Where'd you go?

I have a tendency to cut and run. Not just in everyday stuff, "I'm bored here, let's bail" sort of thing, but even in significant situations like relationships, living situations, time zones. Thing is, I think it's an extension of that everyday boredom that ultimately drives me to make drastic life decisions. I like to live the life of a nomad and when I start to accrue too much stuff or feel too established in a place I start to get itchy.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night from Oakland. I've relocated to the other side of the country now, back to where I grew up, in the Washington DC area.  California was my home for seven years, I had a family of friends, a sweet apartment and a job I liked.  In response to all of these things, I moved 3,000 miles away to start over again.

Stability makes me uncomfortable. I feel like it lets my brain idle and to be honest, I think that's the worst thing in the world. Really.  Psychologically.  Deeply.  I believe boredom will destroy me.  I need to be juggling a few swords at all times while spinning a plate or two as well.  If I get too comfortable I get curious about what else is out there.  I want to explore.

Don't get me wrong, I could, in theory, find somewhere to call home and would always return to.  It could be a place, it could be a person.  Having a single fixed point of stability in life is necessary, like the sun in a solar system, but I love the moving parts around the fixed point.  I will orbit.  Ideal job would allow me to travel all over but intermittently return to my fixed point.  It couldn't be a traditional setup, but whatever. If that's meant to happen it will.

So my friend from Oakland (the fast-ender, in fact) laughed when I told him I'd just gotten too comfortable so I uprooted and bailed. In fact, I think I told him if he'd been meaner to me I might have stayed. It was weird to hear myself say that concept aloud.  I think it's at the heart of my anxiety, really. I'm afraid to be idly comfortable because I never had an idle moment as a kid.  I just went from school to sports to homework to bed without a second to breathe in between.  As a result my brain processes and deconstructs situations at the speed of light and then it sits there, vibrating like a springer spaniel on point, and asks "now what?"

When I get idle I get self-destructive just to have something to recover from.  It's like getting tattoos so the healing period can put the passage of time into tangible form. If I knew how to get drugs I swear there are moments I would be all over it just to experience something new, to shut my brain up for a minute.  I'm trying to figure out constructive ways to keep my brain occupied.  Ugh, it's a process. But I'm working on it.  Being in DC with all the free museums and monuments and great public transit is helping. Seeing friends I haven't seen in years is helping too.  Aw, hell, that's all life is, isn't it?  We've got so much time and we're all trying to find the "best" way to use it.

The important moments

Hi all,

The following is an article I wrote about important moments in life, but I think it pertains a lot to the journey I'm trying to expose here.  Enjoy!

Moments in Life that Matter

The significant moments in life are hard to discern, I think, when we are living them.  Rarely is there is a big, flashing sign somewhere that says “pay attention; this is gonna be big,” before we walk into a bar and meet our soul mate, or walk out and get hit by a car.  Sometimes the moments are so small and stack up so slowly that we might even forget when the whole bus started to turn and we began weaving unsurely off in a new direction.

For me, my significant moments are only clearly seen through hind-sight.  I’ve never had any made-for-TV moments like getting a big promotion at work or accidentally bumping into Prince Harry in an elevator (and of course subsequently making him fall madly in love with me).  My life’s been a normal one, of hardships, small triumphs, and a lot of digging in and pushing hard to get where I am today. 

When I was younger I had a lot of health problems, chronic ones that carry through today, so I isolated myself and learned to fold myself up inside the back of my head and peek out only at what was going on right in front of me.  I didn’t think about the past (too depressing) or the future (irrelevant and unwanted), just focused on getting through that particular moment without losing my mind.  As I got older, into my early 20s, I learned how to manage my health better and my purview got wider, and I actually dared to take a look toward the future with curiosity.  When it came to engaging the world outside my head, my thought patterns switched from “why?” to “why not?” 

Looking back, that was a huge game-changer for me.  And on paper it sounds like a proper epiphany.  But I don’t remember the moment when it happened.  It came in a bunch of tiny decisions I made, day to day.  I had a supportive network of friends at the time and they just kept nudging me, offering me social situations, inviting me along on short trips, and little by little, instead of resisting their invitations, I took them.  They probably didn’t know it, but every time we went to a house party, a trip to go dancing or to see a rock show, it was a big victory for me.  To see them take everything in stride made me want to be able to do that too, and at some point it shifted from wanting to do it, to doing it.

