My journey through pain - 20. Chapter 20 - Hard day

I know that there are going to be bumps along the road, but they are scary. Even more so when you were not expecting it, when it seems like the bad things come out of the blue and you don’t understand why and you don’t really know what to do.

Yesterday was one such day. It actually started the night before, although I didn’t realize it at the time. That morning two days ago, I had literally sat down to write a note which I published here about how I felt cautiously hopeful with my newfound emotional resilience. I knew that I was progressing into what is maybe the next stage of my journey through all of this pain, and it was scary but also wonderful to know that things were beginning to improve, even though I didn’t dare to hope they would. That day was nice. It was still hard, but less so than normal. I felt well enough to try something new at the gym again, a kind of dance-fitness class which was a mixture of aerobics and actual dancing. I was terrible at it! I had literally never done anything even remotely similar to that, but it was fun and it was super demanding and I liked it. Just like with my yoga class, I am trying to open myself up to new experiences which can help me maybe deal with the way I feel and help me relax and just find more good things in life, good moments which can maybe be translated into good memories.

The rest of the day went well, and it went so well in fact that I decided to go to the movies with a friend.

I think that might have been my mistake.

The movie we watched had a deep significance to me because I had watched its two prequels and I had waited for years for the final one to come out. I was excited about watching it, but I underestimated the emotional impact it would have on me. I liked it immensely, but it was a very hard shock to suddenly be remembering myself when the first one had come out, and then when the second one had come out. I was forced to compare my life then to my life now, and a flood of memories, good and bad, crowded into my mind. I cried a lot during the movie, trying to hide it so my friend wouldn’t see. After I was at home in my bedroom that night, alone, I prepared for sleeping but I could feel a horrible upsurge of anxiety already bubbling in my chest. I couldn’t get the music from the movie out of my mind and everything it conjured, good and bad. Everything I thought about hurt. I did everything I normally do to calm down before bedtime, like talking about how I’m feeling, but this time it backfired and I actually felt much worse after trying to analyze the reason for how I was starting to feel so anxious. Nevertheless, I told myself that it would be okay. After all, it had been a good day – no reason for me to feel bad.

That night, which was last night, I barely slept. It took me forever just to fall asleep and I was terrified of the slightest noise which would wake me up. I dialed the volume on my white noise setup all the way up, stuffed earbuds into my ears and tried to rest. I woke up about three hours later, fully alert, heart pounding, all the memories which had been disturbed crowding into my mind, shouting for attention, demanding I acknowledge them and demanding I feel bad.

I spent one of the worst nights I’ve had since I started having insomnia. I tossed around in bed for hours. I was so terrified and so scared that, despite the fact that I know I should get up from bed when I feel like that, and try to do something else instead, I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to stand up. I was also sore from the dancing, which only added to my discomfort. I was trapped in my bed, like it has happened in the past, and it was horrible. I could not go back to sleep and I could not stop thinking about the bad things that have happened in my life so recently, and what sharp and terrible contrast they made with the way my life used to be in the past. Even though I now know that the relationship I had was actually hurting me, there were moments of genuine happiness in all those years and now they came back to haunt me. Horribly negative thoughts that I thought I had worked through came back, just as if it were day one again. I was powerless. I could have called someone in my family for emotional support – they have told me that I can. Or I could have called my friend – but I was so terrified that I didn’t even think about that. I couldn’t. I grew more and more desperate as the hours crawled by. I tried to pray. I tried to meditate. I switched position this way and that but the thoughts would not stop. They were thoughts as a sharp and painful as I used to have at the beginning of it all.

When the morning came I was a nervous wreck. I had a very bad panic attack, the worst I’ve had in weeks. I could not stop crying and it felt like I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed at all and start the day. The worst part was that I didn’t understand why it had happened, why so suddenly. I was desperate but I opened the file with my emergency morning plan and followed the steps one at a time even though I didn’t want to and even though I was in such emotional pain that all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and disappear. I wrote a long note about how bad I felt right then. Afterwards, I actually logged onto here and I reread the little note I’d written two days ago about feeling hopeful – and I was feeling so awful that I couldn’t believe I had written a note as positive as that one. I read the words and it felt like they had been written by someone else. It was terrifying. But there were still things that needed doing and so I… I did them.

I went to work even though near the end of my shift I was physically exhausted because I had barely slept. I went to the gym like I usually do and did a gentle workout. I had a satisfying day if I remove its emotional component, and by the time it was over I tried to tell myself that I had done it. Despite feeling as awful as I had, I hadn’t given up. I was told I should feel proud of the way I had acted. I’d refused to give in to despair and transformed a bad day into, if not a good one, at least an okay one. I heard the words, but when I am feeling as bad as I did then as I do now, it’s like my brain can’t understand any positive ideas. I see them and grasp them in an abstract way but I can’t internalize them. Nevertheless, I did have an okay day, and that thought I took with me as I prepared to sleep. Thankfully, I was able to sleep this time. I woke up a little while ago. I had a lot of nightmares and I still feel unbalanced, scared and confused. I still don’t know why this happened. Maybe it was just the movie or maybe the movie was just the catalyst needed to move or to unsettle all of these unresolved things that I still have to deal with. All the pain of the past, all the loss, all of the bad things and also all of the good things. I don’t know.

All I can do is go forward. Today I also have my emergency morning plan to follow. I will try to fight against this horrible pressure in my chest and this jittery nervousness that makes it impossible for me to sit still, even as I am writing this. I will try to have another okay day if I can manage. After all, yesterday I did manage and things started out much worse. Today I at least had a restful night, all things considered. I can do this. I can do this.