panic. Is panic an emotion?

For me fear is paralyzing. Like a deer in headlights, I freeze. Fight or flight aren't even options. My mind and body shutdown, frozen. I can't think clearly. I can't function properly. The fear feeds more fear.

Small Victories

The pandemic fueled hoarding seems to be slowing down. Today I was able to purchase much needed paper towels. Hand sanitizer is still sold out everywhere but his past week I found the ingredients to make my own hand sanitizer ..... rubbing alcohol and aloe vera gel.

Weird Dream

Just woke up from the strangest dream. My mother was in it. Murder She Wrote was on the tv and there was a black and tan dog on the screen. For some reason I was trying to get my mothers attention to tell her something about the dog and she kept ignoring me and talking about a different dog. And I kept saying, “No ... look at the tv!”. Finally, feeling beyond frustrated, I said , “forget it”, and got up to leave, at which point my mother grabbed my arm only now it was a dog biting/clamping down on my arm. I then angrily turned to her and yelled, “you are SUCH a toxic mother!!” And then I woke up feeling disturbed for having made that statement.

I think I still feel like it's wrong to acknowledge my mothers behaviour . I think there's a part of me that still wants to believe it's not true. A part of me that doesn't want to feel any animosity. It still feels wrong to say anything bad about a parent.

Trauma Response

The uncertainty of the covid 19 pandemic .... the shutdown of businesses, schools, churches, stores; restrictions placed on travel; social distancing and self isolation. People told to stay home. No visiting friends or family. Hospitals and Long Term Care homes disallowing visitors. Pretty much everything deemed non-essential has been shutdown. I heard on the news today that London, England as been locked down. People are only allowed outside of their houses to get groceries or pharmaceutical needs and /or for one hour of fresh air per day. Here in Ontario we're told to stay home and only go out for needed supplies. I need to go out every couple of days for dog food and water, and when I'm out I feel like I'm doing something wrong and I'm going to get in trouble.

I've seen friends comment on social media about how exhausted they feel even though their daily activities have been decreased by loss of work. People asking 'how can I be this tired when I'm not even working'. What they don't realize is that they are experiencing a trauma response. People like myself are quite familiar with this feeling. You can't actively fight the threat, in this case the covid 19 virus (no vaccines, and no cure available), and you can't run away from it (it's global), so your body goes into what I recently heard referred to as 'play dead mode'. We feel powerless .... fight and flight are not options so the only coping mechanism left is avoidance (freeze). And then, we feel guilty for not being active; for not being productive; for sitting around doing nothing. But what I'm learning through the therapy and the trauma group is that we are processing a lot (being it covid 19 or past trauma history) even if we don't recognize it. With me personally it's the complex trauma accrued over a lifetime, now compounded with the pandemic and financial worries caused by it. For my friends and much of the world it's processing the pandemic and its affect on peoples lives. For our front line workers it's processing the pandemic, fear for their own health/exposure, long hours, stress, and compassion fatigue.

So with all this stress and fear that the pandemic is putting on people we have to remember and remind each other that it's okay to take a nap. It's okay to cry. It's okay to do nothing. We are all coping and healing.

It's okay not to be okay.

March 29, 2020

It's 4:25am and I just woke up having a panic attack. I don't remember a whole dream; just a short snippet. I was talking to a lady at a desk and she was booking appointments for medical procedures and she said there was a cancellation for an angiogram and they could put me in as soon as next week. And depending on the results, it could negate the 'other test' (?) I have no idea what the other test was. Anyway, at that point I felt panic and woke up to find myself having a panic attack. Why am I dreaming something like this? And it bears the question what came first ..... did the dream trigger the panic attack; or did the panic attack trigger the deream to wake me up?

It's 5:01am and I can't get back to sleep. I tried deep breathing but my mind has taken me to thinking about my cousin Kevin who drowned when I was a kid. I don't remember the year so don't know how old I was. Kevin went out on a boat on Georgian Bay with his friend, and the weather got bad and they went missing, and presumed dead. Police rescuers and divers searched for them, charting the currents to determine where the wreckage would likely be. They found Kevins friends body and wreckage from the boat where the currents dicated, but no sign of Kevin. For six weeks (if memory serves me correctly) my aunt would go down to the waters edge adn yell at the lake (at Kevin), “you come back!! you hear me .... you come home!!” And six weeks later his body defied the science, defied the currents, and floated up in the water in front of their cottage. On the night before Kevin was found I had a dream that my sister and I were out on the lake in a rowboat with one of our friends; and our friends brothers body floated up in the water beside our boat.

It's 5:15am now. Hoping the dogs snoring and cats purring will lull me back to sleep.

6:33am > still awake. Feeling agitated, cold, jumpy legs, and itchy. It's raining outside. Roof is leaking. Put piddle pads down in the living room to catch the water. It's dripping pretty heavily. Meanwhile sleep eludes me. Trying to sleep is futile. Frustrating. Put tv on. Made hot chocolate. Took a Benadryl. Daylight is breaking. Two or three hours of sleep would be nice. Hopefully the benadryl will kick in.

2pm > cat napped most of the day so far. The benedryl kicked in. Now I'm awake/up and my anxiety level is really high. My heart is beating hard against my chest, and I can feel it in my throat as well. I've got that low blood sugar feeling that aptly describes how anxiety feels. And I'm feeling a little shaky

Trigger?

Last night a show called Crime Beat featured the case of Alison Parrot, an 11yr old girl who was raped and murdered in 1986. I remember the case because it was big news at the time, but also because it wasn't long after my own stalking. My stalking began with a phone call attempting to lure me to an audition. Alison Parrots abduction began with a phone call luring her to a photo shoot. That commen thread, a phone call from the perpetrator, made that case hit a little too close to home. I remember at the time thinking I wonder if it is the same guy. They did eventually catch Alison Parrots killer and bring him to justice. My stalker was never identified. The show triggered some anxiety while I watched it. Nervousness. Fidgeting. I wonder if that might have been a trigger for the panic attack that awoke me?