Strangled with Panic

Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes one feel like it might when a drowning man holds unto you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic. -Anais Nin

I wake up, and everything is normal. Making coffee, playing with my son, fixing breakfast. The clock is at 6:35 and I know it's coming. I kiss Jay goodbye and tell him to have a great day at work. Secretly telling him not to take the interstate, since our spin off last year still haunts me. The events of the afternoon come off our lips as if we've already seen the movie- what we'll do, talk about, and eat for dinner. Jay leaves the house.......and so it begins.

It's like a whole different person comes over me, a different personality.

It's dark, all the doors are locked, and checked again. Articles invade my mind like an archive from an old library.
 -The woman in NJ who was brutally beaten during a home invasion who showed no emotion through the whole thing so that her toddler would not intervene. I think about how much braver she is than I am, and how did she ever know to do that? How did she just know how to react.

As a parent, you know that it's your job to protect your child. It's all on your shoulders. But what if you just, can't?
When the smallest of sounds is paralyzing.....

I'm friends with the monster, that's under my bed. Get along with the voices, inside of my head. You're trying to save me- stop holding your breath.

And you think I'm Crazy..... Well, that's nothing. 

-Eminem 

Episodes of Criminal Minds torture me. I try to think of what I would do if I were them? If someone stuck a gun to my head in the parking lot of the grocery store, would I scream loud? Or let them take me? What if Braxton is already strapped into his seat? What if running away isn't an option?

What if I did nothing....

The truth is, these battle scars are never changing. The wounds of a childhood are there whether you know about them or not. Anxiety, stress disorders, disassociation and the inability to hold a conversation with a person are all on my list. It will never be over. I freeze, I panic.

---Don't let your car run with the garage door down. Lock all your doors behind you, even at home. Don't leave a child unattended-ever. Make sure all the nightlights are out of the walls when you leave the house, the hair straightener off. Alarm your house, alarm your car. None of it makes me feel safe.
Even with the whole checklist completed, 10 hours of my day is run by anxiety, Fear. I could only wish I were scared of spiders. Snakes, or mice. Instead, I am scared of living.---

At one point in my life, chaos was my only normal. Nothing made me feel a live and I wasn't scared of a single thing. I would drive down a country road in the dark with my headlights off just to see if I could make it home alive. Nothing scared me, not even dying. I guess now, I just have something to live for.

The best place to hide something is in plain sight...

-Jodi Picoult

We all struggle with something we don't show to anyone else. If you know me in person, I'm sure you'd be surprised to know any of this- that I am actually socially awkward. I can relate to anyone, because of my upbringing- and I have a lot of friends because of that- but nobody can relate to me, and that my friends, couldn't be more lonely.