Naked & Afraid: Chapter 30.

It’s 9:30am and I woke up in a panic. My eyes were watery and my palms were sweaty. My primary response was to flee. I jump up and tell myself “I need to get out of the house.” I got up, got dressed, brushed my teeth and decided I didn’t know where I was going but I knew I couldn’t be home. As I’m ready to go, fuck now I can’t find my phone. I go into my sister’s room, and she’s sleeping but I needed to get out so I woke her up – “hey where’s my phone? I need to go out” She kindly breaks the news to me that it was left in our friend’s purse and she was going to bring it to me later in the morning. Shit. I can’t leave without my phone. I felt stuck and I started to panic even more. How was I going to calm down?

My tears came streaming down my face, my heart was racing and I felt like I wanted to throw up. Full blown anxiety attack. WTF is wrong? And why is this happening to me now? I grabbed her phone and called my friend as I decided to take a walk, get some air and grab some coffee.

FYI: caffeine is the dumbest thing to ingest during an anxiety attack and as a Psychotherapist I know this but my desperation for something comforting overpowered my ability to process logic.

I walk out of my sister’s building and immediately see my kid’s father and his new girlfriend. UGH. I’m not in the mood for this shit. They both look at me and she starts her nonsense rambling and making out with him on a bench like this was supposed to bother me. Now I wanted to vomit even more so because I just got sick to my stomach. First thing that came to mind: I’m so glad he’s out my life. I crossed the street and kept walking.

I would later realize this was the beginning of what would cause my understanding of this intense anxiety attack.

As I’m walking I start telling my friend what I initially thought the problem was. It was Sunday. Sunday’s have been so hard for me since my break up because Sundays are my only day off and I usually spent every Sunday with my now ex-boyfriend. It was the one day a week I had for us. Even if I had an event that day I knew I was going to end my week and prepare for the next with him by my side. That was gone and now I had nothing to do. All my friends were with their families and their kids and I was alone. It was very reminiscent of the weeks immediately after Jennessi was taken from me. I thought wow here we are again, I’m really affected by this loneliness.  I felt so sad about my life like once again I’m at this crossroad where I don’t have anything to do unless my attention is focused on someone else. The thought of being alone and having the opportunity to relax, made me so anxious that I couldn’t relax. My mind was racing and I was just overcome with sadness. My first reaction was damn, what am I going to do with myself?

In continuing with speaking with her I tell her about my conversation with Jennessi the day before. I hadn’t spoken to her in almost 3 weeks. I walked into my sister in law’s house and my niece was talking to her over their video games. I talked to her for a whole three minutes because she just wouldn’t say anything. She was short with me, had an attitude and dismissed me with “K, love you too.” I felt like damn, I spent ten years raising this child and I couldn’t even get her to talk to me and to pick up my phone calls. I was so hurt and everything about rationalizing that she was a child and going through her own emotional turmoil went out of the window, because I was selfishly thinking about how much I was hurting because of her being distant with me. All I kept repeating to myself was “after everything I’ve done for her, she doesn’t even respect me enough to talk to me.” 

As if this wasn’t enough I started missing my kids intensely and of course my mind went directly back to Friday and how I had to recount the darkest and deepest moments aloud of Aubrey’s life and death.

At this point, I have a huge knot in my throat. FUCK. I’m trapped in this house, no boyfriend, no kids, my sister going out to live her best life and I was stuck between not wanting to be alone, and not wanting to be around people. I started to intensely cry and pray. I literally started begging God for relief. I felt like I was feeling every emotion at once and I was trapped. Literally within 2 minutes my friend finally comes early afternoon to drop off my phone. This was the change for me. I opened it up, started scrolling and realized it was July 1^st.

What’s the significance of July 1^st? Nothing. Or so I thought. I opened FB and thought hmm wouldn’t it be cool to post about my twenties, since they were coming to an end. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. This is the last month of my twenties. Almost instantly I really felt like I was on a crazy whirlwind of memories that were just popping into my head and I put the phone down to try to catch my breath. I tried to process what was going on in my mind and I started going through the last ten years and the last several days simultaneously and it all made sense.

