The Shakes

Difficult day. Halfway through it I hit a full on panic attack. Couldn't stop shaking, felt like my heart was coming out my throat, wanted to rip out of my skin, thoughts flying fast. Was near hysteria. Wanted to cry, almost crying. Hyperventilating. It was like the morning before going into the hospital when I called Jb crying and hysterical and couldn't choke out what I wanted to say.

You Save Me

The Crash

Everything had been so normal, productive. More so than anything I'd experienced since the hospital. It reminds me of my childhood, the abuse. You could go days full of normal, and then out of nowhere, you'd get slapped down. Literally. Even now I have to use "you," second person singular, to distance myself from the memories. Depression feels like that. You find normal, if only for a few days, but there's always that trepidation that you'll have to pay for it -- with a slap out of nowhere, a hand that slaps you down, and there's a sort of a detached surprise when it happens, and then, like someone abused for a long time, resignation.

Mondays are the hardest for me. They're the first day I have to deal without having Jb around. That's strike one against me. But the previous day, we'd been driving in the car, and some country song had come on about weddings, fathers and daughters, the love and hope of a wedding. And it was disturbing how quickly it sent me back to my own wedding. Over ten years ago now, and I still remember it. How perfectly planned. How I never thought I'd end up separated, divorced. How maybe I shouldn't have married him. About how I'd felt myself shout "no!" inside when he'd given me the ring. How I should have listened to myself. It reminded me of how little I do. And it reminded me of failure, of a lifetime ago. And I felt such grief for that person that I was. For the tender moment with my dad. For the grief of leaving home.

Jb saw it, or part of it. There are things I can't tell him. There are things he simply can't know, having never gone through a wedding, a marriage. But he saw the part about my father. Knew I was thinking of him, and brought up a picture from my wedding I'd entirely forgot. It's the best picture taken from that wedding. My dad, in the library, holding an open book in his hand, dressed in the only suit or tux I've ever seen him in, with a silver glint of earring in one ear, and a mischievous grin for the camera. The big joke being that my dad's functionally illiterate, and he'd never in his life pick up a book or look like a man of leisure in a library and tux. He's always been blue-collar, down home, Southern through and through. And I love that about him.

It all was enough to trigger me, I think. I slept most of the rest of the evening, getting up for a couple cheese cookies I'd made for my birthday the day before and a drink. Then I crawled back into bed and slept the rest of the night. I'd get up for the bathroom, but I literally slept from 5 the following day until 4 o'clock on Monday when I knew Jb would be home. I had to be up when Jb got home, so I forced myself to take a shower. But the depression of those two days was so dark and deep that I couldn't fathom leaving my bed. And all last night, Lucy Kaplansky lyrics from "The Tide" kept running through my head, over and over and over and over.