Back here

How am I back here? It feels like Friday night is the new “suicide Tuesday” from my drug-taking days. I don’t want to go on like this, I can’t. There aren’t really any words.  Last night was a complete disaster. My sleeping meds seem to have stopped working (they’re only meant for short-term use) and so I didn’t take one last night because maybe then they will start to work again… And the panic/terror flooding my body as I tried to sleep was intense – I took diazepam twice but it didn’t really help. Maybe because this is not racing thoughts related, but body-based – there are no thoughts that take me to that dark and panic-stricken place, only flashbacks, body memories, experiences I am reliving but that don’t belong here. So I barely slept and also had adrenaline coursing through me all night, leaving me wired and depleted and feeling utterly defeated.

Today has been such a struggle. Luckily I was working from home, but I have achieved very little which in itself makes me anxious because I have targets to meet for my probation (5 years in the job I do, ugh). And it is infuriating, it is such a waste of time. I love what I do, and yet my cognitive functioning is so poor so much of the time that I struggle with it so much. And it makes me sad, because I want to be able to enjoy it and it not just be something else that attachment trauma has taken away from me.

I could have napped and then been more productive later, but I couldn’t because my body is ramped up and on edge. I did do some yoga in my lunch break which I think did help the anxiety symptoms. And I’ve drank some water, but I’ve basically just eaten cornflakes all day. And I am exhausted and want to crawl into bed but I can’t because I have go out to pick Nina up from training at 8.30. And I am already scared I won’t sleep tonight despite being so exhausted, which is counterproductive I know, but sleep has been so hard lately that it is so hard to trust it will be okay.

It is hard to trust anything will be okay on days like today. My DP and DR are both bad. My heart is racing and I keep getting flashes of dread and pure terror. I know that K would say we’ve been here before, where I’ve felt so utterly overwhelmed and the thought of continuing in my job whilst solo parenting and recovering from complex trauma seems impossible, and then things settle. And I want to believe I am healing and moving forwards but on days like today it feels like I am stuck, destined to live the same pain and experience the same despair and hopelessness over and over again. And underneath it all is the knowledge that she is going away from me, 12 more sessions and then we are done. It is not enough.

The last few days were better, despite the intensity of my session on Monday, but things gradually slipped and today I am stuck in this place again where the thought of carrying on like this is overwhelming and I wish there was someone to help but there isn’t. K said in her email today that she hopes I get some deep rest over the weekend, but today it feels like I will not get a proper rest for another seven years. I love my daughter more than anything in the world, but bringing her up all by myself has been and continues to be the hardest thing I can imagine doing. I love being a Mum, but all the other stuff that goes with it is so hard, so relentless – being the sole person responsible for the physical and emotional wellbeing of another person 24/7 is exhausting. Before I had her I had no idea that so much time could be spent doing basically nothing – tidying and organising and driving around and feeding and it just goes on.

And I know this overwhelm and exhaustion is not really about her, or work, or running a house. It is trauma memories. I know this overwhelm belongs in the past and that my brain is trying to find a present day reason for it — nothing changes on the days I feel capable and calm and energised but my internal landscape. And yet that doesn’t change how hard it is on days like today, when I just want to hide in a hole and instead I have to keep going. I cannot wait to get into bed tonight and just hope more than anything that I sleep tonight and that tomorrow I am not in this place where carrying on living feels such an insurmountable task.