Cycles

My daughter, above, celebrated her 9th birthday at the weekend. Might look like Halloween but that was a face painting kit she got. Very artistic little girl. She drew a fantastic tiger face on her young cousin as well as drawing not so great others on all the other younger children. She did well, more that well- kids are spoiled these days.

Its a time I always dread. Visitors. Lots of visitors. A shock to the system for me. No soul for weeks and then people traipsing in and out all weekend. Staying, squatting in my only refuge. Great people, people I want to see. Still it makes no difference to the anxiety. It was already a hard week for me and all I wanted to do was crawl up in a ball in bed away from it all. Truth is the last time I actually done that was just over 5 years ago.

At the start of 2007 I experienced visitor panic for the first time with my parents out of the blue and when it happened I tried for 10 minutes to put up with it but then eventually disappeared to bed and fell asleep with exhaustion. The visited a month later and the same thing happened again except this time it happened as soon as they came in the door and I put up with it for less time. It took a while to crash out in bed but eventually I did. And this is what it all goes back to, these two times. Since then every visit has been a nightmare but I've never had to flee as much as I wanted to. But even 5 years on it doesn't get any easier and that memory seems to be relived as strongly now as then with all the "successes" in between meaningless.

Now its a past event, or series of events. Glad its over. The younger girl turns seven next month. More of the same. More CBT inbetween. I have been doing it lately but problems in the last week have been more of a distraction to keep me away from it.

My walks have taken a pounding. Not much to speak of. One thing not noted amongst a lot of so called anxiety self help gurus is the fatigue. GAD, general anxiety disorder, is tiring. Being a constantly anxious type is exhausting. No, not constant but from when you wake until you drop off finally in the early hours and the greatest part of the inbetween being filled with fear, tension and adrenaline over days and months and years it is depletingly tiring. Dr Claire Weekes spoke of people being bed ridden by it. The energy reserves never seem to get a chance to replenish. If I were single I'd probably not go to bed until the light is breaking as I seem to do now but also sleep well into the day but as a father of young children that is not an option. I am finding 4 hours is an average of disturbed sleep and 5 hours is a good night. Things rarely talked about.

And that is what the problem has been with the walks- apart from a spell of a couple of days last week when even walking was painful. Its been the fatigue. Not even being able to get to the point of agoraphobia because the body is to fatigued to get anywhere near the outer edges of the comfort zone never mind beyond them. But slowly this week for whatever reason that is easing bit by little bit as I looked to built again to a point where its a mental barrier to walk any further rather than a physical one.

Anxiety is all about cycles. I feel my attempts at recovery are like cycles or like waves like those good old adrenaline rushes. Just as I am rising I fall and just as I am petrified I am descending too far and too fast I am back on the up again. Never touching the sea bed and never touching the sky. Just bobbing along up and down somewhere in between going around in circles.