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.