Willing to try all over again.. once more..

It's been a while since I wrote something here, maybe because I'm not so good at pursuing anything that I start. I have so many ideas, interests, days filled with thoughts, languages, news, soap operas, translations, work, I process too many words and events every day that somebody could say - wow, she is such an active young woman.. yet I'm merely a pair of eyes that absorb the outside world. I'm my thoughts, I'm the images reflected on the screen on my TV set and my computer. I monitor the lives of others, I can't say no when they need my "verbal" help. But all this happens in the range of some 30 m2 where I move very cautiously, as though if I accidentally trip and fall, I could disappear. I absorb life from my bed or living room armchair, making only those extremely necessary steps because at this period (it's always a matter of days in which a new obsession haunts me) it seems to me that if I stand on my feet, I will instantly fall and break something and never get up again. I have the images of disabled people in my head, images of old people who sit and lie all day long and I seem to cling to them and can't help being stuck. I can't help projecting myself into all BAD things that I see, hear, read or recall, even though they have never happened to me. My imagination is all too vivid for my taste all the same and scares me almost every moment of my waking life. It's like never ending horror movie that I keep watching and watching as though it were some kind of my own personal dark reality show which can't be switched off. I ask myself right now why my obsessive nature never picks up some nice and beautiful detail to dwell on and on, why it seems that there is no hope, why am I constantly and infallibly tricking myself into believing something that has nothing to do with the truth.. why do I continue to check up on my sanity at least 150 times a day, especially when I have nothing to do? Why this feeling that something is utterly wrong and different from before never goes away? I consider myself a smart, logical person with normally developed common sense, I perceive distortions in others and in myself as well, but somehow I can't convince myself to feel life differently. It outsmarts the logic because it has nothing to do with logic at all. It's all about feelings. Mixed, confused, wrong sensations, wired into some distorted picture of the real life around me. It's a "trip" that surely never ends, although I've never tried any drugs. I just want to get off this crazy bus that is running in some very wrong direction 500 miles per hour, because I've never even asked to get on. I haven't paid the fare and there is no driver in here, no destination, no rules of conduct. Maybe the only rule is that that there are no rules and the moment you think you're close to figuring at least something out, everything changes. The bus never stops and the doors are broken and closed, it seems that even if I tried to jump out at this speed I would break my neck and disappear into nothing. There are many seats inside, but none of them is comfortable, I've tried them all. And everything I can see through its smudged windows is darkness and some creepy landscape which makes my fear even stronger. I don't know where I am and why, I can ask those questions millions of times but I have to understand that there is no answer, at least at this moment. Human brain is so complex that it will take many more years of research to understand why I was having these problems. Maybe somebody will find the cure, but it won't be in my lifetime. I don't know if I believe in God, but I know that I would like to be able to see from the sky above the day when that cure helps someone like me and give that person his or her life back again. My tears of happiness would be like a downpour of never ending rain from above if that moment ever comes. Maybe there is something as simple as a pill which takes away your infection in several days, but we don't know about it. Oblivion is a very expensive thing, for the simple fact of "not knowing" my whole life is being sold out at a very cheap price. Reduced to pieces, details, square meters.. but the worst is still to come, it can stay this way for the rest of my days and I'm not sure I'll be able to bear it. It gives me creeps just to read again what I wrote here because I do know that it is somehow "all in my head", I just don't know which road to take - should I investigate further, analyse my cognitive distortions, dismiss my thoughts and feelings, pretend as always, should I watch TV as it makes me even more unreal, should I force myself to do anything when I don't have any desire at all to do things and to be forced.. I just don't know and it makes me so angry, because if I just knew the road to recovery, I wouldn't go astray not even for a millimeter...

