On Thursday, my Sister told me to stop watching the news, it was making me worse, so I did. And going home and watching hours and hours of news of social unrest on TV, of people hurting, not only emotionally, but with all of the violence on both sides, has also taken its toll on me. I don't want to stitch because I don't feel like I should stitch. I shouldn't sit and enjoy myself while the rest of the world is fighting for basic human rights (something I could never go out and do myself for obvious reasons).
I spent months working myself to the bone, practically sequestered at work. I pushed past the limits of exhaustion and came out the other side, not exactly ready for social activity (a difficult feat even before that began). Then, within less than a week after go-live, we have a tornado less than 400 ft away from my trailer...not the safest place to be in the South anyway. THEN, almost immediately after that, I see that that the world is heading towards a pandemic, so I had to sequester myself again, which I did a good month before everyone else around here. This time, it took me a while to figure out that I was using the pandemic as an excuse, more than a legitimate reason to stay away from people. I haven't been inside a store or restaurant in months. I also haven't been able to to through a drive-thru since the very beginning days of this, something I could at least do before.
But it's also gotten harder to even go to the store to pick up groceries via online ordering. They are typically out of stock of EVERYTHING. I'm way over-ordering just to try to get half of what I need and I'm still having to buy groceries a couple of times a week. This was something it took me weeks to work up to before! In an effort to help, a co-worker offered to go inside a local store with me although we had to have a long discussion about where I could actually go. Going inside the Wal-Mart I pick up from is not an option (the other SuperCenter has a Subway...Daddy issues, so no go there). And I'm having a LOT of trouble with just the idea of any store that has an entrance that very eerily remind me of TSA checkouts at airports...one of my top 5 greatest fears. Even before all this happened, I had a panic attack in one of our local Wal-Mart Marketplaces because, since I had been buying online, I hadn't been there in a while, and they moved the checkout lanes on me (they changed them to complete self-checkout...which I do typically hate because, since it takes me forever to build up the courage to go to the store, I buy a TON of stuff...not really what the self-checkers were designed for). I couldn't find my way into the stupid lanes because the entrance wasn't marked, it wasn't readily visible because of the big bins blocking it. I spent an hour on the phone with my Sister bawling like a baby, stalking the isles trying to watch to see how other customers were getting in (but because it was a late hour, not a lot of people were in the store and it just made me look weirder, which made me more self conscious, it was a total cluster fudge). I also can't go to the local Kroger for an even stupider reason, they moved to a bigger store and I haven't been in there yet. And, the last time I went to Target, one of the few stores I could go in, the next day it got hit by a tornado...see a pattern here? I can't go anywhere by myself and, even with help, I still can't go anywhere! We have dozens of stores in this town, all have given me mini-panic attacks at one time or another!
But, I did agree to go with my co-worker to the store down the street from my house, since it's also on her way home. It's not the best store, but I've been there before and I was getting desperate for certain things. We get in there, and NO ONE, I repeat NO ONE is wearing masks...not patrons, not staff, not management, NO ONE! Freak out #1. When I would go up to look at something, some complete stranger would walk right up on me like it was just normal days (something I hated even in normal days), so I would have to just walk away (and, in some cases, sprint). Freak out #2. I waited in line at the meat counter at a safe distance, while the girl in front of me handled almost every single package of meat trying to decide. She held them in her hands, she would put them in her basket, then back on the shelf, she would ask her companion, then take them back again. She would compare them to the ones still on the shelf. She would swap them out. Freak out #3. I stood my ground, especially since I was there for meat, but eventually, my rage must have been felt, because she turned and looked all evil at me and walked off. Thank goodness I, at least, was wearing a mask and she couldn't see MY face! By the time I got out of that store, I was stressed, freaked and had to practically bleach everything I bought.
My Sister is big on social desensitization (probably because she's been going to a therapist too long). Social desensitization doesn't work on me and it took me a long time for all my old therapists and shrinks to realize this and take other measures. It just makes me worse. Almost every single time I go out, it's like 90/10 trauma/calm situation, so next time, I just remember the trauma. I get where she's coming from, but I also can't make her understand that, yes, I get this whole new phobia I've built up is ALL in my head and there is no magic pill, I'm QUITE aware, but it's still there and it's still very real to me, as is the traumas. I'm the type of person that, if a toilet is going to fall from an airplane and kill someone, that someone would be me. Unfortunately, there are only two people who can fix it...me (which I'm obviously in no state to do at this point) and a professional (which our local mental facility made sure I will NEVER been able to seek professional help again, so thanks for that!). For now, this is my reality.
