Day 12 and 13 - Friendmas and Panic Attacks
I know I know - I smushed two days together again! I’m sorry folks, that’s just life right now. As my therapist has me saying to myself “we’re aiming for a solid B- right now” So that means that two days are sometimes going to have to be put together! More to read though, right?
So day 12, if you recall was a little bit of a frustrating start because I had to go in to work for a little bit in the morning on my day off. It wasn’t for a long time but it just took time away from other things on my to-do list that seem to be constantly pushed in order to make room for work things. But hey at least my morning started watching Santa walk around the mall. I made it through that morning and went home. I tried to take some time to rest, and Navi is always close by when it’s nap time. She never misses out on a good naptime cuddle.
I got to work getting myself in order because my friends and I had our little Christmas gathering planned - we decided to keep things cozy and the dress code was Christmas PJ themed. The company was great, the snacks were tasty and the gifts were on point. And you know the night wouldn’t be complete if 3 friends who met at music school didn’t end the night singing Christmas carols at almost 1 in the morning. No evidence of that though, you’ll have to use your imagination. It was so nice honestly though to just sing and feel festive during a time that feels so stressful for me. We just genuinely laughed and I felt joy and that was so nice.
Day 13…unlucky 13. Oddly enough, in the past, its day 12 that’s been the cursed day. But it shook things up this year and day 13 was one I really could have done without. I knew I would be tired, I didn’t know I was going to wake up with such bad anxiety. I feel like work is a huge source of that so maybe it was just because it took me until I woke up the next day to realize that it was time to go back. I made it work but it was pretty much just immediately overwhelming, and my to do list felt like it was just growing longer and longer. I decided that since I was going to be on planning time the whole day anyway, I needed to go somewhere where I felt safe to feel whatever I needed to feel. So I made myself at home at my parents place and tucked in there pretty much from 11 until 7pm. It was one of those days where I feel like I was working all day, but I never really accomplished anything because I couldn’t totally cross anything off as being done? I made progress but tasks just didn’t quite get finished. It wasn’t all bad though. I had some tea and got to just feel like I could breathe a little more doing that at home and not in the back room with people coming in and out and worrying about what was going on on the floor. I clocked out for the night, felt good about my work on the schedule, we ate some homemade pizza…I was feeling pretty good about it all until it all came to a crashing halt at the end of the night. All of a sudden that familiar feeling which I haven’t felt in a while showed up. If you’ve been around here a while you know the feeling I’m talking about. It’s that deep, pit of your stomach sinking. It like the feeling you get right before nausea. Anyway basically anxiety hit me all over again like a ton of bricks. I thought I was diffusing it all day but turns out I was just putting it later in the queue. I tried really hard to move on and enjoy my night - seriously I was like crying decorating the Christmas tree I wanted to badly to not feel the way I was feeling but it wouldn’t go away. So it’s fine, I had my panic attack and my meltdown and did what I could to give me a little more comfort going into tomorrow. Talking it out I realized it was because these days are really hard to predict - we don’t know what each day is going to look like or what’s going to happen and not knowing and anxiety don’t vibe super well. Plus side - we did finish decorating my parents’ tree.
So it was rough. but I am glad that I was at my parents because I wasn’t alone and I had someone to support me through that. I’m glad that I was able to make some changes to help relieve a lot of my worries. And I’m glad that I brought my Switch because I needed to visit my little Island after all of that.
I know tomorrow will be better. I am going to make it better. But I need to go to sleep like 3 hours ago to help support that so I will have to sign off here.
Let’s all manifest that was my one and only panic attack of the festive season!
-B