It's not good anyhow, so what I intend to do from tomorrow morning is to try to dedicate the next 16 weeks to Lucinda Bassett's "Attacking anxiety" program. I started it, but I dropped it in the middle as I always do, which is one of my numerous problems. And I do have some "infected wounds" somewhere deep down in my soul that haunt me, but a dirty band-aid over them is preventing me from seeing them well. On the surface, everything's fine, I don't have obligations, I don't HAVE to do anything at all but I'm still "freaking out" as if my life were stressful as hell itself. As if I had forgotten about something very important and very bad and it hurts me, waiting to be solved. I would just want to wake up tomorrow morning and see the life for what it is, nothing more or nothing less. Get up without questions and horrible thoughts and just mind my own business. All day long. Having the feeling - this is fine, I feel fine. And believe it. Sounds so very simple, doesn't it? 95 % of world population has it that simple. Not knowing how blessed they are. I can't blame them because once I didn't know how blessed I was, too. I was one of them. It's simply a curse of being human - we never appreciate what we have and seek what we don't have. One can't make a rich man appreciate having money, one can't make a sane person appreciate health.. at least not in a real, true way. Not up until we start thinking - and it's usually only when we start suffering that we start thinking, we take our lives for granted and always cry for more. It's never enough.. good enough, beautiful enough, rich enough, tasty enough, trendy enough.. In my case I guess this battle is not easy enough, so I don't try hard. I'm sad, angry, disgusted, down, hopeless.. I don't believe strong enough. In my life, in my abilities, in my strength to overcome all this. And yet I know that I'm very strong because I'm putting up with this horror every day. And it really is as bad as I said before, even if it seems like some stupid psycho thriller. But you would never say if you had a chance to meet me. If that's not strength, I don't know what strength is. I just have to believe. Strong enough. That some dreams do come true. That some battles can be won.

If you didn't watch this year's Eurosong, then you missed an important song. If you watched it, just stop for a second to think about it's lyrics. For some reason, it won the contest. Was it for Dima Bilan's looks and voice or his companion's great skating abilities or maybe for a ultra-expensive violin we had a chance to see on the stage? Maybe, who knows. But maybe it was exactly for the fact hidden in the words of one lady who gave the results of her country's votes. She said: "Dima Bilan asked us to believe him. And we believed."

He had some 3 minutes to represent his country the best he could. To sing something. He could sing about anything at all really. But that mixture of his youth, looks, superb skating skills and an extraordinary violin just added strength to the hope each one of us need to live our lives. We all have problems, big and small. Personal battles, victories and defeats. But if we start the fight without thinking that in some way we can win it even if it seems 110% impossible and against every logic, we stand no chance at all. We get defeated without even trying. Unless we believe.

So if anyone ever reads this, even when it is so hard and nothing makes sense, try listening to this song. If it helps just a tiny little bit, it's some kind of a start. Life with a mental disease can be very painful, confusing, unreal, strange, horrible. But it's your only life. Don't throw it away because even if it's so mixed up and weird, everybody you know and everything you have is in it, right here. And it's much better than nothing. It can't get much worse if you're already in the boat. But nobody can say that it can't get better, somewhere, some day, somehow. Believe me.

BELIEVE

EVEN WHEN THE THUNDER AND STORM BEGIN

I'LL BE STANDING STRONG LIKE A TREE IN THE WIND
NOTHING'S GONNA MOVE THIS MOUNTAIN
OR CHANGE MY DIRECTION
I'M FALLING OFF THAT SKY AND I'M ALL ALONE
THE COURAGE THAT'S INSIDE IS GONNA BREAK MY FALL
NOTHING'S GONNA DIM MY LIGHT WITHIN

BUT IF I KEEP GOING ON
IT WILL NEVER BE IMPOSSIBLE, NOT TODAY

'CAUSE I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
AS LONG AS I'M BREATHING
THERE IS NOT A LIMIT TO WHAT I CAN DREAM
'CAUSE I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
MISSION TO KEEP CLIMBING
NOTHING ELSE CAN STOP ME IF I JUST BELIEVE
AND I BELIEVE IN ME

EVEN WHEN THE WORLD TRIES TO PULL ME DOWN
TELL ME THAT I CAN'T, TRY TO TURN ME AROUND
I WON'T LET THEM PUT MY FIRE OUT, WITHOUT NO!
BUT IF I KEEP GOING ON, IT WILL NEVER BE IMPOSSIBLE,
NOT TODAY...

'CAUSE I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
AS LONG AS I'M BREATHING
THERE IS NOT A LIMIT TO WHAT I CAN DREAM
'CAUSE I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
MISSION TO KEEP CLIMBING
NOTHING ELSE CAN STOP ME IF I JUST BELIEVE
AND I BELIEVE

I CAN DO IT ALL
OPEN EVERY DOOR
TURN UNTHINKABLE TO REALITY
YOU'LL SEE
I CAN DO IT ALL AND MORE..

BELIEVING, AS LONG AS I'M BREATHING
THERE IS NOT A LIMIT TO WHAT I CAN DREAM
BELIEVING, MISSION TO KEEP CLIMBING
NOTHING ELSE CAN STOP ME IF I JUST BELIEVE
AND I BELIEVE IN ME!

