caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- more about my journey into the fascinating world of mental illness First I want to thank everyone who has signed my guestbook and sent me personal messages of supporte. It is such a wonderful thing to have that right now, and I�m sorry if I don�t get around to answering you for a bit; I�m not spending a lot of time at the computer right now. Updates here may be sporadic as well; I'm just not sure how much of this I want or need to share yet. Just know that your thoughts and prayers mean so very much to me. I�ve found such a wonderful community here. I try to keep things light here, you know. And eventually I�m sure I�ll be able to joke somewhat about this experiences; in fact I did have Nataliee in hysterics a bit ago on the phone. But what happened Saturday I can�t even begin to find any humor in. I seriously and completely believed that I was dying. As much as I can reconstruct it from what I remember and what Blue tells me, I took a nap late Saturday afternoon. I remember that; I remember being really tired and drifting off to sleep. I woke up, for whatever reason, in the middle of an anxiety attack. Blue was in the shower. I couldn�t get up and go get my medicine because I was shaking and really unable to focus on the fact that I needed the meds, and I felt like I couldn't breathe at all, like something was sitting on my chest. I remember that I was lying on my side in bed, from which I can see out the kitchen window and the light over the sink. I think I focused on that light. I remembering starting at it and thinking that if I could concentrate on that one thing, then I could get out of panic mode. Blue tells me that he came out of the bathroom to find me lying on the bed totally still. I�d stopped shaking, and was breathing shallowly. He asked me a couple of times if I was all right, and at first thought I was still asleep. Then he went over and saw that my eyes were open, wide, unfocused, the pupils dilated. He started shaking me and trying to get me to look at him. I couldn�t look away from the damn light. I vaguely have a memory of knowing he was there; I could hear him, like from a long way away, but I couldn�t see anything but the light fixture over the sink. He shook me; he splashed my face with water; he yelled my name. Nothing. This had happened in the ER on Friday but very briefly; I�d been able to snap out of it when Blue dragged me up and forced me to walk around the room. But Saturday morning he�d been outside digging and inflamed an old back injury, so he couldn�t pull me up because I was dead weight and couldn�t help him at all. I remember thinking that he was really far away, because I couldn�t see him, and that maybe this was the tunnel people talk about with near-death experiences. Blue called my mom, who has some medical training, and who lives about five minutes away. I don�t remember when she got there but after a while I could hear her talking to me; no idea what she said. Blue kept yelling at me to wake up, and I wanted to badly to tell him that I wasn�t asleep, that I was dying, and I couldn�t make my mouth work or my hands or anything. He and mom together pulled me into a kind of sitting position and started like rubbing my hands and feet and making me move around; finally, somehow, something in whatever trance-like thing that was broke and I fell on Blue�s shoulder and started just sobbing. I remember thinking that I was going to die and I wasn�t even going to be able to tell Blue or Mom goodbye or that I loved them or anything. It was absolutely the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. All night I kept randomly bursting into tears because that feeling kept coming back to me, that I was dying and couldn�t tell them. I don�t have any words for how horrible it was. Blue had to work the night shift Saturday night and YMB was at the Dementors�, so I stayed at Mom and Dad�s that night and until late last night when Blue got home with YMB. Saturday night I was absolutely terrified to go to sleep. I finally managed it with a sleeping pill and an old stuffed puppy we dug up from somewhere and both my dog Sophie and Mom�s Mo lying with me. But I could only sleep on the couch because I knew Dad would get home from work around midnight so he would be able to check on me. Seriously, I never have had a lot of death issues. I�ve never been afraid of dying except in that vague way that everyone must have. But now I think I know what it might feel like, to really, really be scared of dying and think that you are. It�s horrible. I am better today. Yesterday was not great; I stayed at mom�s and tried to keep my hands busy doing a lot of stitching because when I�m not doing something I start shaking and dwelling on that horrid feeling. Today was better; I finally got in with the counselor, although I still can�t get into see the actual medical doctor until Wednesday, and she gave me some ideas and some things to think about. I go back there on Thursday. And I�ve got a ton of stitching done, read a dozen magazines � I�m finding it impossible to concentrate on a book, which is tragic for me � and played about twenty snowboarding games on PS2 with YMB. Oh, and one more thing. It�s finally, finally nice out. And I found a crocus blooming today that I didn�t know I had. We took a walk after dinner, and it was beautiful; gorgeous twilit sky, cool breeze. Just perfect spring weather. So my other project while I�m waiting out this breakdown is to go buy pansies and clematis and moss roses and fill up my front flower bed. Thank god it�s spring, finally. I couldn�t have needed it more right now. 12:04 a.m. - April 16, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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