Troublesome Patterns

[I wrote this a few days ago, just didn't feel like it was the right time to post it.]

Last night was… not my best.

Keep in mind as you read this that I’m in a great mood right now. Today was wonderful and full of awesome things that I’ll touch on in a little bit. Right now is, well, right now. I need to write about this while I’m not in the moment but also before I lose the vividness of it- you know what I mean?

Work was tough, frustrating at best.

I got home and things perked up considerably but my brain had been through the wringer and I wasn’t entirely myself. The little tricks ingrained in my mind like Pavlov’s dogs working their moves on me and I was just so tired I wasn’t able to really hold them off like I usually do. Usually I’m pretty sharp, quick to wit and sly with methods to get around those tricks within but not last night.

My mind started wandering down the bad path and it was something like a mud slide. I’d see myself slip a little, catch myself and be sturdy for a moment before slipping again. Rinse and repeat until I started sliding faster and could no longer rely on myself.

It’s amazing all the different forms a sword and shield can take, sometimes sharing the same incarnation like, say for example, my Mp3 player. If you surge just the right kind of music through your ears you can disrupt all the silence in between- one of the few good things my bio parent taught me that I still find myself using today.

But last night it wasn’t good enough. I started thinking the bad thoughts, thoughts I knew weren’t true, thoughts I knew would depress and frighten me, and thoughts that just belong inside a person like me. I’ve got a good life surrounded by good people, I should be happy, but instead it’s my happiness that makes me sad as I cringe every single moment of every single day, worried without resolve that it will all vanish and I will never again be able to fall into the bliss of now that I had never before been able to imagine.

If even a single one of you says ‘think positive’ or ‘you’re being negative so it’s your own fault you feel that way’ or any variant on those… I’ll make sure you’re spammed like heck for the next year and a half and if you don’t believe me… :) then you don’t know me very well. I’m generally a very positive person, I pride myself on being able to change the way I see things, getting a different view that others may not have thought possible. It’s a cool way to be but when I’m having these feelings… I can’t just turn it off.

It just doesn’t work that way.

I would start thinking thee bad thoughts, physically shake myself out of them- tell myself they’re not true and remind myself I know. Bring up a list of ‘proof’ of why these thoughts aren’t true, distract myself, play music, meditate, run in a damn circle. It doesn’t matter, any second I let my guard down and there they are waiting to ambush me in the dark recesses of my mind.

Like I said above, usually it’s no problem. I can see it coming and take preventive action but after working five banquets, a wedding, and buffet (with a moron I might add) my brain just can’t respond that fast and even if I see it coming… Have you ever tried to something that required a lot of focus or a bit of skill after skipping a whole night of sleep? Even if you’re practiced at it you can feel when you’re at that point where you’re quite as quick- even reflexively. Your mind takes a bit longer to make conclusions and neurons don’t always connect. I was at that phase only the problem I was dealing with that required both focus and skill was inside my head where the sleepiness was most troublesome.

Eventually I was able to shake off the bulk of the bad thoughts, bringing myself back to fairly normal levels of paranoia but if I knew what kind of effect such repression would have on me later in the night… I would have just locked myself in the bathroom and let the thoughts take control, pacing back and forth and crying over things that weren’t. Get it out of my system, berate myself later, deal with the shame of falling into an episode and then repeat it all over again when the stress from aforementioned shame eats me into another one.

Isn’t a beautiful cycle?

That’s sarcasm folks and if you didn’t see it coming you’re not reading enough.

So, I pushed back the thoughts but at a price. Keep in mind I only just realized there was a price at all or else I wouldn’t have done it. It’s not worth it, I’d rather repeat the cycle of panic attacks then give up my already precious few hours of sleep.

I’m no stranger to nightmares. I’ve had them all my life, usually on an off, never more than a few in a row. They’ve never been brought on by horror movies or anything of the sort and fortunately for me most of them don’t deal too obviously with my past though the bulk of them are connected in some way or another.

When I was younger, well, actually throughout much of the I lived with her, my bio parent would occasionally take me to see her therapists (I think it was cheaper or something) and insist I was having nightmares- I say insist because she was telling a therapist for crying out loud. She was telling them as if it was a problem but the thing was I never saw it as one. I only had one once in a great while, not even once a month.

I’m getting off topic. Woops. Anyway,…

So, I don’t have nightmares very often. A little more so since foster care but that’s to be expected. Now though, well, in the last few months, I’ve had several a month. That’s a few a week, sometimes a couple of nights in a row. Worse, I’m not talking about the average nightmare- or maybe I am. I’m not familiar how other people feel when they have nightmares but usually I’m fine afterwards. Wake up, heart pounds for a bit, listen to some music or work on a story until I’m ready to go back to sleep usually within a half an hour if it’s really upsetting.

Now, though, things are different. These nightmares are horrifying. I wake up in cold sweats with a silent scream upon my lips. This morning I woke up and nearly cried. My heart pounds like it all really happened and there is no getting back to sleep- at all.

Before any of you say it, I’m not drinking caffeine before I sleep. I don’t drink any caffeine- ever, even if I joke about it. I don’t eat/drink much sugar on a daily basis either and I don’t do drugs or drink alcoholic. In fact, I’ve never done drugs.

I have noticed a disturbing pattern- last night’s vivid imagery being the point at which I saw it. I have the nightmares when I’m trying not to hear the bad thoughts, when I manage to distract myself, or even go from negativity to optimism. I also have them when I block out the things… in my head.

It’s not fair. The things I’m blocking out are the things I rightfully should be blocking out (ignoring). I talk about them, I write about them (like on posts like these or in stories others may never see), I vent and vent and vent, but it makes it worse. The venting makes them stronger, the bad thoughts, because I’m giving them more of my time so I fight not to give them any time and boom! They send me nightmares that would frighten a soldier.

It’s not like I watch gory movies, my paranoia isn’t that creative, and I’m not sadistic but the things I have going on in my mental midnight television are frightening and painful. They leave me shuddering…

I’m a bit scared of the things going on in my head right now.

Actually,…

If I’m honest with myself- I’m more frightened than I’ve ever before admitted and since I have a habit of telling too much of myself… that’s saying something. At first I suspected the worst but then I calmed down and did some research and now my outlook has improved but not greatly. I think I’ve narrowed it down but I refuse to self diagnose if I can help it- that’s just dangerous especially with stuff like this, but at the same time, I NEED a name for this. I can’t fight the enemy I don’t know and knowing the name is a pretty good start in my mental world.

Hmm. I still have so much to say about this but at the moment I’ve run out of words and will to express it. Hopefully this will have gotten it out of my system.

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