The night after...

It's been another normally hard day, with several anxiety attacks, a bit of shaking and trembling, a lot of that unrealistic bewilderment feeling when the thoughts race 3000 miles per hour in my head and nothing makes sense, when it seems to me that my own walls are closing in on me while I'm desperately trying to get that famous grip, but it seems that the harder I try, the more difficult it becomes to locate that badly needed grip, as though it has been hiding from me all this time on purpose. I jitter, I resist, I struggle.. but the leash around my neck is holding me back from going outside and biting this bright, shiny colorful world. I know that leash very well, I can feel it even in my sleep where everything's paradoxically normal, where I run, go everywhere without problems, meet so many people, yet there is always that well-known choking sensations that prevents me from running away.. from flying in a light blue sky filled with cotton-like clouds.. from playing, smiling, embracing sunshine and other people. It exists and gives me a lot of pain even though nobody sees it. Nobody knows. Except for four people - my parents, my psychiatrist and a dear friend. Nobody even suspects, because I'm the greatest actress living when it comes to hiding my disabilities. Why do I hide them? Because it's so hard to explain to someone who has never had a panic attack what it is, because I seem so "normal" and nothing can be seen on my face, as my mother likes to say. Because I don't want to be stigmatized. Because I'm ashamed of myself. Because.

Yet I am stigmatized in a certain way, although nobody knows. It's been almost a year and 8 months since I'm more or less housebound and you can imagine that my friends, relatives, my boyfriend, people I used to work with wanted to see me at least once in all this time. What you can't imagine is how hard it gets nowadays to make people come to visit you at your own home, even when you make the most plausible excuse of all why you can't meet them elsewhere. What you also can't imagine is how many lies a person with panic attacks has to invent in order to cover up his or her own suffering, in order to produce fake smiles or that God forsaken get-a-grip attitude when the thing you would like to do the most is to run away screaming and finally save yourself once and for all. You end up living in a constant lie that never ends, unless you find the courage to disclose those "skeletons in the closet", but you can imagine how hard it can be for someone who is by definition AFRAID all the time to find any sort of courage, let alone that courage which would spill those skeleton bones all over the floor in front of truly amazed audience of people who know you. And what is the result of this lack of courage? After a year or so your phone slowly stops ringing, because those who have invited you so many times in vain to a cup of coffee, movies, theater, nice walk on a sunny day, little trip, wild shopping adventure eventually get tired of your excuses. And probably end up thinking that you're not one bit interested in spending time with them, that you don't like them at all. So they disappear. Slowly enough, but definitely until you get up one day and realize that nobody has invited you anywhere for more than a week. You end up crying, wishing to shout so that it can be heard to the very clouds above our heads - I WOULD LIKE TO GO SO MUCH.. SO MUCH.. BUT I CAN'T.. BECAUSE I THINK I'LL FREAK OUT, LOSE CONTROL OVER MY ACTS, FORGET THE WAY BACK HOME, EMBARRASS MYSELF IN PUBLIC.. BECAUSE THEN EVERYBODY WILL KNOW...

Crying is just a temporary relief.. until the panic strikes infallibly again and you're no longer concerned with your life filled with missed opportunities, but with your own heartbeat, invisible brain cancer or some serious illness of your intestines that no doctor is capable of finding. That's how you enter a vicious circle of self-consciousness and shutting doors to reality that has already shut its on own doors on you. When I think about this, I always recall of reading somewhere that there is a book called "Get out of your head and into life", written precisely for people like me. I might even try to look for it these days.

In the meantime, I continue with my little limited life which has become pretty painful in the last 3-4 days. Last week I could stand a car ride of a mile or two and a horrific visit to my dentist. It's needless to say that I had a massive diarrhea up until 10 minutes before leaving the house and that I yelled to my mom and dad that I would prefer to go to Afghanistan than to my dentist's. I smile now when I picture my dentist who's a very calm, kind and warm man in hid mid forties, a person who does everything to make you as comfortable as possible in his chair, as a big, tall monster compared to whom Afghanistan seems nothing.. sheer nonsense, but at that moment when I uttered it, it seemed as real as hell itself that was going on inside of me. Nothing strange happened, I didn't freak out, I didn't die as you can obviously see or go mad, my dentist shrunk back to his usual shape and looks, but it didn't chase away my fear.

