High anxiety: you win.*
Wednesday, 20 January 2016 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59In My More Lucid Moments I Realized That Insanity Was A Fairly Reasonable Explanation For What Was Happening To Me. The Problem Was That It Wasn’t Useful Information. Realizing I Was Crazy Didn’t Make The Crazy Stuff Stop Happening. Nor Did It Give Me Any Clues About What I Should Do Next.*
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I've been through this before, when Pat died. I had dizzy spells, and my anxiety levels went through the roof, and I had trouble doing things, particularly driving. Intersections with stop lights terrified me; I was sure I was going to be T-boned at every one I drove through. I started screaming as I drove through them. Maybe it helped. I got better, anyway.
I'm there again. I know it's the anxiety over my mother, it's making me crazy. I didn't go to work today because there's some snow. I don't know how much. I was screaming yesterday, when the streets were clear. Today I would have been driving five miles an hour and deliberately stopping at green lights. So I stayed home.
I'm trying not to worry about this, trying not to see it as the shape of things to come, a harbinger of being self-trapped in my own house. I don't think it is. It's a symptom of a problem I'm having right now, and I'll either acclimate to the situation or the problem will resolve itself. (That's a euphemism for my mother dying.) I'm pushing myself when it's necessary, but the rest of the time I'm trying to be kind to myself.
Whenever I have to stay home, I require myself to be productive. So far today I've done some cleaning in the kitchen, and I'm hoping to cook. Being productive assuages my guilt. To quote Carrie Fisher, "I feel I'm very sane about how crazy I am." Since I can't eliminate it, I try to make my crazy work for me.
In related matters, Meg has gotten hinky about going out. He seldom just runs out the door anymore, even when the weather's perfectly lovely. Because I'm responsible for everything, I worry that he's picked up this new trepidatious behavior from me, that I'm making my cat agoraphobic. (This isn't totally unreasonable; I knew a woman whose dog was on tranquilizers because her stress levels were stressing him out so bad.) And on the other hand, I worry when I urge him to go out, that there's a predator he's aware of and I'm sending him into danger.
Of course, there are indoor cats who never leave their houses. I can't be one of them, but Meg can, if he wants to. And once spring comes and I have the door propped open, I'm sure he'll run in and out again. Maybe I will, too.
*High Anxiety, Mel Brooks
**Mark Vonnegut
-:- -:- -:- -:-
I've been through this before, when Pat died. I had dizzy spells, and my anxiety levels went through the roof, and I had trouble doing things, particularly driving. Intersections with stop lights terrified me; I was sure I was going to be T-boned at every one I drove through. I started screaming as I drove through them. Maybe it helped. I got better, anyway.
I'm there again. I know it's the anxiety over my mother, it's making me crazy. I didn't go to work today because there's some snow. I don't know how much. I was screaming yesterday, when the streets were clear. Today I would have been driving five miles an hour and deliberately stopping at green lights. So I stayed home.
I'm trying not to worry about this, trying not to see it as the shape of things to come, a harbinger of being self-trapped in my own house. I don't think it is. It's a symptom of a problem I'm having right now, and I'll either acclimate to the situation or the problem will resolve itself. (That's a euphemism for my mother dying.) I'm pushing myself when it's necessary, but the rest of the time I'm trying to be kind to myself.
Whenever I have to stay home, I require myself to be productive. So far today I've done some cleaning in the kitchen, and I'm hoping to cook. Being productive assuages my guilt. To quote Carrie Fisher, "I feel I'm very sane about how crazy I am." Since I can't eliminate it, I try to make my crazy work for me.
In related matters, Meg has gotten hinky about going out. He seldom just runs out the door anymore, even when the weather's perfectly lovely. Because I'm responsible for everything, I worry that he's picked up this new trepidatious behavior from me, that I'm making my cat agoraphobic. (This isn't totally unreasonable; I knew a woman whose dog was on tranquilizers because her stress levels were stressing him out so bad.) And on the other hand, I worry when I urge him to go out, that there's a predator he's aware of and I'm sending him into danger.
Of course, there are indoor cats who never leave their houses. I can't be one of them, but Meg can, if he wants to. And once spring comes and I have the door propped open, I'm sure he'll run in and out again. Maybe I will, too.
*High Anxiety, Mel Brooks
**Mark Vonnegut