15 May 2014

Anxiety, you may bite me.

Usually there is a rush, first. A whoosh as adrenaline bolts from the solar plexis gate and the race begins-- down arms, and legs, up along my jaw, into the top of my head, and neck, and into an emotional whatthefuckness of total hijacked badness.

under threat
in danger

in this land of no lions, the dangers the threats are ghosts. ghosts of old wounds, rubbed new by navigating grief.
ghosts are reminders of vulnerability, true vulnerability, true threat, true aloneness without resources, without backup, without the ability to keep anyone safe.
ghosts haunt with memories of insufficiency, of true inadequacy, faced with problems that I could not solve, were not solvable, about which I felt responsible even if I was not truly responsible, and ended in the ultimate failure of loss of a loved one.

this cocktail is a potent one,
the pin is pulled, the trigger, touchy, everything good feels temporary, and the anxiety, when it comes, feels like it will never leave.

I have so many tools at my disposal.  Yoga, breathing, nature, love. Meditation, mindfulness, awareness, curiosity.  I have art and friends and family and doctors. I am lucky beyond measure. And yet, with all of my tools, all of my resources, I am failing.  (don't worry, I KNOW better, but that is what it feels like).

beyond the triggery rushes, there is a low lying fog of it too-- potent in its own insidious ways: the fear of fear. a cloud-headed cool tingly feeling of waiting and sadness.
the grief of losing what felt like my own unconscious but oh now i know how sweet it was sovereignty
the grief of losing the innocence of life without this brand of Fear.
This is Anxiety plus Grief.

The timing and the emotional depth suggest the triggering may have started as I truly began to face the grief associated with Jeff's death after avoiding it for so long. But it is cleverly mixed with triggers embedded in things that every parent of a toddler faces. Often.

To get a handle on it at all, I asked for medication about a month ago.
I felt better knowing I had something to take, but I also felt more and more there is some sort of emotional scope creep where I was feeling fear more and more often. So, with my doctor's blessing I am doing an ativan boot camp-- medicating before physical responses as much as I can. This, I thought, would allow me to address the mental and emotional parts more directly without having to cope with the physical manifestations.
But in the 7 days since my plan was implemented, I have had two big triggers, two floods, two chunks of time washed away into the foreign and unpleasant land, and countless hours tinged or awash in fear of fear and grief about the fear.

today, the morning after the second trigger...I am so tired, bone tired. but also trying to revel in the good feelings that the lack of anxiety-in-this-moment means.
when it is not here, my ordinary, spectacularly ordinary life is so rich with good feelings, with openness with unclenched body.. but even with the relief, I am now on watch
and I hate that.

aware, alert for any change that may mean It's Coming Back.

constant vigilance.  vigilance does nothing but sap me. it does not keep it back. hold it at bay. make me more effective. it does not make me a better parent, a better person, a better artist (oh, maybe it will actually, who knows?), it does make me more compassionate to all who suffer from this bullshit.
but
man alive. I am just so tired.

this month marks one year of this dance.
and I toast it, with irony and  a quarter of an ativan.
I am working this, hard. and also trying my hand at allowing. at listening. at believing there are messages in this for me that are important.  I have a care team, I have Doug, I have my own stubborn tired self.
there are gifts in this, I am sure. and I say I am open to finding them. but in this moment, knowing there must be gifts is not the same as feeling it to be true.


14 May 2014

MagO7 you may kiss me now

So.
About poop.
Della has never again pooped on the potty. But that is not an issue for me or us right now.
because.
she is pooping.
every day sometimes, every other day.
some very tiny bit of anticipatory crying sometimes, more in fear of what was rather than in response to what is (OH just like her momma)
and
sometimes, she just asks for a pull up and poops.
just
like
that.

We have overcome this horrible terrible bad bad thing with LUCK, fear (of the butt medicine) and MagO7.

Do not do any of this without medical advice.  This is serious. Poop withholding can really cause damage, so make sure you talk with someone who knows about this for real, and can help.
I am not a doctor.
We tried all of the miralax, chewies, etc, that were not stimulant laxitives. we did stimulant laxatives exactly once. We also did the butt medicine (liquid glycerine suppositories) a few times out of pure desperation and need for her to poop.. but nothing was actually working, not breaking the cycle, calming the freaked out kiddo, or the parents.
so.
I did more and more reading on the internet and found MagO7 which is used for colon cleansing on crazy adults. Big magnesium molecules that draw fluid into the colon, keeping things soft. So they say.

We started giving her about a half capsule every night for a week then increased to one...but have found one capsule of MagO7 at night mixed in with something yummy (say, one spoonful of ice cream), and a little fiber (Heather's Tummy fiber, acacia?  1/4 tsp 2x/day)-- to be our magical combination that keeps the poop soft, keeps signals clear for her (no cramping), and appears to be allowing our little one's immense colon to return to something like a normal one, not that I would know what that is.

I just wanted to share that this nightmare appears to be over.
we put the butt medicine away in happy ceremony.

and

now if we can have the same success with my anxiety, we'll be golden. but that is a post for another day.

For folks to find this: stool withholding, poop withholding, Mag07 MagO7