Out of Phase

I feel like I am coming apart.

I seriously think I have been having a low-grade anxiety attack for the last six hours or so. I know I didn't double up on my thyroid meds in an attempt to get more pep (learned that lesson the first time) and am pretty sure I didn't over do it with the coffee this morning, so what's the cause?

I have a feeling it's short-term scanxiety coupled with longer-term Otherness, the plain fact fear that I will never again be Normal.

Now, I know no one is normal. That, or normal is relative, subjective. Everyone's got their Something to make them feel Apart.

But my Something...fuck.

I feel like I was pulled out of my life, spun around for a year, and then dropped back into something that was a copy of a copy of my life; similar but lacking. Pieces missing. Pieces of me.

I miss knowing where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I miss not taking things seriously. I miss taking things for granted.

And while I want to get back to that place and people are sometimes hoping, sometimes pushing me to get back to that place, I don't know how to get there, or if it even exists any more.

I don't know how to be that person anymore. I feel like for every step I take towards Normal, I take two steps back and then get knocked back another half block by one speeding crisis or another, real or imagined.

I say too much and do too little and then spend the time between hitting the pillow and actually falling asleep alternating between mentally reviewing the highlight reel of the day's perceived faults and missteps and feeling sorry for myself.

Which I know I shouldn't: beautiful daughter, loving [and employed] husband, No [Current] Evidence of Disease, roof over head, etc.

I just don't know how to get on with my life when this life is so unfamiliar to me: unemployed for the first time since I was 12 yet no career to go back to, stay at home mom of a toddler that is becoming less familiar to me with each passing day, living far from friends and family [that know the old me] in a wonderful city that will turn its back on us in a matter of months, trapped in a body that looks old and feels older.

I am writing all of this here, not for pity, but to get it out of my system. The people close to me have got to be sick of hearing my shit (I know I sure am), I don't want to irrevocably fuck up the perceptions that people not so close to me have of me (apologies if you fall in the latter category and real this blog), I don't see my therapist for another week, and I'm pretty sure that the ER doesn't give out anti-anxiety meds.

Which brings me to the scanxiety. The year follow-up CT is a week from tomorrow. As you can tell, I'm already freaking the fuck out, which means I am going to be totally tailspun when they run me through the tube. I am fucking terrified. And I feel like the world wants me to keep it to myself.

I'm terrible at keeping secrets, so I have to lay it all out here. Get it out of my system. Start feeling better. Normal.

Start.

Feeling.

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The kid's up from her nap. Better will have to wait.

I Need To Stop Kidding Myself

I did not do everything right.

Sure, I exercised, maintained a [mostly] healthy weight, did yoga, didn't eat red meat.

But I drank too much, really didn't eat all that well, slept irregularly, would fire my car's keyless remote at my pelvis to improve its range, and got a navel ring, which I learned today can potentially have a negative effect on one's digestive system.

So, did I do everything right? Hardly. But the results are decidedly not in on my bringing The Troubles upon myself.