Avoidance

It’s frustrating being smacked in the face by your own limits. Each time they catch you off guard; is it a denial that there isn’t anything wrong? Or is it because they come out of nowhere and are unpredictable? The situation you may have been in a thousand times before can randomly trigger a negative reaction and it is subjectively unpredictable!

Take tonight. There’s a Zumba class that I would like to go to with my fiancée but guess who reared their ugly head? That’s right, my limits. I was fine all day – it wasn’t a particularly busy day either – but right at the last minute I felt that regrettably familiar sensation of panic in my chest and then my mind began to shut down.

So what to do?

The staff at my CMHT would tell me that I need to push through; anxiety has never killed anybody and it can’t stay at that high level they’d say. Also once I get to the other side I’ll see that it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

I’ve had many panic attacks over the years and I really don’t want to experience one around people I am unfamiliar with. But maybe that is what must be done? Or should I take smaller steps?

Should I take care of myself and recognise my limits?

It’s hard to accept the fact that you’re mentally unwell (I still don’t believe it sometimes) and that you’re limits are far narrower than those possessed by a lot of others. I see the things my fiancée can do and it amazes me.

When she tried to persuade me to go tonight I got annoyed that she didn’t seem to understand me. I really wanted to go but there was something stopping me that I had no control over and wasn’t even able to put into words; I was annoyed but I also recognised that she has no idea how it feels to experience these things.

There is someone else with me in here. He can’t speak but he can take over my body; stiffening up my legs so that I can’t walk or shutting down my brain so that I can’t think.

So I chose avoidance (although I think that ‘chose’ is a long way from being an appropriate word), and have stayed home.

I hated seeing the look in my fiancées eyes as she left without giving me a kiss goodbye. I hated feeling that whoever it is that’s in me had let me down. I felt anger and frustration and had the desire to lash out but, having felt that way many times before, self-control pervaded and I managed not to.

The frustration has mostly evaporated now but will I learn my lesson for next time?