War Within

Up and down. Back and forth. Side to side. Awake all night, sleeping all day. Eating everything, hating food. Craving companionship, needing to be alone. Feeling excited for new things, dreading change.

It's all the fucking time. Everything.

I'm struggling with panic attacks and nightmares and stress and frustration almost daily. I cry, I sit and stare at the TV, I try to fight it and sometimes I let myself give up. I'm disappointed that the logical part of my brain can't be stronger than the emotional part. I'm struggling with accepting I can't do anything about it. I'm struggling with allowing someone to take care of me. I'm struggling with allowing myself to be sick with an invisible illness. Logically, I get it. But my emotions are flipping the logic off.

It feels like my brain is at war. I'm happy and blissfully in love with my Fella and planning our wedding. But I'm also so riddled with anxiety that I jump at my own shadow.

Depression comes in too. Depression is pals with anxiety and when the two of them get together, my heart feels like an awkward third wheel that just wants to leave. It becomes too much. It pushes all the happy thoughts I might have out and demands that I pay attention to everything that's wrong.

And it makes me afraid. I am fearful of loss the most. I've experienced it and my heart and mind want to protect me from ever feeling that pain again. So I spend time thinking about it, wondering what I might do...if. I send myself into a terrible spiral. I worry about what will happen if the Fella is suddenly gone. I worry that my Dad won't be here to walk me down the aisle, or that the Fella's parents won't be there. I worry about the cats getting hurt or dying. I worry that when I leave my friends from a brunch that they won't make it home safely.  I worry and think about everyone else that when I start to think about myself, I back away from it. It's too hard.

I know to put my oxygen mask on first but I feel more comfortable being the one trying to calm everyone down instead of trying to breathe. I want to change that and some days I feel like I'm taking strides to do that. But when you're at war with yourself, it's hard to imagine victory.