Dear Lorazepam, I love you. I love how whenever I am crying or rocking myself back and forth or hyperventilating from fear and relentless panic, I can pop one of you and within 30 minutes you will have soothed me. I will feel reasonable. I will feel capable. I will feel confident and competent. I will know that I am okay and I have the power to keep myself okay. I love how if I take you at night I will wake up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready; grateful that the sun is shining and at ease with the world. I love how I don't feel drugged or dazed or unmotivated. Just... pleasant. And, actually, quite motivated. Quite "ready."
Dear Lorazepam, I have to be careful and only take you a couple times a week because this sounds like the shit that addiction is made of.
So. There we are.
Anyway, for the most part I've been doing really great with managing my anxiety without meds. I think before tonight I went almost a week without the benzos, which is great for me, especially in the throes of all this. I'm actually rather shocked with how well I've been doing -- so many units this semester, so much pain with the sophomore situation, so much acid reflux drama, so many obligations related to the ridiculously difficult double major class I'm taking, so few calories, so much stress with having to start thinking about new apartments, so many uncomfortable emotions about being cast in Motherfucking Courage and Her Sophomores (actual title Mother Courage and Her Children -- I have always loathed Brecht, really). But through it all, I haven't fallen apart. Yet. And yes, my life is unmanageable, BUT I'm managing the unmanageability quite well.
Today my therapist proved that, as lovely and patient as she is with treating my eating disorder, she has very limited experience with generalized anxiety (GAD) and panic disorder (PD). I was talking about being afraid of going crazy, of snapping and doing something completely irrational, of having schizophrenic hallucinations, etc., and she didn't seem to understand that these fears had absolutely no basis in reality. She kept asking me if any of these things had ever happened, or if I'd ever had violent urges or anything, and seemed really confused when I told her I hadn't. My fears have no basis in reality; that's what makes them part of a disorder. She seemed to think that there might be some underlying psychosis; even though she'd never seen evidence of it in me (as she explained), the fact that I worried about it might mean something.
Yeah. It might mean that I have an anxiety disorder.
So I got through the session, slammed my car door, and started doing the panic attack shaky sobbing thing -- if you're familiar with that. You know, where you're crying and unable to control your breathing and the volume of your voice and the sounds you're making all at the same time so you're just kind of making this high-pitched "ah ah ah ah ahooohoohoo ah ah ahoooOOOooo ah ah..." noise.
And you know what? It was incredibly cathartic.
I cried because I was psychotic. I cried because my therapist thought I was insane. I cried because while I was crying I was going to have a heart attack. I cried because everyone hated me. I cried because I was a serial killer in the making. I cried because I was going to kill myself. I cried because I was never going to make it through the semester. I cried because I was never going to stop crying and I would get in a car accident while sobbing on the freeway. I cried because I would never live a normal life. I cried and cried and cried and then I stopped crying.
Because I was enough.
Because it was okay to cry, and I could cry more if I needed, but right now I should slowly pull out of my parking space and make my way home.
Because I had a disorder, and right now, in that moment, it didn't matter that my therapist didn't understand it. I understood it.
I understood it was normal for people with GAD and PD to worry about being abnormal. Crazy. Psychotic. Insane. Violent. Manic-depressive.
And I understood that the incidence of any of these traits in GAD/PD sufferers was next to zero.
And I understood the fact that because in 30 minutes (sans medication at this point), I could bring myself from uncontrollable, inconsolable, infantile sobs to doing a little happy dance behind the steering wheel because my two favourite radio stations just played "Hold It Against Me" back-to-back, I was competent, capable, stable (outside the eating disorder), and strong.
Dear Rational AJ, thank you for once again proving that you do exist and are still very much alive and kicking under all that bullshit called anorexia.
The lorazepam entered the picture back at home, just as a precautionary thing because I still wasn't feeling completely back to par and I knew my amygdala was still reeling, on the lookout for anything that might be a sign of danger.
And yes, with the lorazepam, I get a taste of what "normal" feels like. I get a taste of how ordinary people must go about their moments -- not without stress, but without the constant whatiflookoutyou'regonnawhat'sthat undercurrent of anxiety, forever simmering and threatening to boil itself into panic at an instant's notice.
When I don't have an eating disorder, that's what things will be like, only even more awesome. I won't need the lorazepam.
I'll just be.
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