Fight or flight

I’ve been a bit absent recently. Nothing is wrong. I’ve just been pretty busy with life. Things have actually been going pretty well.

I decided about a month or so ago that I’m going to go back to school. Classes start in about two weeks for me, so I’ve been trying to get financial aid squared away. It’s taking some time since I haven’t been married that long. I’ll be going to Iowa Western to hopefully become a dental hygienist. Justin and I also just booked our honeymoon in Jamaica. We’ll be leaving in mid-October, so we’ve been scrambling to get passport stuff taken care of. So between school and traveling stuff, I’ve been a bit busy.

As for my mental health, that has honestly looked up these past couple of weeks.

There has been a couple of lapses, though. That happens, but it hasn’t been debilitating like it sometimes feels.

I met with my therapist about two and a half weeks ago. We talked about my friend’s recent passing.

I posted about Carlos’s death on Instagram about a day after it happened. We were old friends in high school, and I met up with him when I was in town for our reunion.

Back in May, a truck hit Carlos on his motorcycle and drove away from the scene. He, unfortunately, bled a significant amount and ended up dying in the hospital.

I was at the gym when I found out he had died. I am rarely on Facebook, but I opened up the app to get rid of the notification. Sure enough, there was a picture there and a comment from one of my friends saying, “I never thought this would ever happen to you.” I frantically began digging around to see what the hell had happened. All I could find were messages from his other friends and a message from a military group because Carlos was a veteran.

That’s all. I couldn’t even find a damn news article.

Later that night, I messaged a friend of ours who was one of his closest friends to find out what happened. It was a hit and run, which explains why there was little to no media coverage. Hit and run accidents happen so frequently that it’s difficult for the media to gauge whether it’s worth it to cover. Plus, Carlos was hit in the early morning hours.

Carlos was a very conscientious rider. When we met up last year, he Ubered to the bar where we met at because he had already had one drink and didn’t want to put his life and others’ in danger. I drove him home after we hung out. We sat in my car talking for too long really. It was like old times. We talked about these little paper hearts we made each other in high school. We both had them 10 years later.

When I got home from the gym, I tore up my house looking for that little heart. I can still see it, but I couldn’t find it. I looked for what felt like hours as I tried so desperately to choke back tears.

I had no idea where it is. I still have no idea where it is, and, boy, does that kill me inside.

I left that room and sat on my bedroom floor sobbing into my hands.

“He was a good one. He didn’t deserve this. He cared about others and thought about them constantly, even if he didn’t know them,” I said to myself.

Normally when we talk about these traumas, as she calls them, the rest of my day is a bit bleak, and I’m emotionally down for a couple days.

This time, I wasn’t. I had every right to hold onto it, but I think I compartmentalized a lot more than I should have.

Truth be told, my uncle passed the day before I met with my therapist. We buried him that Friday, and through it all, I felt fine. “Uncle Ray was 89 years old, after all,” I told myself and others. “He had a few health problems, too.”

I did cry at his funeral, which is fairly normal. I’d known the man my entire life, only to learn he wasn’t really even related to me when I was a teenager. He was and always will be my uncle.

Overall, though, I felt emotionally stable for the first time in what feels like years.

Was I really okay, or was I shoving all my emotions away like I have done for so long?

That answer came Sunday.

I don’t watch the news anymore. I just can’t get myself to come around to it, so the only exposure I get to news is through push alerts on my phone or muted pictures on the TVs at the gym.

Across all national news stations Sunday afternoon were images from Texas and Ohio following deadly mass shootings. Photo after photo came across the screen, as did sobbing women who I assume talked about how they were feeling. What caught my eye, though, was not the raw emotion. It was the reporters. The stoic look on their faces as they held cameras and cell phones to these peoples’ faces.

My hands are now trembling. My heart is starting to race. My chest tightens, and there is a lump in my throat. I can feel my eyes swelling as I try to push the tears back in. I can’t breathe now, so I’m pacing to shake this feeling.

For the second time in less than a year, I’m having a meltdown in the gym with four people around me; one of whom I think notices.

“You’re here. You’re in the gym. BREATHE. You’re here. You’re in the gym. BREATHE,” I repeated to myself over and over again as I replay the stories that hurt me the most.

The gym is my release, so I picked up the weights in front of me and started my next set. Thank goodness, that worked.

I’ve come across a lot of anxiety in the months since leaving the news industry. My therapist has said it’s because I’ve been in a perpetual “fight or flight” stage. Now that I’m not, emotions rush through me just as quickly as butter melts on a hot pan. These past few weeks, though, I’ve challenged myself to evaluate why I have these meltdowns, attacks or whatever you want to call them.

Rewind Sunday’s tape, and the last two and half weeks came through clearly.