I was mourning my twenties.

My twenties shaped who I am. The last ten years have been without a doubt the hardest most rewarding years of my life. I accomplished so much including landing great jobs, living on my own, having children, graduating from College twice, advancing in my career, made great friends, fell in love a couple of times and made so many wonderful memories. But I also suffered so much trauma and overcame so many things like Depression, Anxiety, addiction, domestic violence, obesity,  losing my children, having everything I owned gone and losing those people I loved. It was a crazy tough journey. But why was this bothering me now? Today?

Well, all those individual moments I had during the day made me come to the strong realization that I was entering July with a complete fresh new slate but also entering my 30s with so many endings from my twenties. I realized the finality of losing my children this weekend, I lost the man I’m in love with, I don’t have a place to stay that is my own and I immediately felt like I had been stripped down naked from everything that gave me comfort, safety and sanity. I was really, truly starting over. I became intensely afraid.

I thought about the concepts of love, time and death. I had wasted so much time with the wrong man in my twenties but felt so loyal to him because he provided me with my children, the two things I loved the most in this world. I thought I wouldn’t bounce back but then I met a great guy and well then that abruptly came to an end. Now, dealing with loneliness and feelings of abandonment all I could think about was I didn’t have the love of my children or the love of the person I thought was the man I would share my life with and make a family with. I had to face the finality of my daughter’s death in grave detail and it made me realize that I will spend all the rest of my years without her. Time felt like it was moving so slow and I couldn’t grasp an entire lifetime without her, yet I felt like my twenties flew right by me.

The realization that I was starting completely over from scratch and that so many changes had been happening all at once made me feel like I was going to fail. I felt like God had abandoned me and like I was trying to climb out of this hole. I am stressed financially with trying to move as quickly as possible because I am so focused on having something of my own, I missed my children so much but I knew I would never have them again, I missed the man I was in love with and I’m so scared entering the dating world again, I was going to be starting school again and possibly looking to change my career and I was going to have to do all of these things at the same time. I’m terrified.

Then I stopped to think. Okay Ariel you’re scared. But why? Where was this fear coming from? This isn’t the first time I’ve gone through changes. Aha! There go those bricks again hitting me hard- CHANGE. Change is the absolute hardest thing for me to do. Readjusting terrifies me. I feel lost, and I get so stuck in what my routine was that I feel like changing that is going to shift everything and I won’t be able to handle things. Then I went back to why all of this at the same time? Remember that intense praying? God was forcing me to face my fears. I mean I would’ve appreciated him not doing it all at once but I get it. We get what we need and not what we want. I asked for the opportunity to get to know myself and well I’m getting it. This is really me starting a whole new chapter.

It was time to get out of my whirlwind of emotions and do some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on myself. How can I change this intense fear? I needed to change my outlook. One thing I know about myself is that I love to learn. So I decided, this next chapter is going to be like a new class for me. I want to look at what am I learning? What will I gain? How will this shape me? And how will I grow from this? Rather than being so scared about what is going to go wrong and being so sad about what I am leaving behind. Truthfully though, this is so hard for me to do. Naturally I always worry about the negatives. So I’m going to reaffirm myself every day until that fear subsides. If I had to share the positive aspect of my anxiety and fears, it would be that they both motivate me. Discomfort motivates me and knowing that other people are watching motivates me. It’s something about feeling validated that makes me feel secure.

So here I am. I’m scared, I’m struggling, I’m emotional, I feel lost and confused, I’m anxious, I’m nervous, apprehensive and I’m heartbroken. BUT I’m open-minded and whether I’m ready or not I’m doing this shit. I will be turning thirty with a new education, new apartment, newly dating, new job opportunities, new chances, new people and new experiences. I did say before I wanted to get to know myself right? Well here it is. I really feel like this is a rebirth. I keep complaining that I have nothing that I own except my clothes, but what better way to rebuild, than to step into the future with NOTHING from your past?

Happy 30^th birthday Ariel. I love the woman you have been, and I can’t wait to see the woman you will become. You are my favorite person in the world and I cannot wait to do this thing called life with you!!!