Who is in charge?

Things that mimic any symptom of panic in any little way cause panic, in my case at least. They shouldn't but they do. Take for example today. I sat on the couch with a book while the wife bopped up and down on a balance board doing her wii fit and the kids ran about squealing then started to shake for no apparent reason. Then I realised why. Its that old back problem again. Between the shoulder blades which has never quite made a full recovery and so is prone to collapse at the slightest tweak. This past week I have been careful because during the week I couldn't turn my head to the right given a stiffness running from the up the side of my neck. In this state it doesn't take much to go completely. When I stand I feel feel a weight pushing down like gravity has gotten stronger. A tightness gathers between the shoulder blades as if someone has put there hand inside, gripped the muscles, scrunched them up and then twists them. From there the strain goes right up the back of the neck, along the shoulders, down the arms, down the back and creates a shakiness. Nothing to worry about though but it is so like the shaking which a body full of coursing adrenalin experiences that my memory kicked in dripping all the alarm switches.

From there it is a battle- me and the automatic mind, the mind groomed by life experiences. Except what I see in these past years is that it is stronger than me. Taking for example another panic symptom: shallow breath. The other day I had that and my mind was alight with flashing red bulbs and sirens while a big screen flashed "No Air". Rationality. I took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. In and out. About 10 times I did this telling myself that I could in fact breathe and I was getting air and there was no need for all those bloody alarms. Would it calm? Would it buggery! It kept going, it knew best. So how do you reason with it? I'll tell you if I ever find out.

I was on the couch reasoning and getting nowhere fast when the phone rang and without even seeing the caller ID I knew who it was and the reason for calling. It was enough to push me over the edge. The inlaws imminent arrival was just something I couldn't handle. Not in that state. Not at that time of day, early afternoon, because I knew it as to kill time and stay for dinner and I just didn't do it. So despite them not asking but telling us they were coming in the end they were forced to meet their daughter and grandchildren elsewhere. No one was happy, I wasn't proud. God I wish I wasn't that way but I just couldn't handle it. Averting something I couldn't handle though just left me riddled with guilt and didn't actually stop the panic which continued for hours after. That was about 8 hours ago and I am still incredibly on edge.

I wish I could snap out of it. I ended up having to shut myself away in a room because the youngest girl kept writing down nonsense and asking me to say the word one too many times and the boy walked up with a smile then hit me in the face with a football before running up the hall laughing away to himself. Totally manic. I needed to get away from it. I went for a walk but it didn't helped so locked away in the bedroom I tried to find calm. After about 10 minutes I realised it was futile. My mind dictates, me voice is a whisper to its roar when it comes to instructing the body.

Apart from having a wife who is rightly annoyed, shattered from the longevity of the panic and guilty as hell for my actions I am left wondering something else: who is in charge? I cannot for the life of me understand why my will is not adhered to and instead overridden by this agitated mind. People with a panic disorder fear a loss of control and that is what I feel now. I have no control. My wish today would have been to sit and enjoy my inlaws company but instead I had to jump through hoops for my mind. People with panic disorder fear a crumbling of identity and I feel that now. Who am I if I am not in control?

And these questions I ask myself. I am caught between wanting to explore them and feeling that is a dangerous road to go down. Thinking too much is one of my downfalls. I wonder if its like an obsessiveness that is unhealthy. Pondering them does me no good.

Get the feeling I am hiding away from that sink or swim moment when my lead legs will surely carry me under. One such situation is on its way. I've been avoiding so long with spectre of confrontation always looming ever nearer but unavoidable. That is life though. We have to just get through it as best we can.

Pathways

This way I have walked many times and maybe even had the same thoughts each time but for some reason those thoughts, or that thought, stuck today long enough to warrant more attention and pondering. The choking exhaust from the buses on the main road where I walk beside, the spindly fingers of bare-ish branches reaching down to claw me on the path where underfoot is a mush of sodden leaves that has had me nearly on my arse more than once, the tired lifeless faces who look straight through to some other time and place listlessly moving through the grey of what could be morning, the smashed wall never repaired, the smell of the take-away flowing down through the nostrils to give the stomach a stir, the off-colour once-white blank sky and the rot of a land past its best, well past its best. But it was like seeing it for the first time though not with any nostalgic warmth or the glow of discovery. It was just like waking in the morning and letting the familiar soak through the veil of sleep. Nit unlike seeing a friend for the first time in years and getting past the awkward stage to where you left off. Nothing heartening to take from it. Just an observation that probably could have been made on any day of the 4 years that led to to this one and given my lack of memory it probably was.

I want to rip off the goggles but they are not real. They are an idea, they are a perspective. They are a hall of mirrors which give a vague representation of the world as it should be but obscured as if the world is being viewed after being dropped in a pond when the ripples have parted and something strangely recognisable is left with some guesswork. Its familiar yet foreign. Its there yet not. Kind of like that drive on auto-pilot I suppose where you suddenly awaken to the surrounds and what you knew was there but different in a more alert awakened state.

And I get it sometimes with the kids and my wife. Just sitting there as I always do and suddenly I start to take in those around me that I have just taken for granted as just being there in the knowledge that life just ticks on regardless. I see they have grown, they have aged. I wonder where the time went. Where was I before? Was I really here? Of course I was- in body. To them nothing has changed. The old man's asleep in his head but as always the lights appear on so no need to ask if anyone is home.