Right now I can only step out of my building to reach the woods outside and feed two wonderful stray dogs I love so much, but even this makes me pretty uncomfortable. We panic disorder sufferers ask a lot of what if questions and when anxious, they can get some really grotesque prospective. Tonight I asked my mom - Mom, what if I freak out and do something bad to the dogs.. I would never ever do such a thing, but hey just what if.. My mom doesn't understand this condition at all but has a lot of patience with listening to my dreadful scenarios and does her best to help. Sometimes her words make me even worse, but sometimes they do help. She said - well, don't worry, if you DO finally freak out after all these months and attack them, I'll clap you with something before they get a chance to bite you, so they'll be fine. :) Imagining her clapping me on my head started a long, anxiety free laughter. I just hope it'll last long enough to put me peacefully to sleep.

Take care and try your best not to lose hope..

I'm someone who doesn't forget that easily. I remember strange names of little towns in Turkey, pin codes of sophisticated electronic devices, whole sentences pronounced by some important and other less important people. I know by heart my own birth register number, distribution of holes in the woods in front of my building, I can visualize in details the items in a small local shop. I can even greet you in Chinese.

Even at this very moment I recall vividly the open space of more than 10 world biggest cities, I know how it feels like to jump into buses that are about to close the doors and dash away while it rains heavily and the rain sticks my wet hair to my face, reminding me of being incurably late once again for one of at least 6-7 daily obligations. I can remember how it feels like when you're sleepy when the weather changes or slightly irritated because of having to get up too early in the morning after having slept for only a couple of hours in order to enter your well-known and realistic world of people, duties and more or less incredible events.

There is only one problem though. Those are just memories. And nothing more. Memories on white movie theater screen of my brain which plays them in a constant loop, thus desperately trying to save them from oblivion, while I feel for God knows what time the sensations of choking, strong palpitations, intestinal cramps and some sort of mute inner scream that echos only in my ears - something awful is about to happen, you'll definitely pass out this time, you'll die right here this very moment in some sort of unknown agony, pain, cramps, you'll go mad and disappear somewhere where there is no touch with reality, where you won't know any more who you really are and what you are doing, somewhere where they'll stick onto your little forehead that horrific label "mentally sick" which won't come off ever again, no matter how strong degreasing fluid I might choose to use. It's like a stamp on a cow's ear, so that it never gets lost while still alive and so that it never mixes with some other unlabeled cows. Why? Because it mustn't, because it doesn't belong any more to the herd where she belonged up until that second in which the stamp marked her forever and put into the category of "those with a mark". In my case, a category of 5% stamped of this planet. What is 5% compared to 95% of those who don't like very much the others who are not like them? The statistics would say - well, a negligible percentage. However, those "negligible" 300 millions of people are very much afraid day in, day out, that they will die, go crazy or disappear in a some sort of invisible and non-existent black hole between reality and fog they seem to be living in... even though it never happens. Or at least hasn't happened so far.

For those of you who have been diagnosed with a panic disorder or suspect you have it, this will sound all too familiar and painfully true. For those of you who have had and still have the privilege to be living a panic free life, this will sound utterly weird, you might even give us a sound advice - hey, get a grip, how can you imagine a danger without actually being in danger? I know, it doesn't sound normal, to me or anybody else who suffer at this very moment. But it doesn't help either.

Why have I decided to start this blog when I have never blogged in my life and when I know that I've tried everything so far from psychotherapy, medications, numerous great but inefficient advices, oriental relaxation, herbal remedies, blood tests, brain scans, self-help books and nothing worked? Maybe exactly because I feel so alone and as if there is no help. Maybe because I'm 32 and housebound in the best years of my life, with too much time to kill. Maybe because today nothing makes sense and I've been floating with anxiety ever since I opened my eyes. Maybe because in the last two weeks I was doing better and did a very good job at work that I'm doing from home, just to learn that it wasn't really appreciated and just to feel this awful relapse once again. Maybe because I fell in love again but with a wrong person. Maybe because deep down the idea that I'll probably never be a mother haunts me.. not because I can't, but because it seems unfair to me to ruin somebody else's life with my genetics or my inability to participate in life's challenges because of having an anxiety disorder.. or maybe I just wanted to share this with someone who might get to read this and recognize him or herself in my words.. and give me some feedback, as my boss always says. He hates being left without feedback. :)

Maybe I just want to write an electronic diary of my ups and downs, maybe I want to share with someone else the things I learn everyday. Even though it's been very hard, I still haven't lost hope in recovery. I want to help others on their personal road to light, just as much as I want to be helped by you.

Good luck with all your efforts.. and till next time.