Sometimes I chastise myself for overthinking things, especially when it comes to anxious thoughts. However, I’ve realized that no one else is going to analyze this stuff for me.

I do self-guided therapy because of the expense (financial and otherwise) of traditional therapy. So thinking about things deeply is to dwell in the belly of the beast. It is not pleasant, but feels necessary. 

And that’s about all the context needed for readers of today’s blog therapy session.

When I was very young, like maybe four, we went on a vacation with my grandpa that included a family reunion in South Dakota.

Somewhere along the way we stopped at an indoor water park. My grandpa was supposed to catch me coming down a short slide into a pool that was small and maybe four feet deep. At my age, it might as well have been twenty feet deep.

As I was going down the slide, my dad was launching off of a trapeze in the big pool. Grandpa turned to look at his son as I was coming down the slide and didn’t catch me. I was in over my head, and I couldn’t swim. There was much coughing and sputtering complete with the burning sensation of chlorinated water in my nose and lungs. 

After all the warranted fussing, the adults tried to coax me back in the water with a flotation device, but I would have none of it. My lizard brain figured my odds of not drowning were better if I just stayed out of pools.

(I hated pools until junior high, and probably would have hated them longer if I was OK with my classmates knowing I was a big weenie.)

For reasons that seem obvious to only me, anytime Dan looks at something shiny when I am trying to keep my balance, I flip the fuck out and have a panic attack. 

Falls are the new drowning.

On my way back downstairs after a recent session of occupational therapy, Dan looked away from me as I white-knuckled the Rollator from carpet to vinyl. Seeing him distracted while I felt unsteady, I said, “My brain needs you to pay attention to me!”

Onlookers may have been shocked at the terror in my voice. I wasn’t.

It’s been about 24-hours of barely speaking to Dan since yesterday’s stalemate. I’ve decided that I don’t want the burden of his anxiety when some days I’m barely capable of handling my own.

He can face his anxiety or not, but I don’t feel calm. And the only way I see to avoid serious regression is to minimize the number of panic attacks I endure.

Unfortunately, while the quiet tension mounts, I remain in a cycle of disordered panic. I can’t sleep, my feet are cold, I spend hours at a time curled up in a fetal position. I recognize the physical pain of being tight and closed, but it’s involuntary. It seems as soon as I stretch out, I find myself in a ball again. With no idea how I got there.

So I went all of today not asking for his help with anything. That way I don’t have to navigate the guilt of his sighs or listen to him remind me that he’s been in pain for 30 years now.

To be clear, I am not dismissive of his chronic illness. It’s just, to be perfectly blunt, his PsA doesn’t cure my fucking cancer. I keep reminding myself I didn’t choose this tumor. But I don’t want to have to keep reminding myself. I’m tired of reminding myself. I feel like I’ve earned a little tantrum, as a treat.

For eight years I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen, “I want one thing not to be a fight.” And my progress with PT? Well, no fight! It was glorious!

But here I am fighting again when I feel pretty strongly I shouldn’t have to. I can be stubborn and entitled too. Like, dude, work on yourself because your anxiety and depression clearly affect me. And I DO. NOT. WANT.

Ninety percent of the anxiety I experience now is me trying to determine what my giant man-baby needs so his fee-fees don’t get hurt. 

Because he won’t just say it out loud. And he acts like he’s doing me some big favor by holding everything in.

Launch the patriarchy into the sun, I say!