Stuck

Sometimes, I’m not sure who I am writing for.

The point was this website was twofold:

• Attract clients/work by looking more professional (having my own website makes me legit, right?)
• House a blog where I can process and share my thoughts while recovering

Unfortunately, I am not sure the goal two supports goal one. I’m honestly afraid that goal two may make me look a crazy person. Or depressed. Or unreliable. Or scary.

Allow me to clarify:

Yes, I have diagnosed PTSD from a traumatic, three-month-long hospital stay and continued health concerns, though they are hopefully resolving.

No, I am not clinically depressed. I have moments of depression, and you may see more glimpses of that here than if you met me for coffee. It’s not that I’m trying to hide. It’s just that I might not process the feelings of anxiety, confusion, and struggling for hope over a latte or in a job interview. I will here, in a safe space (or is it a safe space, really, if I’ve made it public?). I’m hoping that writing out my feelings and my memories will help with healing.

Yes, I am reliable when in my own power and stable. If you ask functional Sarah to perform a task, she will. If you ask hospitalized Sarah … well, she’ll try. If she can’t do it in the hospital, she will do it as quickly as possible once she’s released. I’m going to stop referring to myself in the third-person, now.

No, I am not scary unless you’re a medical professional, and, even then, my HISTORY is scary. My person is the opposite of intimidating. Remarkably so.
I once had a thirteen-year-old student burst into uncontrollable laughter when I declared, “I am scary! I should be terrifying!”
Granted, this “child” was already six feet tall, but STILL.
I have tried my whole life to be easy to deal with, to be “pleasant” but unnoticed. My medical history doesn’t allow for that, unfortunately. I’ve had doctors tell me I’m scary and even refuse to treat me. My chart is a Russian novel in length and complexity, but I have worked HARD to be an ideal patient in the clinic. I keep meticulous notes, religiously keep up with my meds, and strive to be polite and accommodating. “Oh, this vein isn’t bleeding for you? Please, go ahead and poke me three more times. No, I don’t like it, but I don’t mind. It has to happen, right?”

Today, we continue to battle fluid in my lungs. Even with a new heart valve, we keep getting fluid in my lungs. I hate it. It’s terrifying. This is what put me on the ventilator. The fluid that led to exhaustion, that led to irritation, that led to inflammation, that led to bleeding. So much blood. Coughing it up, gasping for breath. Red, red, red. Then nothing.

“You aren’t there anymore,” my husband says. “That took months for you to get that bad. We know about it, now. Your heart is fixed. We’re treating it. You’re not going back.”

And I sit and rock back and forth compulsively and try not to weep or scream. I put the pulse oximeter back on to verify that my levels aren’t dropping, to see if my heart rate has fallen or risen.

And I can’t sit still. I try deep breathing exercises, but the moment the recording asks me to focus on bodily sensations, the anxiety seems to claw out of my chest. I can’t sit still. My anxiety doesn’t calm like it used to. I used to love those mediations and exercises. They soothed me. Helped me focus. Now, they make me want to claw my skin off. All I feel and hear is my heart ticking and my anxiety climbing. I don’t WANT to pay attention to my bodily sensations. I’m so aware of them already; I’m afraid of what more awareness will uncover. I don’t want to feel my body failing. Again.

I can’t sleep unless I’m utterly exhausted because I can’t just calm down like I used to. Even looking at people lying flat in bed makes me anxious. Laying flat in bed used to trigger breathing issues and vomiting. If I laid flat for any length of time, sometime later, I’d have a coughing fit until I violently vomited. Later, it would progress to coughing up blood and struggling to breathe. Red, red, red.

Even if I can lay flat, I hate doing so. It makes me so anxious.

I get anxious eating salty food. Anything that may cause fluid retention. And then I realized I eat when I’m anxious, sometimes, just to avoid feeling the anxiety. Then I can focus on the act of eating and not whether or not I’m breathing well or my heart is racing. I never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but I am actively running from being in the present. I don’t want to be here, right now, because I might feel myself getting sicker. But I also might miss a vital symptom that I need to treat.

If I focus, if I exist in the moment, my anxiety soars. So I am mentally running away constantly. Run away from the feelings. Run away from the realizations. But don’t run too far and miss something important. But don’t focus too hard, or you’ll have to face it.

The problem is that, once I face it, I get stuck. I don’t know how to unstick, staring my anxiety, my fear, my pain, in the yes. It’s a giant, drooling beast ready to gobble me up, and I can’t do anything but stare at it and scream. It doesn’t retreat. It doesn’t mellow into a puppy I can manage. It doesn’t devour me. It just sits and stares with its giant maw open and I can’t look away. So I try not to look it in the eyes.

I’m told the therapy will help. I need help. I am simultaneously stuck and running, like an emotional treadmill, but without the health benefits. I’d like to breath out of the treadmill. I’d like to walk. I know I’ll never be fully rid of my trauma, but I’d like to walk side-by-side with it instead of standing still, screaming at it in a panic.

I am so tired of silently screaming.