School run

Take a journey and break it up into 10 equal parts. Take each step in turn. Reach step one and continue doing so until you feel the anxiety eases to the point you are ready to move toward step two. And so on. The basics of graduated exposure. My reply to that theory put before me was: I have tried but I am not making any progress. Her answer: that is because deep down you don't want to do it. That was time for her to go and when I realised I must do it alone. I was wrong about one thing though. Graduated exposure does work but it was not working for reasons I see now. Not for the reason she gave which still makes my blood boil. That was over three years ago when the second of the CPNs came and went. Although it was not actually the reason I parted ways in the end. That came down to medication. Something now I am glad happened in hindsight despite the problems it caused between me wife and I. My wife saw it as the last chance for recovery and was beyond furious when she felt I was making no effort and squandering the last chance of happpiness for us all.

The thing is though only the person going through this knows. They know what is right and what is wrong. They know what works for them and what doesn't. Although graduated exposure was not working for me I kept at it because I saw the logic in it. I just didn't see the reasons why it was failing as I see them now. As it turned out there were two problems. Impatience which is at the heart of most recovery problems. We look back as see the years we have lost and get frustrated when recovery does not come the next day- or even a glint of it. The main reason it was failing though was that I was too keen. It doesn't work. I would push myself as far as I could possibly go until I hit panic and then go scampering back home. From doing the CBT I have learned this is just maintaining the habit of fear and of no use at all however brave a person feels they are being by throwing themselves continually into panic. The idea is to go to the step where anxiety rises and stay there until the anxiety drops. This is how we learn it does drop. This is how we establish in the mind that there is nothing to fear by getting there. If we leave the situation without panic then that is the memory. If we leave it in panic then that is the memory which resurfaces and is ultimately relived.

Today for the first time I felt a bit more confident. My wife was tired as she had not had a lot of sleep. For the first time I was able to say to her: go have a lie down and I will take the kids to school. On my own. As I always say it doesn't sound much. But it was. I have been the school now too many times to mention yet the responsibility of taking the kids and making sure they got there was crippling. It was harder than it should have been. In recent months I have posted about picking the boy up at home time and picking my daughter up when she was ill. These are journeys I know longer fear. But the fear does rise when I have a responsibility to make it. When my wife relies on my to do it. So  you see its not that I don't want to its that fear holds me back. Today though I cast the fear to one side and just did it.The journey home was a lot easier than getting there. I really did struggle to get to the school and yet I walked over twice that distance after I left the children at the school gates. The weight of relief was lifted and I felt stronger.

What made it even more pleasing is that I got up and out of bed thinking it was going to be the first day in a long time that I could not make the school run. Even that seems foreign yet its something that used to happen on a regular basis. Its habit still. There are still times when we go to pick up the kids that I say to my wife I may not be able to go all the way because I feel so heavily fatigued, ill or anxious yet I always get there now. In the past I used to leg it with the first twang of doubt. This morning I felt terrible. I have a bug. The same big the kids have had. Bad cough, sore stomach and all the rest. Maybe my wife has the same. So I was in no mood to begin with to even go along never mind take them myself. And yet I did. That is pleasing. 

Its a bit of normality. A little of how things should be. I need to keep taking the opportunity to do more things alone and start making that responsibility less of a burden. Its a self made burden of course but only by carrying it will I in time not feel the weight so much.

PS I know the image at the top is not related to the post but I cannot take photos at the school which would be the only apt thing.