Hanging Out With My Pals Anxiety and Panic

I woke at 2:30 am, broke out in a sweat, and started panicking. It’s been an hour and half, and the panic party is still going strong, despite listening to some bilateral stimulation, repeating the word “okay” over and over again in my head, and silently reciting the alphabet over and over. Sometimes, those things distract me, but not this morning. Instead I am reviewing, over and over again, the fact that I got a little too drunk at dinner and may have slurred some words and been sloppy.

You would think I faced the electric chair, honestly, instead of maybe having had a little too much booze. Except, I really didn’t have any more than I normally have (less, actually) so what the hell happened? We had two margaritas in the late afternoon, something that is a bit of a weekend tradition. Then we met friends for dinner and split a bottle of wine between the two of us. Saving discussion of my tolerance and general habits, that’s not the usual level of consumption. Of course, alcohol is a favorite switch with which to whip myself in the morning, any morning, not just mornings that insist on starting at 2:30 am. I feel a little like I did the time I got all the mosquito bites and ended up slurring and spinning after three glasses of wine, and we *were* outside and the mosquitoes *were* bad, but I coated myself in Off, and I’m not itching much.

But all of that is just looping around and around in my head and nothing is stopping it. “You’ve made an ass of yourself” my brain insists, “You don’t remember the rest of the evening very clearly, you are a stupid, embarrassing person.” No, I tell my brain, no, this was not a cardinal sin, even if I did slur or stumble or not remember going to bed and vaguely recalling maybe taking a shower to rinse off the chemical warfare. But my thoughts loop on and on. My brain also wants me to know that now that I am up, and have been for awhile, that the rest of the weekend is ruined and I have foolishly wasted the chance to rest.

“Why did you go out at all?” my brain queries, “You were exhausted already.” Oh, I thought, that is true. I *was* completely exhausted. I have been in tech all week, starting with last Sunday night. On Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I was watching the show. I wasn’t home before 9:30 pm, and I wasn’t asleep before 11:00 pm, and the one night I had off (Wednesday) I spent part of the night with my good friend and associate, Gnawing Stomach. The alarm went off every morning except yesterday at 5:45 am and I was up by 6:00am. But instead of thinking, in a forgiving of myself sort of way that maybe I simply pushed myself too far, I’m beating myself for my foolishness. What if I embarrassed myself? What kind of a jerk am I to meet up with someone for dinner and drink too much? That never happens to me.

Which would be a good reason to not freak out, right? I am not the person you don’t want to go out with because I’ll get all sloppy drunk and become slurred and overly sincere, so surely I have a free pass or two that are labelled “You Too Are Human.” My brain does not accept free passes, apparently. I am firmly, specifically, not allowed. I mean, what if I was a cute little drunk last night and did no harm? Could I let myself off the hook then? What if my immune system did flare and process things weirdly and so I lost some control? Why is it wrong to have an excuse?

In my whirling thoughts sort of way, I am obsessed with reconstructing the massacre. I did not have a good day pain-wise. My hands, thumbs, back, shoulder and hip were displeased with me. I did what I could to push it aside, because I had things I wanted to do. Even as I was happy to finally have a “day off”, I spent the better part of the day rendering for the show I’m designing this semester–which means I didn’t take the day off after all. Not that I hate spending a day drawing, but it was purely work-related, not something I was doing for myself. I didn’t finish the next page in the coloring book, I rendered a character’s costumes in full color and two views.

And here I sit, at nearly 4:30 am, nervous and wired and guilty. I have noted that I texted my friend and apologized for being drunk, and she said she likes me in any state including intoxicated. But I don’t feel better, oh no, that is expressly not allowed. Why does my brain sabotage me in this way? I don’t know. I’m also obsessing about the things I have to do today; like visiting my friend with brain damage and stopping by my mother’s house to look at tile samples. I could let both of those things go, but I won’t because I don’t feel I have a valid excuse. Then there’s the grocery store, meal planning, laundry….and then it’ll be back to work, tired and worn out instead of rested.

It seems that coping with this chronic, permanent, degenerative condition is constantly forcing me to re-evaluate my life and accept limitations. I don’t like it, I’m not happy, but clearly I’m doing something wrong or I’d be sleeping right now instead of splashing in a puddle of anxiety. At least, that’s what I imagine I’d be doing.