The creeping grows into a monster

Part Two.

I fully believe in the power of the mind. Before 2014 I had never been depressed a day in my life. If ever I would start to feel down, I would tell myself I was fine and force myself to be okay, which lead to be actually believing I was okay. I was working more then full time, in school more then full time, running a household which included; cooking and planning meals, budgeting, bills and cleaning. I was also a supermom. I would have daily crafts and learning activities for my children, healthy meals prepped and planned every day, chore charts that were strictly followed. I would work 12 hour night shifts, come home and be a mom for the next 12 hours. No sleep. It didn't bother me. I would make time to spend with my husband when he got home from work. Ensuring he had a delicious healthy meal and a clean house to come home to, not to mention a smoking hot wife that would get ready and actually shave her legs every day (okay, every other day). I made time to do my homework and take my tests and succeed in my school work. I exercised and maintained a healthy lifestyle. This was all normal for me. I am my happiest when I am constantly busy and when my family is happy. I don't care to have "me" time. I would prefer to spend my time with my children and husband. Weird, I know. This is how I lived my life. Every day. Until I hit my breaking point.

It was August 2014 when I realized there was something wrong with me. I couldn't shake the uneasy and unsettling feeling I had inside of me. I was constantly worried and constantly stressed. Nothing was added to my life that made me suddenly freak out. It was over time that I noticed I had changed. I was cranky. I cried a lot. I was stressed and on edge every single day. I felt like I could do nothing right even if I had done a million things that day. I started googling my symptoms. Now I know google is not a reliable source. But I seem to google everything and believe most everything google tells me.

"Everything you read on the internet is true." - Abraham Lincoln

I couldn't sleep at nights. I would toss and turn for almost the entirety of the night, unable to shut my brain off. During the days I would stress about everything. I would go to the gas station to get a dirty diet coke, which does not contain alcohol like it sounds...and although I could have probably used some (a whole bottle) of vodka, I preferred diet coke with coconut syrup. A little piece of heaven. But going to the gas station became a huge event that I debated for the entire day. I really want a diet coke right now. Oh but Crew is sleeping and I shouldn't wake him up because then he'll be tired and grumpy and he really needs his sleep. When he would wake up, he's awake now, but now I have to get my children ready for the day which means I have to get ready because we can't leave the house looking like we just woke up, people will think we are lazy and that I'm a horrible mom and they will take my children away, so we have to get ready. and Crew's carseat is so heavy and I don't want to have Madelyn sit next to Crew in the car because they will fight and one of them will hurt the other one and then they will cry and I'll want to pull all my hair out and I can't do that because I need to do my hair. and oh wait, I think Kyle took the card today and I don't have any cash, so we have to go to his work to get the card and he struggles to answer his phone because he it's so loud at his work and then I'll have to wait for him with two kids screaming at me in the backseat and I just want to listen to Taylor Swift but I can't because then I have to take my phone out of the childproof case to plug into my car... so I wouldn't get a diet coke.

I became paralyzed by my anxiety. I couldn't leave my house. I would just sit, my mind racing, unable to slow down. My heart rate would dramatically increase. On a daily basis my heart rate ranged from 110-150, all day long. I would bite the inside of my cheek. I would pick at my arms and legs. My hands would shake uncontrollably and my breathing would increase. I can't remember my first panic attack. I know it happened sometime in September. My panic attacks have all been different. In the beginning I would hyperventilate, cry and shake. My heart would be pounding in my chest and my mind would NOT SHUT OFF. I was trapped inside my head. My thoughts were my own worst enemy. I knew I needed help.

I went to my family practice physician. Very skeptical of my appointment. I was already taken adderall, a sought after, abused controlled substance and now I was returning to the doctor with an apparent anxiety issue. Would he think I"m med seeking? Is he going to think I'm a druggie? I can't go to my appointment. I don't want to get addicted to meds. What if he doesn't believe my anxiety. What if he thinks I'm fine and sends me home. Then I'm stuck living this hell with no options, advice or help. I had a panic attack in the car to my first appointment, canceled my appointment and went home. When I finally made it to the doctor, he suggested an anti-depressant. Oh. My. Hell. This frustrates me the most. At this point in my anxiety I was not depressed. I am no doctor (although I pretend I know everything a doctor does sometimes...thanks google), and I understood that certain anti-depressants CAN help with anxiety. Anti-depressants usually take around 4 weeks to work. Please tell me whoever invented this medicine wtf they were thinking. Let's make a medicine for depression and anxiety that takes a month to work! YEAH! That sounds like a great idea! I'd like to hurt those people. But doctors are very skeptical to give out benzodiazepines. Which I completely agree with, but I was desperate. I agreed to take the anti-depressant.

