(no subject)

Jan 30, 2009 10:08

So, been up here with Travis in Oak Harbor, WA for a while. It's been good, and relaxing. It's felt really good for me to be here. The first weekend up here we went down to Seattle to visit Kevin and oneirus. Kevin and oneirus and I hung out and went to the Space Needle and stuff like that while Trav went skydiving with some buddies nearby. So that was fun.

Anyhow, my existence up here in some ways hasn't been that different, but being in a larger, more comfortable apartment, and having another person here every day who happens to be one of the two people in the world (the other being Kevin) who I feel like I can completely relax and be myself with and not feel socially pressured by has been an incredible difference for my health. During the day while he's at work, I've been playing some of his computer games usually, mostly Spore and Portal, both of which I've enjoyed immensely.

The plan has been (since about after that first weekend, which was how long I required to formulate a plan at all), to fly back this coming Tuesday, Feb. 3rd. I've been seriously considering moving up here with him after that, staying in Davis for another month to settle my affairs then packing everything into a moving van and heading back up here to stay. It would be a good arrangement and I think it'd be healthier for me than my recent living arrangements, with a better environment to make progress toward long-term recovery of my functionality as a person.

Yesterday and today, though, I woke up with some pretty severe anxiety attacks, that are taking a while to get through. I think they may be triggered by the looming reality of having to go back to Davis and the process of settling up my affairs there before transplanting myself to healthier soil. The social and logistical reality of dealing with those steps feels like more than I can handle as I get closer to it, although it seemed doable enough, on paper, when it wasn't hurtling toward me at the speed of realtime like this. Historically I've been good at short bursts of necessary activity to get to another preferred state of inactivity for a while. I should be a pro at moving by now. The anxiety disorder makes things different, though, apparently. The stress of moving to my studio apartment that I have now, when I was at the very height of my anxiety disorder, was probably lost in the haze of my anxiety over everything else in the world, and at the time I was getting a lot of steering and pushing toward that move from those around me. Anyway... yeah. This'll be different, and it should be doable, but for some reason it seems to be sparking much more anxiety than I realized. I think it's mostly the prospect of the social interactions required (with my landlady, doctors, etc.) to tie up my loose ends there before moving up, that are triggering the anxiety attacks. I also can't rule out the possiblity that some of the anxiety might be being triggered by the thought of the actual flight back itself. I haven't flown very much in my life, ever... only once that I can actually remember, about nine years ago... but I've always felt more wistfully excited about the idea of flying, not really ever afraid of it. Maybe it's the idea of dealing with the post-9/11 security and making sure my computer makes it with me okay and dealing with the crowds of people without having anyone there beside me to hold my hand. Anyway, the idea of being afraid of flying wasn't something I expected, but now that I write it out like above, it actually does make sense that the social environment that I'll be in for several hours would be one that doesn't feel good for me. Okay, so there's that, too. I guess the attacks make sense when that gets put together with the idea of the interactions around settling up my affairs in Davis.

Okay, so, now I have a better idea of what the problem is, having written it out. Next step is doing something about it.

Onward.
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