On Wednesday last week, driving to work, it was like someone flipped a switch and turned the pandemic off. Traffic was normal, every business parking lot was full and just the drive itself, with all the people around, even though I was in the safety of my own vehicle, freaked me out enough that I had to take a "little blue friend" when I got to work. It's been like that every morning (and every night) since.
I mentioned to my Sister, after the rocket launch, that I wanted to go to Kennedy for my 50th B-Day this year, but then I realized that I don't think I can do that. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I don't think I can go back to Disney either. It's just been too long since I've been there. If I can't even drive to work without freaking out, how am I supposed to go out of town? How am I ever going to drive down to the coast again? I could do that because I was in the safety of my own vehicle, a space that, even now a simple drive to work can prove, isn't safe enough for me. So what do I do?
The more time goes on, the more I am realizing that I'm using the pandemic and the issues of our country now as the excuse I've been searching for my whole live...a valid excuse to lock myself in my house and never leave it again. I've worked through years of childhood traumas to "appear" normal so no one would realize I wasn't. I dealt with all sorts of issues in my 20's as a side effect of all that youth trauma. In my 30's, I started to accept what I was and began to work on the best ways to deal with it and learn to function in my own ways and (I had thought) by my 40's, I had it all down to a routine, even if I spent everyday fighting my true nature. But here we are, on the cusp of my 50th year of life, and everything I've worked for is slipping away from me and I'm not sure how, or if I even want, to stop it. Is that a sign of old age or am I just tired?
Once my Sister told me to turn off the TV on Wednesday, it took until Friday before I could watch normal TV again and then I felt guilty (but I was having Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. withdrawal). I was careful what I watched, nothing too lighthearted, but slowly I noticed I was sinking back into my old TV routines. By Sunday, I picked up my needle again. I felt guilty for that too. But my life is already in such disarray, I can't keep making it worse. I'm already in pretty bad shape, bad enough that, I'm pretty sure, once the pandemic is over with, my life can't go back to "my" normal. I've developed fears I never knew I had or never had before (like germs...I was an anti-germiphobe before and, just me going out in public with a mask on my face is something you would NEVER see me do, like ever, even as a kid at Halloween!). I have to at least keep some semblance of normalcy, so back to stitching it is.
So here is my ONE day worth of work. I left off here last week after only two days worth of work (have I mentioned I hate this project, although I will say she ain't going so bad what little I have been stitching on her this time, maybe because it's in little doses):
And here is my "progress" (if you want to call it that), I've been working on filling in the gaps on the first page more than anything, so you can't even see what progress there is:
Just to add insult to injury, after YEARS of sleeping on the couch because I felt more comfortable within a stone's throw of the front door (and it just sort of evolved after my "bad hospital" stint), my couch, even after replacing the cushions, has become WAY too uncomfortable, enough so that, after last weekend's barely moving and sitting all tightened up, I could barely walk for days! Since I stitch there too, that also affects my stitching. I've had to go back to sitting in the chair, but I haven't moved my stitching gear back yet, but I've also had to go back to sleeping in the bed, something I am VERY uncomfortable with! Every little sound wakes me up. The pups aren't used to it, so they are up and down all night (and Bam is too little to get off and on by himself, even with the step bench, so I have to help him up and down). I'm not physically hurting anymore, but I'm exhausted, which isn't helping everything else!
And I have a back porch light out, one that can't be reached without a ladder. Another coworker offered to help with that, but I'm so scared to get out of the house at all, that when she texted me Saturday, I panicked and asked if we could wait until next weekend. Granted, my excuse was I was up until 5 am (which was true...I'm obsessed with paint-by-numbers on my iPad now), but it was an excuse. I was just too scared to go outside...of my own house...at 9 am in the morning...on a Saturday...with a coworker. Stupid! And now I still have a light out, another reason keeping me from sleeping in the bed (which is past that light) good. I'm the destroyer of my own world!
In the beginning of the pandemic, I warned about the dangers this would have on our mentally ill. I thought I was prepared for my own issues, but I wasn't prepared for everything else packed on top, that just has become too much and I don't know how to process it all anymore. I can't help the world, I can't help myself, and my few outlets of release, like TV and stitching, have become guilt trips rather than helpers. I'm at a loss as to what to do, but I'm still hanging in there. And, if anyone has any ideas (rather than desensitization), let me know!