With a new-found freedom I moved west and pretty much did whatever I wanted without a thought to consequences.  I still made it a point (and I don’t think I had the psychological capacity) to never, ever look at my past, since it was such a downer, and could only think about my immediate future.  By the time I hit my mid-twenties I was incredibly tired.  I never turned down an invitation to go out, I was in a couple bands, in grad school, and worked full time, so the only thing I could cut back on was sleep.  So I slept little, rocked out a lot and studied in between.  I didn’t care if I died that day, as long as I was fully engaged when it happened.   However, the lifestyle was completely unsustainable health-wise, which I realized when I fell asleep one afternoon and didn’t wake until 2 days later.  I was suddenly forced to think of life as a long-term project instead of a minute-by-minute game of chance.  I did not like this change.   I fought it and made myself miserable.

After getting my Master’s, I took a break from work for a bit, took a breath, and realized that in order to  make my current life tolerable, I needed to close a chapter on that first part of my life I had been drinking handles of whiskey to forget.  I don’t remember a whole lot of that time, even though it was only about 10 years ago.  One of the wonders of the human mind is to make terrible sicknesses go by in a haze – that fever-dream sort of reality you can remember happening, but all the details are muted.  I had consciously driven a solid wedge between the younger me, when I was deathly ill, and the kinda grown-up me that had forged a life on the west coast.  It was time to reconcile.  So I scraped up that skinny, scared, often vacant-eyed little girl that was pre-millennial me and have her a hug, gave her some support, and I took her with me as I returned home, to the east coast.  

I was only half alive for quite a while, as a person with a future but no past.  So now I’m currently facing that which has always scared me the most and finding it’s not as bad as I thought.  Don’t get me wrong, it can get dark sometimes.  Lord, can it.  But while the first part of my life was painful and brutal, it’s a big part of who I am now, good or bad.  I still don’t care if I die today and I still do pretty much whatever I want (though in a more responsible way, I guess).  I like those traits and I don’t know if I would have acquired them without my fairly rocky start to life.  That’s a second and fairly recent epiphany for me.  The moment when I realized I am truly the sum of my life experience and every bit of it is relevant to who I am now. 

So shit happens.  Sometimes you get buried under a load of it and it takes a long time to dig out, but all you can do is know that eventually it will be folded into your psyche, and you will step away a slightly different but more resilient person.  Nietzche was right (and isn’t he always, though?): That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.  Where’s my bus headed now?  Not sure.  I’ve learned to let go a bit and just see where the road leads.  Besides, I can always turn off the path if I want, as there are all kinds of tiny miracles to be found in the dust and the dirt and the dark.

Nice girls don't get chest tattoos

A friend of mine's lady friend made this proclamation.  This was presumably after she saw my old school chest piece. Well, honestly, my immediate reaction is to say "bitch, you don't know me," but then, I don't know her either, apart from the tattoo quip.  However, this is a point of contention with me.  People look at my tattoo and think I'm some sort of wild woman or reckless or...

Truth is, my tattoo is a line in the sand.  It separates the utter crazy of my childhood/adolescence from my adult life, which I am currently struggling to get a grip on.  Consider it like a bomb going off, obliterating from memory pretty much everything from age 14 to 22.  I'm not saying 22 on has been a pile of roses. It hasn't.  Hasn't.  But it's been a ride, and I remember most of it, but most importantly I was in control of everything that happened to me, good or bad.

Control has become paramount in my life.  I succumbed to panic attacks and agoraphobia because I had no control over my life.  I mean think about it.  As a kid, you have no control over anything.  When you wake, eat, sleep, learn and exercise is all dictated by adults, and you have no say.  You can even say "I feel sick and don't want to be here," and people will look at you and say "you look fine.  Sit down til the lesson's over."  The funny thing was, I never really perceived this as a lack of control.  No kid really does.  But when I hit about...oh, 15 or 16, suddenly I was hit with a wall of anxiety.  I started feeling trapped on the way to school on the bus, in class, in the lunch room, in study hall; I would have panic attacks all day every day until I finally got a chance to go outside for soccer or track practice.  

