I'm taking a quick break in my journey to share something in real time with you all. My last post was about depression and I tried to be very honest. In light of that, I also want to share with you what's going on right now.
Last night, I was lying in bed having a panic attack. I have had a few of these in the past few months and have developed a technique to deal with them. First, I turn on some music from my "sleep" play list. Next I wrap a blanket around my back and cross my arms in front of me and pull tightly. I had the idea for this because I have heard that when people with autism start having panic attacks they have someone/something hold them tightly because it depresses the central nervous system. While holding myself, I sing with the music because it helps me control my breathing. The attack usually lasts for at least 30 minutes.
When having a panic attack, everything that I try not to say to myself in daylight pops into my mind. Right now, my biggest internal struggle is not having a job. During this episode, I asked myself why not having a job was giving me panic attacks. I answered that it's because the only thing I could ever depend on was being smart. I've never had health or a love life, but I always had my brain. That was my success in life. And without having a job, I felt I was failing in my "smart" area of life. So I had lost the last thing that I felt good about.
Then I went on to how I felt betrayed by my body. This is nothing new to me. My body has betrayed me since I was born, but now, as a young adult, I feel it has betrayed me the most. On the inside, my bones break easily, only 1/3 of my lungs work, I don't produce any tears, and I can't have children (I know a lot of you don't know these things, but they will be addressed later on in my blog). On the outside, I have stretch mark scars everywhere and extra skin on my torso from all of the steroids I had to take. I honestly am not sure which one is worse: the internal or external betrayal. From the inside, things fail. From the outside, I feel ugly. And I know this is why I fail at a love life. Because I don't feel that anyone could love someone who has such a failure for a body. It's as simple as that. So the three pillars that I believe compose a life, health, love, and knowledge, are all broken for me.
As I figured this out, I had an epiphany. It shouldn't have been an epiphany because if I had told this to anyone, they would have easily said that I needed to go to therapy. But I couldn't see all of these things until I was mid-panic attack. I realized I cannot solve these issues by myself. What I've been doing is (clearly) not working. I tried to wrack my brain to figure out what I could do to feel better about my body or to try to let someone in to my life, but I honestly have no idea how. It took all three pillars completely collapsing on me to see that I need help.
This post was very difficult for me to write. I always fear rejection for what I've written in my blog. But I also feel liberated when I write down what I'm afraid to tell people. What I don't want from this post is for people to contact me and say that things will be okay and that I'm beautiful how I am or that I'm still smart even though I don't have a job. What I have said is how I feel and no matter how many times people say these nice things to me, it will not help me change how I feel about it. These kinds of feelings require more than pep talks and kind (and I know sincere) words to make me feel better.
My sister always says that everyone should see a therapist. I believe that's true. We all have something we're struggling with that we don't know how to fix. People may try to reassure you about whatever you're coping with, but it doesn't work. It may be that you're unhappy with something about yourself or you're having trouble coping with something (like an event or person). As you're reading this, I'm sure you are thinking of what it is that perhaps you struggle with. I'm not saying that you have to go to therapy, but I'm asking you to think about it. You may decide that it's not the thing for you. But you also might decide it is. I know that it's my turn to go back.