I've also become less of an observer. I used to mentally note everything- it was all stored in this little brain. Maybe that is why my memory is so bad now with the banks of my memory full of rubbish and not a bit of space left for new junk. So now things pass me by. To my mind the girls still hadn't cottoned on to the fact that I have a problem that keeps me indoors and yet just the other day I heard the youngest girl say: daddy can't come because there is something wrong with him and he can't go outside. Not wrong but they obviously no more than I realised. No need to hide it but a bit of a shock all the same. Paranoia of sorts in the shape of wondering what is being said to whom and how much about me and also how much is kept from my knowing. A bit like when my wife went into hospital and only family knew about the anxiety and her friend came to take the kids to the hospital. I opened the door to her approach waving here hand smiling and saying: Before you say anything I know all about it, do you really think she would keep a secret from me? Yes. But its probably better to be out there and deal with it than trying to mask it or pretend I am not who I am with the limitation I have at this point in time in my life.

This awakening on occasions is a symptom of introversion. Its a symptom of residing too long in the head as I have been doing lately. Like someone staring into space looking outward, but only seeing in, I really could have done with someone snapping their fingers in my line of vision to snap me out of it. But there was no one here. Two days alone. Not bad though. There was a time it was a problem but this time it wasn't, I imagined (in my head again), floating on a raft in the middle of the sea with no land to any of the three-sixty degrees surrounding. No one to see. Just lie back or even do a stupid dance, no one to see. Freedom ultimately, shackles off. Then after two days from the heavens my family plopped back down upon the raft with such a force of noise that it shattered the tranquility I had slipped into and the raft rocked violently and although a day later momentum has slowed it sways still. This was the process of slipping too far in and suddenly being jolted out. From looking inwards to being dragged out kicking and screaming into the real world.

My own fault I suppose. I should have used the time to get out more. I did in short spells but it rained and as much as I needed to get out from this little box I daren't have spent much time out less I get chill or some other darn ailment. I see though I don't feel this in periods of nice weather when even just sitting on that little patch of dirt we call a garden for hours at least pulls the mind out of internalising. The weather has a lot to answer for.

But days have passed and the outside has welcomed me back and in those moments out there things are fine because I have no place to hide and internalise. Well fine aside from the anxiety of course which shoves me back in doors too soon. The periods out though help the mood which darkens all too quickly the longer I am stuck inside. But not much to report so I haven't been posting. The days have not had much variety in the past couple of weeks so very little need in writing it down.

We've been doing a lot of driving which has been good and I have been seeing a lot of woodland walks around about. God I really do wish I could walk a bit. The idea of of just walking through some woodland appeals to me. Again anyone who thinks an agoraphobic doesn't want to get better doesn't know what its like to desire something as simple as a walk in the woods and not be able to do it. Why? I don't know. If I lived next to it and no-one else did I would probably be fine. One day though.

Everything in its right place

I have never heard the boy say "I" yet but in the past few weeks he has learned his sense of self and more importantly to him what he possesses, what is rightfully his. It wasn't there at Christmas when he didn't bother so much who played with his presents but it was certainly there at the weekend when he celebrated his third birthday and spent the day fighting with anyone who dared touch one of his presents.

I saw this but the penny didn't drop when my parents, sister and her two kids were in and my wife brought through, amongst other things, a bowl of sweets. The boy was right over with both arms around the bowl and when anyone tried to dip in a hand he was battering it off. So it led to me moving fastly backward away from said bowl with the boy in mid air still running in full sprint and howling like banshee with arms spread out in protestation. As soon as I plumped him down he went flying towards the table knocking his younger cousin, table and treats that were upon over in a manic lunge. I couldn't believe how he was acting and birthday boy or not wasn't having it. But my wife quickly saw why. She had put the sweets in 'his' bowl. A quick change of bowl and disaster was averted leading to a much calmer birthday boy.

But is possession obsession remained unabated and didn't stop with himself. I gave my mum a book to look at which I had read and thought she might like. While she did this I had a good play with her Kindle which is a great bit of kit. Left me wanting one but why I don't know as basically its still reading a book. But twice as I played with it the boy appeared with the book I had given my mum. After this second time I once again gave the book back to my mum and she started reading where she left off. I sat and watched. As soon as she engages in conversation with someone she put down the book and no sooner had she done that than the boy was picking it up and running over to me with a sideways glance at my mum. Not just that but with everything. Everything in its right place, by the boy's rules. So no "I" yet but plenty of "Me", "My" and "Nay-un's"- this pronunciation of his own name.

So I was surprised sitting in the car park outside a shop that he let me have his doodly pad or whatever its called- pic above. Some magnetic drawing thing that you can wipe like an etch-a-sketch. After reluctance in the first and second week of the year and much putting off we finally went out for a drive as I said in a previous post. They have been going well and already this week we have clocked up nearly 90 miles. But waiting I don't like and there has been a lot of that so when my wife had to go into a shop leaving me and the boy in the car I looked for distraction and found it in his little toy. The fight I was expecting was not there thankfully. So we spent the time getting him to suggest things and me drawing them. The above is a portrait of the boy which is a bit cruel looking but made him laugh- part on purpose and part poor drawing skills with a little bit of restrictiveness to magnetic drawing thrown in. And it was good to spend time with the boy having a laugh and not thinking about where I was and how I should be panicking. The thing itself is only small. It was a cheap pack of two with this travel one and a bigger one for the house which has been a hit with the girls who doodle on the bigger one for hours- when the boy allows.

But I'm still left sadden a little by this phase we all pass through. It brings only angst and anger for the boy. As soon as we get that sense of "I" we start to fight for it where as before that we was quite a placid little lad. I can see the change. Its not a good change but one we all progress through. At the moment he doesn't understand the concept of sharing- or maybe he does as illustrated. On the whole though not. That will be the next step. And later in life we will learn what to share, who to share it with and when to share it. All the little brain processes and procedures we learn throughout life.