Now, for a person as socially oblivious as I was (and still kind of am) how the hell did I get stuck with a socially-related anxiety disorder?  My issues stem from my stomach, which has always been sensitive and is just a bit off.  I have a hyper-acidic stomach and GERD (look it up) which is exacerbated by stress, so that isn't helpful since stressing about my stomach would only perpetuate a cycle.  I always worry my stomach will hurt in public and I'll have no where to go to be alone so I can just be miserable in peace. So this developed into agoraphobia, aversion to populated events, or any room populated with anyone other than myself.

Anyway, socially oblivious me getting agoraphobia, a condition hung much on the actions/reactions of others to your condition.  Weird. I never thought about it as an adolescent, of course, but now, looking back, I understand this condition sprang up because other people were imposing constant control over me.  I went to a private Catholic school, with uniforms, four minutes (not five, four) between classes, few teachers willing to give out hall passes, and an overall atmosphere oppressive to difference. These days I pride myself on being odd.  I don't know what I thought then.  I don't think I though about. Anyway, I didn't drive, so really, I was stuck at that place all day every day no matter how bad I felt.  No way out.  So I would sit in class, gripping the desk, white knuckled (so to speak), and became a master at putting on a positive face. Then I would close myself in the bathroom for three of the four minutes between classes and silently cry as hard as I could to relieve stress.

My days started early, up at 5:30 AM, bus by 6:30 (it took about 1.5 hours to drive the 23 miles to my high school every morning...Washington DC traffic 15 years ago, and it's only gotten worse), school 8-3, sports practice 3:30-5, home by 6:30 or 7, dinner, homework 9-11 PM.  I got those couple homework hours to myself.  Any time I wasn't in a car/bus or at school my mother was hovering.  She's a worrier.  She's also histrionic.  It's from her I learned expressing my actual discomfort led to catastrophe.  Better to keep a stiff upper lip. So, 5:30 AM to 9 PM I kept up a stony facade.  Then I got about 6 hours sleep.  And then the day began again.

So maybe it was inevitable that I snapped.  Unsnapping has been a sliver by sliver process.  College was my first taste of what adult life might be like (before, you know, it swung back into the oppressive stage again with work and all), getting to walk out of a room when I wanted to, eat whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted to, decline or accept social invitations as I saw fit.  It was a slow process coming out of my shell, but I did it, panic be damned.  I'll elaborate on my mid-college epiphany an current coping techniques in another post.

So after college, I felt like a new woman.  I'd begun to figure out my triggers, that trapped crazy feeling would alert me to shift locations (and eventually I'd just learn to kibosh the rising panic feeling if I left the situation or not) and I could actually go to rock shows, be on planes, go to festivals and house parties and bars as I pleased.  I had a blast going places I literally never thought I could go two years ago.  It was like standing with my face in the wind, smelling Europe roll in across the Atlantic.  I could do anything.

So I got a tattoo drawing a line in the sand.  

And on the other side, this side, was a woman with a future as wide open as the west.  And that's where this woman was going.

So I got a tattoo to mark the break between that girl and this woman, and I operate now to repair and buoy this woman, and remind her that the future still has promise, even though dying tomorrow holds no menace. I got a tattoo to remind me every time I look in the mirror, the only way to live is to look ahead and not to dwell in the past.

I got a tattoo to draw a line in the sand, and it says "Never Look Back."

Hello DC

Alright, well, I've got my GP squared away, got my health insurance cards, and got a referral with a list of counselors so I can keep up with whatever the hell is happening inside my brain.  Now I just need to etch in some time to do the research, do the trial runs (picking a psych counselor is like picking a life partner.  Seriously.) and get started on whatever homework they give me.  I hope there's homework.  I'm generally my most in-touch when in therapy and then snap back to all my bad habits once I'm out.

On another note, a friend of mine from back in California is in town, so I'm the most social I've been since getting here.  The weather's kind of a mess, but it won't hold us back too much.  The weekend's supposed to be nice.  I do still have to convince myself to leave the house every day, and meet my friend for dinner and drinks and such.  And she's, like, my best friend.  What the hell is the matter with me?? 

Oops.  I have pretty negative thought patterns.  I'm hoping a counselor can help me shape that up.

Anyway, looking at all these awesome buildings and memorials in DC that I've taken for granted, since I grew up here, has been interesting and enlightening.  Things you always thought were just there, a part of the overall architecture of your life, really have a lot of detail you never looked at because it was always there.  The Hirschorn may become my new favorite place for some quiet. Even on busy weekends it has a sort of calm energy inside it I could eat up with a spoon.

