The Lynching

I know the dangers of studying psychology - a student’s tendency to diagnose herself with a new disorder with each passing chapter. Still, I suffered from anxeity long before I began studying anxiety disorder. So which came first? My anxiety, or my psychology text book?

I have to admit, reading about post-traumatic stress disorder, last week, caused me to lose traction in my treck upward. Even though nobody seems to think I suffer from PTSD, I could have been reading about myself in my text for all of the similarities between the pages in my book and the pages in my own personal story.

For example, in talking with my brother on the phone last night, after a very slight (by comparison to clinically-diagnosed folk) panic attack that began at the mall (even though I’m usually ashamed to admit that I even set foot into a mall -- but Macy’s, man, y’know?) I popped the cork on some pent up angst I had been experiencing for the better part of a week.

I have spent the past three weeks preparing for and then working, day and night, at a conference, attending marathon rehearsals for the show I’m doing (which is opening this Satruday evening), studying for and taking two psychology exams and then scrambling to continue my reading so as to not fall behind for the next two upcoming exams, plus managing to get in three workouts a week, all while working full-time.

I’m never one to admit that I have taken on too much. Usually my friends think I have, even though my capacity to handle many activities at once is unbreakable. I have been practicing and thriving on such a schedule for many, many years. However, since Chris died, I find that when I don’t leave myself time to think about him, grief begins vying for the spotlight, pushing its ugly head up, up, up, competing for its place on the stage.

Yesterday, as panic set in, I began to feel completely exposed, fat, sloppy and unattractive. I needed to get out of the mall and get home as fast as possible. Because I identified the anxiety, I wasn’t freaked out by the symptoms. I began breathing and walking to the train station, telling myself everything is okay.

What happened then is what makes me think I have some semblance of PTSD-like symptoms. In the middle of telling myself, “Everything is okay,” my chest completely bottomed-out and I lost my breath. My very next thought was, “Except that Chris is still dead.” In one-second’s time, my brain unscrambled the message,”If everything is okay...and Chris is still dead...then what I’m essentially saying is that it’s okay that Chris is dead.” and my thoughts formed a cord that wrapped around my neck and instantly strangled me.

What happened? A flashback? A typical grief-reaction? Exhaustion? I’m not really sure. I’m not a person who is controlled by anxiety, but I was yesterday.

I don’t know what my next course of action will be. Maybe I was hasty in ending my therapy. I may benefit from talking with somebody new and trying to change some of my cognitions about life and death and about how much I deserve to be “okay” without “okay” meaning I have forgotten about Chris.