Panic Attacks

I should presage this post with a comment that I'm really much better off than this entry makes it seem. No one who knows me knows there's anything wrong. I can sort of keep the outside appearances up (it is so weird, but I'm finding that is much easier with make-up!), and if I still have the energy to do that, maybe everything will be ok.

I'm having a really, really rough time of it. I'm thinking about going to get anti-depressants, which I've been off for a number of years (I went on them after 9-11). It isn't as debilitating or all-encompassing as that was. I don't burst into tears in public. No, I politely ask for a restroom, without turning off my ipod, and burst into tears there. But I don't trust myself not to do anything stupid. I keep having thoughts about how one would kill oneself if one wanted to, without leaving any signs that it was suicide, nor without making it look like anyone's fault. Like 'accidentally' dropping my cell phone as a bus came and darting out in traffic to get it. Then I'd just look stupid. Except it would damage the bus driver horribly.

And even if there wasn't the poor driver, it isn't like I would. I don't want to, but I just keep thinking about the nuts and bolts of it. I've often thought about the nuts and bolts of committing crimes, and I have yet to rob a bank or sabotage a company. So I hope it is nothing more than an interest in the 'how', but it scares me a little how much I am returning to this meme.

I'm fine in the house. It is only leaving the house that the world comes crashing down around me.

Both my mother and my grandmother had psychotic breaks at different points. They weren't a huge deal--I mean they were at the moment--they were both institutionalized for about a month, but in both cases they got over it and it didn't have long-term impacts. Well, I'm sure it did, but nothing visible to me. It was a rough period, and they got on with it.

I never understood how they could do that. They both seemed so strong. How did something just break?

Today was a particularly virulent mood swing, and I clung to my iPod, singing (under my breath so no one could hear. Keeping it under my breath took work. For a few seconds, I'd see alternate universes where I was a crazy person, singing showtunes loudly on the street. But always under my breath. For now.) So I mouthed the words to all the parts of "Please Hello" from Pacific Overtures over and over and over. It is a particularly intricate song, and taking the French part in the 5-part counterpoint at the end and being able to do it somehow or other, it both distracts me from how much I hate my life right now and also gives me a minor sense of accomplishment.

But, yeah. I hate my life.

And there is no one to turn to. I can't handle it anymore. And I have to keep handling it. There is no other choice.

The world makes me be strong and all around me, I see women who people protect, who people cherish. And I'm not one of them. The world forces me to be strong and I say "I can't. I'm not as strong as I pretend, I'm exhausted, don't make me do this--the costs are too great" and the world says "I don't care. You don't get another choice. Suck it up and deal."