I visited the new MLK monument with my dad.  His fraternity in college was the major player in getting that monument idea started and rolling way back in the 60s/70s.  I never knew that.  One of those little things that rolled up into something larger.

I'm optimistic at the moment, America.  Despite the rain, and upheaval of moving and re-establishing everything about myself (driver license, car insurance, home address etc.), I feel substantially less manic here in the ol' hometown.  I am, however, a little reticent about becoming a Maryland resident...

Alright, step one's in the bag

The first step to tackling my issues is in the bag.

Not sure if you know, America, but I'm in a brand new town with a brand new job and therefore brand new medical insurance.  So my step one was to establish a GP and get a referral to a therapist so I can get through this winter without a breakdown (I got that seasonal affective disorder over in NoCal, with the rain for four months straight).  I got my therapist referral, so when I'm ready I can pick one or two out, try them on and see which one I like.

Therapists are like bras.  Not all of them support you the way you like.  You just have to keep trying them on until you get the right fit.  Until I find that therapist (or bra with perfect underwire) The Doctor will be supporting me.  Doctor Who, that is.  I'm on a little bit of a nerd kick while I'm being a new-to-the-area hermit.  Soon, meaning probably in the Spring, I will branch out a bit more and make friends.  As it stands I'm keeping to myself, visiting the family (they live round here) and focusing on getting my work established.

Step two will be building a foundation of trust with a therapist and addressing my issues one by one.

Step three will be, Christ dammit, to establish an actual relationship with someone.  Sex is fun, but is not inherently part of an intimate relationship.  I tend to pick guys that will never demand a real connection out of me, and I ask myself constantly if that's something I truly and actually want.

So here's my thought -- my folks are very old fashioned and not very communicative.  I ask one about a tough time in life and they say, 'gosh that must have been tough on your mom/dad.'  Like they've never discussed it.  I really don't want that to be me, though I at least understand where my closed-off tendency comes from.  So yeah, I really do want a close and communicative relationship with someone, but first, I guess I have to be actually aware of what I'm feeling.  At the moment, I generally have no idea.

So I'll let you know how the therapist hunt goes, America.  I'm (re)reading a book called Phobias and How to Overcome Them by James Gardner and A. H. Bell.  It helped me feel less crazy during a period of time I was looking for something, anything to grasp onto.  There are accounts in the book of other people going through exactly what I was going through, and how they managed to break free.

Everyone has a story, and this one's mine.  Stay tuned -- next I will be delving into my dreaded past.

Well here's me

Hey all.  So this blog is dedicated to the hows and whys of my day by day battle with agoraphobia.  That's the one where you aren't necessarily afraid of people, but more afraid of being trapped somewhere public with those people and having a panic attack.  My issues stem from feeling trapped.  I haven't had a panic attack in a long time (I'll get to that in another post probably) because I've come to recognize my triggers, can feel myself winding up and can cut it off before I hit the ceiling. So I can function in everyday society almost like a real girl.  Thing is, though, the stress triggers remain and I am tired of always having to convince myself to leave the house, of hardcore willing myself to face the throngs of people that inexplicably appear on the weekends, of repeating the mantra of "you're going to be fine," before I go in to work every morning.  And I AM fine in all of these situations, or more, nothing bad ever happens to me and I get home safely, so why all the stress still?

I can't really figure out how to turn these triggers off, or really where they came from, so I'm going to delve into this with a proper medical professional or two to try to figure out a way to increase my quality of living.  It's a thing I do (see my other blog The Fast, which is over now, for interested parties).  And apparently I really like laying all my revelatory processes out for everyone to see.

Currently, the life I lead is exhausting.  I think I'm about 50 on the inside while the outside is a youthful-looking 30 (ain't THAT a kick in the face).  So nobody even knows.  I'm pretty much flying under the radar.  A good place to be if you're an agoraphobic.

I'm not particularly in tune with what's going on inside my body in terms of emotions -- actually I'm pretty much in the dark about what's going on with anyone's emotions (again, see The Fast) so Lord knows, I need professional help.  Plan is to rip a big hole in my psyche and see what comes spilling out.  So sit back, everyone, and enjoy the carnage.