My life sucked. I was having at least one panic attack every. single. day. I felt like I had lost my shit. I felt I was close to a one way ticket to the psych ward, the kind with the locked doors and padded rooms. Do those really exist? Please tell me how enclosing a terrified person in a white padded room is going to help with anxiety. Any marbles I may have had left in my brain surely would have escaped if I had to go to the padded room. But I felt helpless. I felt hopeless.

I started seeing a Psychologist in September. Every single week. I would have a panic attack every single time. I went back to my physician. We switched anti-depressants and added Hydroxyzine. It is similar to a benzo but doesn't have the addictive qualities the benzos do. Hydroxyzine knocked me on my ass. I could barely function. Not because I felt so messed up, but because I was beyond exhausted. I felt it was stronger then a damn ambien. Is this how they "fix" anxiety?! Make me sleep all the time? Oh good hell, what are these people doing to me. I felt like a Guiana pig. I was their little experiment to try all sorts of different combinations of medications on. Medications that take weeks to work. I don't know how many times I saw that damn doctor before he finally understood the severity of my issues. Every single doctors appointment I had, I had a panic attack. The doctor would come in and see me curled up in a ball, hyperventilating and crying. I couldn't breathe. My muscles would start to contort and they would stiffen. The doctor would come over and try to unsuccessfully straighten out my hands. He told me I needed to go to the hospital. I refused. We tried Klonopin. I can't even remember the dosage of my klonopin but I remember it was high. My physician also recommended I see a Psychiatrist. I had already called every Psychiatrist I found in google (because google knows best) and there was waiting lists of over a month. When discussing this with my Psychologist he said he would refer me to the Psychiatrist office that worked with them. I was made an appointment for the beginning of November.

At this point my grades were starting to suffer and I felt disconnected to my work and had no desire to work. My Psychologist recommended I take a Leave of Absence. When talking with my manager, I found she had suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder for two years and she completely understands. I needed to take all the time I needed. It was now official. I couldn't work because my anxiety had become so debilitating. I was a prisoner in my own home. Upon my Psychologist's recommendation, I also dropped out of school. I was limiting myself to doing nothing, so we could break down the anxiety and try to understand where it is coming from. At this point I had been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia. Well isn't that just dandy. That's just fantastic that now there's a name for my effed up chemicals and thoughts, BUT HOW THE HELL DO I GET BETTER. They'll just keep medicating me until I'm so addicted to these stupid pills and don't have a care in the world, just like the rest of Utah Valley. I'll be so up in the sky that I won't see reality and my real problem will be shoved aside and never actually taken care of. They'll just keep masking it and masking it and laughing behind my back at the helpless stupid mother who can't even leave her house to go to the effing park. I can't take my kids out for ice cream. I can't leave my house and I won't leave my house. This is the part that gets me emotional. How the hell am I supposed to be a mother when I can't even take care of myself. This is not a question. It's a statement. Think about it. My daughter wants to bake cookies and I think cookies sound nice. but I always seem to burn them or something doesn't turn out. and maybe she wants to do a craft instead but I don't think we have any craft things because I haven't been to the store in ages. Maybe we could bake cookies, except we don't have the stuff, because I still need to go grocery shopping but I can't go grocery shopping because I would be out in public, away from the comfort of my house and something might happen to me and someone might see and and I'm not okay, how can I pretend I'm okay when I'm really not. No, no cookies today. And I would cry. I felt horrible. I would get up and hug that little girl so tight and say "we WILL make cookies!" and I'd try. And I'd fail. I'd have a panic attack and I would fall apart. I can't even bake cookies. What is happening to me...

I know what you're thinking Holy mother of pearls woman. Take a deep breathe and CALM DOWN. Pop a damn pill, drink some vodka, the top shelf shit. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. (whilst shaking me) Well my friend, we would have been on the same page. But no matter how many deep breaths I took, no matter how hard I tried to relax and desensitize my anxiety, it just wasn't working. I had lost the power of my mind. I had succumbed to anxiety. I was a helpless prisoner and I had no idea how to escape, although I desperately wanted to.

