Life Inside Panic

I had a Dr appointment Monday and ended up having one of the worst panic attacks I’ve ever had. The nurses were putting cool compresses on me to lower my body temp and the dr ordered oxygen because my color was so bad and my pulseox had dropped. My blood pressure had gone severely high. Of course I had no Xanax so it just spiraled down from there. The dr has some concerns about other conditions it might be since my anxiety is worsening when it should be improving so I had to get bloodwork and will have results shortly.

Other than that, I’ve been doing pretty good as of late. Having conversations with old friends and one in particular that makes me smile and might even be giving me a slight case of the butterflies. I’m enjoying having my sister here even if I want to kill her half the time. But I did lose Dolce, she died in her sleep, which was extremely hard for me. She was the last Valentine’s present from D before he bailed on me. D and I talked a bit last night and things seemed normal. Then he started messaging me drunk this morning; I won’t go into it but needless to say he was abnormally cruel. I don’t understand how someone who once claimed to love me could be so heartless. I guess I was a fool to have believed him to begin with. I always think every conversation with him will end with him wanting to put it all behind us and start over but I need to learn better. My life is not perfect but it is pretty ok right now. I have people that love me, a nice house that I feel safe in, a truck (that I despise but it’s free so I can’t complain lol), a couple good friends that I can count on no matter what, and T who lets me cry, whine, complain, and babble for hours on end and always manages to make me feel better. So while I might have broken down and cried all morning, feeling like a horrible person and that I deserved this all it took was a little pep talk from T for me to remember that I’m better than that. Hopefully I can remember that the next time D lets loose on me like that.

Yet again I have allowed my hope to override my better judgment. Facebook is a wonderful place to reconnect but it’s also a treacherous area where your past can find you. Well, mine did and I accepted it back in to my present. I received a request from D and, of course, accepted. Then came the hope of renewed communication. He agreed with a post I had made and wished me a Happy Birthday. His relationship status was changed to “it’s complicated”, which had me wondering what was going on in his life. And finally came the message ” I’m gonna get a card for the us and call you, I miss talking to you”. That was followed by nothing. No call. No message letting me know what happened. Just more questions and a little more salt in the wound. I keep thinking that I will understand his motives and be able to insulate myself from him but as soon as I hear from him it all comes back. My heart flutters and I feel that tiny seed of hope start to grow again. One of these days my heart will catch up to my head and he’ll no longer have the power to hurt me.

Facebook has also brought some joy as of late. I found a friend from high school and we have been talking. T is someone that I have always regretted losing. We had a very brief relationship and I liked him so much that just hearing his name always brought a smile to my face.  But, I was young and stupid and very concerned about what my friends thought so I allowed them to influence me. I broke things off with him based on the fact that I was getting grief from my two best friends. I spent the next couple years with an intense crush on him and feeling like a fool for not being able to stand up for myself. T was always a really great guy. He was so funny and had a truly sweet nature. He also had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. We’ve been chatting a little bit and, though he is very different, he still brings that smile to my face. I don’t know if it’s who he now or just the memory of that crush but I am always happy when his name pops up on yahoo or on my phone. It’s really nice to be starting a new friendship with someone that I have actually missed since graduating. It’s crazy the people that you continue to think about for years after they have left your life. I really hope we stay in contact this time.

It amazes me how sometimes a person will come in to your life and change everything. I believe all of my experiences have molded me in to the person I am and pushed me forward towards my destiny. The hard part is when I’m not sure if I should be moving forward or have already found it. How do we know when to fight for someone or just to keep going? Is it when the butterflies never go away? When the tears continue to flow? When the dreams never stop? I’ve always thought that if you just follow your heart ultimately everything will work out but I have learned that just because my heart desires it doesn’t mean it will be. It doesn’t matter how much I love someone or how badly I want them in my life if they don’t feel the same. How long can I wait for what I know can never be. I try so hard to make my heart follow my head. I try to be logical and ignore my emotions. I truly wish that this would pass, it has been so long. I have heard that once you find true love that person always holds a piece of your heart but in my case I believe that the person I loved took it all. I have nothing left to give anyone else and, for now, no desire to try. The strange part is as much as I used to fear being alone now I choose it because I feel I deserve better than having to settle. I have found a comfort in accepting this as my fate. I still dream of a life that will never be but always wake to reality. I still cry my tears and feel the pain of my broken heart but I refuse to crumble. I have moved so far past the anger and resentment that I have almost forgotten it was ever there. I can’t blame someone for how they feel any more than I can change how I do. For now, I will live my life as it is and try to find small moments of happiness in every day. I’ll have fun goofing with my sister or playing with my dogs. I’ll enjoy escaping in to a book or a movie. I’ll continue to journal so that I can see how over time my perspective changes. I don’t feel any different than I did a year ago, and I don’t know if I ever will, but I have learned to accept the situation for what it is. I cherish every second we had, both good and bad. But, I no longer spend my days trying to find that one thing I can say or do to bring him back to me or trying to figure out the exact moment where it all changed and things started to fall apart. I still cry, I still hurt, I still regret, but I no longer blame or live in denial. Life happens and that can’t be stopped; all I can do is hope that somewhere along the line I find someone I can just be still with. Even if that person is me.

Yet again I put my trust and faith in someone that clearly was not worth it. I allowed myself to overlook the obvious signs that I could not count on this person and force myself to see the good that I wanted to be there. I based everything on the fact that this person was someone I could count on. I’m just glad I took and emotional step back and waited to see how they would prove them-self to me in other ways after our initial set back. For the first time resisting my urge to just forgive and turn a blind eye to the hurt someone had caused me  in order to follow my heart has saved me a tremendous amount of pain. Maybe I am learning to wait and see people for what they are instead of just seeing the things about them I like. If you can’t count on someone in small ways you certainly can’t count on them for the things that matter. I am so grateful that I took a step back this time and waited because it gave me the chance to see that this person was not at all who I thought they were. It hurts a lot less to find out before you are fully invested. The sting is still there but the devastation is not. I guess disappointment and a small amount of sadness is much better than a broken heart. So, maybe I am learning after all.

Yet again I can’t sleep. I am stressed about my life, my job, my future, my present, I can’t seem to let go of my past. Nothing is certain. I find no comfort in anything. So here I find myself staring at a months worth of Xanax, Lexipro, and Lamictal and wondering. What if the answer is that simple? What if since everything I touch will always turn to ash I should just shut myself down completely? What if my purpose was to figure out that I have none. Is it really even a life when it’s filled with nothing but disappointment, betrayal, loneliness, and agonizing pain? Feelings that make every day seem less like waking up for. I don’t want to feel anymore. I want to go back to the way I was when all that mattered was who was paying my bar tab and how I was getting home. Why did he have to change me so much that I can’t go back? Why did he have to make me want a life that I can’t have and at the same time make me despise everything that I was before? Why can’t I erase the pain and just remember the good? And why does he get to pretend as though nothing happened just because he can shut off his emotions like a switch? I want him to feel it, every bit of it. I want him to cry every night the way he did before. I want him to feel even for one day the pain I feel and not be able to just push it down and ignore it. I want him to feel it or me to not feel it ever again.