Another tool in the toolbox

It took a little bit before I decided to start back up with therapy. Truthfully, I thought leaving Omaha would be the end of all my problems.

I’m not being forced to remember all of my trauma, so it can't possibly bother me, right?

Wrong.

It was in the beginning of the stay-at-home orders when I was able to go to my first appointment. It was weird. I didn’t think I would be nervous, but my goodness, was I ever.

Do I really need to divulge everything? I’m doing fine, right? Is this going to be better than what I was doing in Omaha? Will it hurt me emotionally? Will it break me?

To be honest, I’m not sure I could adequately explain my first appointment with my new therapist - I quite honestly forgot it. What I remember is telling her my background, why I sought out therapy and continue to seek therapy, what was bothering me while in news and once I got out, etc.

She gave me the same diagnosis as my previous therapist.

Damn.

But what she did tell me made me feel better. She assured me that I’m okay, will get better, and she can help me.

She can help me.

So, the sessions began. I stopped going monthly like I was in Omaha and started going every other week. My first few months were riddled with anxiety, and she has given me several tools to help when I am most anxious.

Will the anxiety go away? I’m not sure, but I know how to feel less like I’m going to throw up. I had one episode so intense that I had chewed the skin off my lips, causing them to swell up, so at the very least, my lips are safe.

Worst of all, though, I felt like my trauma was following me.

Loud pops from what I think was probably electrical transistors nearby sent me spiraling. I currently live in an affluent community where crime is minimal and really not all that severe, but I still thought I had heard a gunshot. My eyes almost instantly filled with tears. I looked out my window, struggling to breath, heart racing, body trembling. I locked all the doors of my house, thinking back to all the scenes I had been to.

“Purge Day,” as in the ones in the movies, had come during the height of the stay-at-home orders. I knew it wouldn’t happen, but I irrationally turned off all the lights, shut all the blinds on the windows, locked the doors and even put blankets up on windows to keep myself safe. I cried myself to sleep that night squeezing the dog in my arms.

Side note: why do so many of my episodes happen when Justin is at work?

An Overland Park police officer was shot and killed after he had stopped a vehicle. A procession of local law enforcement vehicles drove by our place. I stood there watching vehicles go by, stomach in knots and choking back tears while holding Justin. My mind raced, imagining my own husband in the very same position. I stepped back inside the house to let the tears go. I cried and told him how terrified I was to lose him.

Am I different than others? No, not at all, and I hope that you feel you’re not alone if you can relate to these same fears, same downward spirals. I tell you these little stories to do just that: let you know you’re not alone.

My fears are not totally irrational, but the rabbit holes I send myself into are unnecessary. It would be easy to say I can just think them out of existence, but unless your mind has spiraled like that, it’s hard to explain how uncontrollable it is. One thing leads to another, and before I know it, those fears almost become reality in my mind. It’s truly terrifying in the moment.

While it’s not all sunshine and bunnies, it’s also not all gloom and doom. I learned a lot from these experiences, learned how to help myself out of these holes, and I learned how to ask for help.

Another tool in the toolbox, as my therapist tells me regularly.

To be quite honest, it was when I started asking Justin for comfort that a lot of my fears were calmed. It was when I started asking my mom or sister for a quick phone call that a lot of my depression and tears were calmed.

Another tool in the toolbox.