Anxiety Inertia

Posted by Boo , Sunday, June 20, 2010 4:07 PM

It's 4:08 pm and I've done nothing today. I'm not even dressed. I have so much to do that when I start to think about it my brain shuts down.

Anxiety.

I don't function well when my daughter isn't here. Sometimes I don't function well when she is here, and I don't know how to manage this anxiety.

I imagine, while stuck here, sweating through this lingering anxiety attack, that if I had a partner -- a husband or a boyfriend who actually wanted to spend time with me -- there would be no days with me emotionally and physically stuck. My home would be full of noise and joy and we would all do our parts and so much living and loving would get done. I would never be anxious and I would never be overwhelmed.

And my house would be neat and we'd have real meals!

I play this fantasy out in my head and it loops and before long the sitting and the sweating are accompanied by the crying.

Sometimes, it gets so bad that I want to ask my ex-husband to please come live with us for awhile. He hit me, cheated on me, verbally tortured me, and I want him here. Sometimes. I want the shape of another person here.

Because I don't want to be all alone all the time. I want PEOPLE. My own people. God I want a family.

My friend Barbara says some people just get fucked. Some people just don't get to have families.

OK...self pity ahead....

I want a family. Why don't *I* get a family? I would be a good partner and mom. I know I would. And I'd be happy. I would never take a minute for granted.

I know I am blessed. I adore my daughter. My life is touched daily by people who define what it is to be a good friend. I adore my friends. I do.

Why can't I stop with the feeling sorry for myself and just live the life that I DO have? It doesn't suck. Not that much, anyway...

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Navel Gazing

Posted by Boo 1:53 AM

I'm sort of having a problem with blogging because it seems so very narcissistic. I mean, to do it every day, and stuff. Seriously, who has stuff that's interesting to talk about every day? And, frankly, believe it or not, there is plenty of stuff I still don't feel like talking about.

ALSO I'm kind of stuck on this idea that every thing I write has to be literary, in some way. That makes blogging not fun, because who can write a heartbreaking work of staggering genius (which is up next on my reading list) every day?

I surely can't. I can't even get fully dressed every day. It's a crap shoot.

...but this is a mental health blog, and I think I might get more out of it if I actually, you know, blogged.

Right now my life lacks shape. It always has, really. This is the nature of an environment "managed" by two alcoholics. I never witnessed any structure, and I haven't the vaguest notion how to create or impose it. So my life feels something like a wind tunnel.

This is bad, on almost every level, but it's particularly bad because I am passing this chaos along to my daughter, which I do not want to do. I want to create a home for her, and -- even after a year and a half here -- our apartment feels like I've rented storage for our stuff but we also sleep here.

How in the world am I going to do this? I feel panicky when I even start to think about it.

But our lives need shape. Routines. Plans. Schemes.

OK.

Starting tomorrow.

Podcast. Thesis. Haircut. NO WRITING OR TEXTING that man. Yes THAT man. No more. He is unhelpful. He could be helpful, but he is not...so that's that. If he isn't gonna stand up and be my friend then he is not my friend.

Structure. Goals. Faking it till making it.

Perhaps a daily to-do list will help?

And please don't be surprised if the navel gazing becomes watching-paint-dry-boring. I can't be literate and regularly take out the garbage at the same time! I don't have it in me. ;)

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