Our anniversary getaway was the end of October. I was so worried to leave the kids for 4 nights and 5 days. That would be the longest I've ever left them. What if they forget who I am. What if something happens to them. What if they miss me and I'm not there. What if we don't have service and something bad happens and they can't get ahold of me and we are hours away and don't know they are lying in a hospital bed in ICU for 5 DAYS! At this point I had tried a very high dose of Klonopin with no reduce in my anxiety. We decided to try Valium 5mg every 3 hours. Those of you that are educated on this subject know that you should NOT take a 5mg Valium every 3 hours. That is a very high dose and it should have knocked me completely out and pretty much comatose. This is where I laugh. And then I cry. WTF is so wrong with my brain. Why is 5mg of Valium every 3 hours not doing a damn thing. Despite my multiple attempts to cancel our vacation, we go.

This vacation was a real eye opener to how bat shit crazy I had really become. My husband seemed to be unaware of how much my anxiety had completely overtaken my life, until this vacation. We stayed at a beautiful cabin overlooking a large lake. It was a full size cabin. We brought up delicious meals to cook in the kitchen and grill in the cabin and it was supposed to be very relaxing. I could not relax. I was tense and anxious every second of every day. I had a playlist of Lana Del Ray songs that I would play over and over again. She mentions that she is insane in her songs and I loved it. I felt I was really insane and it was comforting to hear somebody sing about it. For 2 days we stayed in the cabin. Kyle would try to relax me with a bubble bath and a massage (we are married people, it's okay) but I would just shake and be so tense I just couldn't handle the thought of trying to relax. Kyle would go down to the lake and I would sit on the back porch swing. I had picked up a horrible (so they say) habit. I loved smoking cigarettes. I seemed to be my only escape. Even though my anxiety was shooting through the roof, I could have a smoke and I felt a few moments of relief. My doctor told me not to stop as well as my therapist. There are much worse things that anxiety ridden people turn to to self medicate, and if I wanted to smoke then I go right ahead. Better listen to the doctor right...

So I would sit on that swing. I would write in my journal, listen to Lana Del Ray and smoke. I couldn't leave that swing. On the 3rd day I began to feel bad that Kyle had to stay with his deranged wife while we were supposed to be vacationing. I agreed to go up the mountain to another fishing spot he wanted to try out. Bad idea. On the way up the mountain I could feel the panic increasing. I looked over the edge of the road to see the drop off into the death trap of rocks and trees below and I lost it. Full blown panic attack. My entire body went numb and I couldn't feel anything. I wasn't breathing. I had taken a valium just an hour before. I was scaring the shit out of Kyle. He turned around immediately and brought me back to my back porch swing and just sat with me. He held me and helped me through my attack and then we sat on that swing and sang songs together.

The moments after a panic attack are ones I envy. They seem to exhaust me and I feel like I can actually have a free moment for once. It's like every single day I can feel the tension building inside of me, just waiting for my panic attack to occur. I hated panic attacks. They were scary. I knew I wasn't going to die but a panic attack is the absolute worst feeling I have ever experienced, as well as the anxiety leading up to it. I was helpless. I was hopeless.

I called my doctor and he told me I needed to go to the hospital. He said the amount of benzos I am on should be knocking me out and the fact I am still having severe panic attacks needs to be evaluated by a mental health specialist. I refused. I could not and would not be admitted to the hospital. That would mean I would have to admit that I truly am helpless. I was holding on to some small hope that I really thought I could do this without being hospitalized. Being hospitalized seemed to be like a big deal. It seemed to be admitting myself to the hospital was admitting defeat. Who would care for my children. They don't have anywhere to go while Kyle is working. What if they send me to a little padded room. What if they can't help me. The doctor can't help me, my therapist can't help me, why do they think going to the hospital is going to help me. what does the hospital have that they don't have. 

We got back from our vacation a little before halloween. At the request of my physician, I went in and saw him again. Once again resulting in a massive panic attack. This time he convinced me to go to the hospital. That's right folks. It's official. I've lost it. I've officially gone crazy. I was admitting defiance. Kyle met me at the doctor's office and arranged for care of our children while I was to be admitted and off we went. At American Fork Hospital I was admitted to the psych ward for the first, but certainly not the last time of my life.