A Natalie Observed

Tag: Anxiety

  • Yet.

    I do not want to write still. I am depressed. Trying to maintain any sort of existence feels heavy and burdensome. I know writing, finding time to reflect on what I am going through, is the right thing to do. It would help me navigate this. But I am struggling to want to sit and touch what this feels like. I want it to go away, for the weighted blanket to dissolve into wispy, floaty air. The weather is warmer lately, high sixties, seventies and a hint of eighties. We are all shedding layers to allow our skin to absorb the warmth of the sun between wafts of the cool breeze. Spring and Autumn are when the residents of Sacramento Valley take advantage of pleasurable heat. Heat that you plant and harvest your gardens in. Heat that allows families to gather for brisket on the barrel in the backyard. Heat mostly absent from wildfire unless it is not. Not the heat of July and August, the heat that brings children out to experiment with cooking eggs on cement or a brownie in a coffee mug. And yet, with the warmth happening now, I do not feel the recharging of the sun. I feel rigidity in my entire body as I try to carry myself through every day without having a complete mental breakdown. I am tired. I am sleeping more. I do not feel creative. I am struggling to win the “why am I doing this?” battle. I am depressed.

    I cannot even recount with significant detail the number of events this past week that contributed to my inward spiral. I am not sure if it is the fact you were honored by Washington State for your organ donation and I was not there. If it was the Seattle apartment charging me $5,131.67 for breaking our lease because you died and I could not live there anymore? Or was it the lingering reality that this was not where I thought I would be in my life? Or it is very high odds I will not have a family the way I thought I would? Or is it that today marks five months without you?

    I miss you terribly and every single thing that happens in my life, good or bad, reminds me that you are not here. How do I capture that feeling? The weight of loss. The layers of this grief, a grief that has lived in my body for so many years before you died and has decided now is the time for me to deal with it. I am somewhere between concrete and the soil. How do you write about that? How do you explain it to people? I spend my days thinking about it, telling myself to write it down so I can work it out, but then ultimately not being able to do anything. To write about what is happening, is to confront losing you. And it still feels impossible to comprehend.

    Thinking about how to talk about this horrible, excruciating feeling makes my heart rate jump 128 beats per minute and gives me a stomachache. It makes being in my body feel dreadful. I started working out every day because I need to feel anything else in my body. I need to feel it do something else but feel this pain. It is the closest I think I have ever understood what you talked about when you described missing riding your bike before your spinal injury. It feels like a sadistic takeover that makes my clothes seem inside out and full of static. This feeling, the feeling of Anguish, is foreign. I hope no one ever has to feel it like this. If I could devise a world without it, right now I would. It certainly is not worth it. 

    Part of me, somewhere deep, deep down inside, chimes in when I get to this place, when I get to the place where it certainly is not worth it. This Part chimes in with a small, barely audible “yet”. Then, without hesitation, I restate the phrase with yet added in. “It certainly is not worth it… yet.”. I do not know what that Part is or how I got so lucky to have her. I am definitely waking up and going through this for her. She needs me to see what “yet” is. I am very anxious to know.

  • Party Tricks and a Birthday

    My latest party trick is having a panic attack when I am surprised by the sound of sirens or see a gurney. I have you to thank for that. Last week, I was in the nail salon when a patron lost consciousness and hit their head. I did not see what happened but heard the thud of an untethered head hit the floor. Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance came. No sirens alerted me to anything going on, so it was business as usual for me as the technician buffed and shined my destroyed nail beds. Then I watched them roll the gurney in and I felt my chest tighten as images of you on a gurney flashed into my mind. Do I take my backpack with me? When do I call your dad? Who is going to clean up all the medical supplies strewn all over our apartment? Your vomit is still on the floor by the dining room chair where I found you. They said they got a heartbeat, which is good, right? The image of the banana bag hanging from the hook in our living room ceiling flashed in my brain as I watched two EMTs help a young woman onto the gurney. Tears welled, pooled, and fell down my face.  I just need to make it through this appointment. Box breath, Natalie. You cannot hyperventilate and have a visible panic attack in public. Is this really happening? Fuck. I did not know I would have PTSD flashbacks like this.  I called my mom afterwards because I needed someone to know I had a panic attack when a woman needed medical attention at the nail salon.

    The next day, I explained to my dad what happened over lunch at Burger’s and Brews. We sat outside as the temperature hovered around 64 degrees Fahrenheit making Spring feel touchable. Not five minutes after I explained the panic attack, do I hear the sound of sirens coming from behind me. Chest tightened, heart raced, tears poured out of my eyes. The image of me talking to the ambulance driver as I sat in the front seat about how strange this all was. People really do pull over when the lights and sounds are on. I have always wondered. I said that to the ambulance driver and explained to him that I am a therapist, that I understand what I am going through would come back to haunt me. Dad held my hand as I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath. Picture the box, Natalie. Out, …2…3…4… Hold, … 2… 3… 4… Inhale… 2… 3… 4… and so on. I think it lasted five minutes. Part of me feels validated that my dad witnessed it. I am not being dramatic or making my situation worse through a story. I hear sirens from behind me and have a panic attack. That happened. It happened a couple weeks ago while on a walk with mom and was happening again at lunch. I have data to validate an experience. I am not crazy.

    Tomorrow you would have turned 42. 42. I always felt a tremendous responsibility and honor in making your birthdays a big deal. We took trips or had nice dinners because I think it mattered that you knew how much I loved that you were born. That you came into my life. That you existed. And then there is this year, the first time I mark your birthday after you died. I do not know what to do. It feels too soon to have composed some poetic idea for how to mark the day.  I researched beach vacations because we loved the beach together and I would love to have an experience of my anxiety melting into the rhythm of ocean waves. I pondered Disneyland because you would have wanted me to experience that kind of adrenaline joy. Financially none of that made sense. I cannot afford the time off given the six weeks I have missed since you died. I ordered a carrot cake from Mim’s Bakery. I Googled “what to put on a dead person’s cake” because I do not know what to say. Heather suggested a quote from your favorite author, so I looked up Gabriel García Márquez quotes as I know he was one of your favorites. There is always something left to love. I feel like a fraud because I have not read the book. I am terrified of discovering it has some meaning that is not what I am making of it. Also, only having the wherewithal for a cake feels substandard. This is not representative of how I feel about you, but then again, nothing right now feels adequate. You are having panic attacks multiple days in a row, Natalie. A Cake is enough. He would have loved a cake.

    That said, for you there is always something left to love. Even in the darkest moments of this experience, there is something left. Parts of you are here with me still as I wrestle with how to be a human in the wake of your absence. I know it is because of you I will learn the depths of what I am capable. What a gift you were and are to me. For all the complications of this story, at least that piece I know is real and true. I am not crazy. You existed and mattered. 42 years later and you still matter a great deal. I wish you were here so I could tell you all this, but you are not because you died. Tomorrow is your birthday, and we are not going to dinner or having a celebration because you died.

    What the fuck?