by Band Back Together | Jul 22, 2016 | Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Emotional Regulation, Feelings, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Resources, Happiness, Hope, Loneliness, Mental Health, Stress, Trust |
Anxiety and panic can strike us out of nowhere.
This is his story:
As my work day began to wind down on Friday, I got antsy as I looked forward to Saturday’s big duck hunt with my son, Bryan. My excitement level was high as it’s always a great time getting my boy into the woods and watching him learn the ways of the wild. We also have the opportunity to put some tasty treats in the freezer.
I called Bryan into school on Friday and took him to work with me as we were hunting just a few miles from work. I work fifty miles from home and it’s senseless to make the the long drive home just to come right back Saturday. We decided to stay with my in-laws -the best a man could ask for- instead, which is only twenty miles away.
Around 10 PM, after a bit of good conversation and some TV at my in-laws, my father in-law hit the sack. My son and I figured it was probably a good idea too, as our 3:30 am wake up call would be upon us shortly. Bryan was out in no time, but no sooner had my head hit the pillow, my mind started reeling. I have no idea why, but it was going into overdrive at an alarming rate, even as I did my best to fight it.
I thought it was just the excitement of the next day’s events and would wear off soon, but wow, was I wrong.
In a matter of minutes I was up pacing through the house, my mouth dry, my breaths rapid. My mind could not concentrate on any one thing.
I was having a panic attack and my medications were 75 miles away. That’s right, I forgot them at home. I had been doing great lately, and it never really crossed my mind to bring them along just in case.
Well here I was in the midst of a full-blown panic and had no idea what to do. I picked up the phone and called my wife, knowing full well that she would be asleep because it was now approaching 11:30 and she never stays up that late.
She was so wonderful and gave me time to chat and tried to relieve my tensions a bit. I didn’t keep her on the phone long but was so appreciative of her willingness to even allow me to call that late without getting pissed off. Her talk and encouragement was a bit helpful, but I was still contemplating making the hour-plus drive home in the middle of the night just to get my medication.
Then it dawned on me. My friend Luke was probably going out somewhere for the evening since his wife was out of town, so maybe I could get in touch with him.
I called Luke’s cell phone but there was no answer. I left a brief message explaining my dilemma and asked him to call me back. About ten minutes later the phone rang. I figured it was my wife just checking up on me, but it was Luke.
He was almost back in town from a night out and would be more than happy to have me over for awhile, even though it was midnight and he had to work the next day. I was in such panicked state that it took me two tries to get into the car and drive the three miles to his house.
Every time I’d get into the car, I’d think: I will never make it over there and I couldn’t breathe. The world felt like it was going to collapse around me if I sat in that drivers seat too long, so I’d pull back into the in-law’s driveway. I would get out, walk back into the house, then turn right back around and get into the car.
Finally, I made it to Luke’s house, but he wasn’t there. I tried to get out of the car and wait for him but my head wouldn’t leave me alone. My throat was tightening and it seemed like my airway was going to close any minute if I didn’t do something drastic. I knew this was all in my mind at the time and yet I had no control.
That thought alone made it worse. I jumped back in my car to head back to the in-laws. Just as I got to the first stop at the end of Luke’s road, he pulled into the road and waved me back.
I followed him to his house and we sat outside for awhile before I worked up the nerve to go inside without feeling caged in. A few minutes was all I could handle indoors…the heat, the lack of oxygen, the walls…I had to get out.
Luke was more than willing to follow. I’m not much of a drinker, but a 22oz hard lemonade seemed like it might help slow me down a bit. I slammed that while Luke sipped on one himself. Usually one of those is enough to put me on the couch for the evening! But this was no ordinary evening and no ordinary panic attack.
I have only had an attack this severe a couple of times and I hated it. Before I knew it, I had Luke out waking down the dirt drive at 2:00 am, and he did it with no complaints. We wandered back to the house and went inside for a little more chit-chat.
It was now close to 3:00 am and I could see that Luke was fading fast. The good thing was that it would soon be time to wake my son for his duck hunt, and my mind was starting to shift into a lower gear in preparation for the day of hunting. I needed to keep myself in check for the safety of my son.
The fog in my head slowly began to lift as I pulled into my in-laws driveway at 3:10 am. I was actually able to chill long enough to take a shower. When I came out of the shower, I felt as if the world had been lifted from my shoulders. My wonderful son was sleeping peacefully on a futon mattress on Grandma’s floor, oblivious to the hell I’d been through over the past 4 hours. I was tired but rejuvenated with a clear mind.
I took my son on the hunt. It was a wonderful morning. Warm, calm, and the mosquitoes didn’t even bother me. Ducks were flying and my son was doing pretty good hitting them. I had a wonderful day, and I must say that it was due to the patience and understanding of my wonderful wife and my friend Luke.
Luke is the true definition of a friend. I have known Luke for the better part of thirty years and I would do anything for him. He is more like a brother to me than a friend. I would be hard pressed to find another person on this planet that would be willing to sacrifice a night of sleep just to help a guy through a hard time.
Luke is a true friend, and true friends are hard to come by. He helped me through a night of turmoil that could have led to tragedy if I had not had him to talk to and keep my mind off the senseless ramblings. He was there for me and I am eternally grateful.
I am always here for you if you need me, brother!
by Band Back Together | Jul 19, 2016 | Anger, Bullying, Fear, Feelings, Self-Esteem |
This is a contribution to the I Am Me Project. I’m a ten year old girl with a soft heart and a million possibilities. Born into a wealthy family, we don’t have trouble with money, but my parents aren’t going to let that turn me into a snotty, spoiled child.
One of my ears doesn’t work, or at least the horrible muffled up sounds that do make it through, aren’t noticeable. I have a short temper and an easy-to-break heart. Sensitive physically and emotionally, I am treated like a rag doll.
I try my best to help others, not knowing if they are thankful or not. I’m soft and always happy to socialize and talk. I care about others and absorb their feelings.
I’m proud of my character that cares about others maybe more than myself. I expect others to do the same as I do for them, making most of my bad situations worse when no one cares.
I love to write and act. I love to sing in musicals, and say my lines, and write my words. I’m proud of my creative capabilities to make amazing stories and facial expressions.
I have a therapist who helped me with my temper, but I’m proud I got help. I’m proud I don’t scream any more, unless it is necessary. I’m known for swinging between optimism and pessimism. But it’s good that I can see two sides of one world. I can have both high and low self esteem.
That’s Me, and Me is who I am.
And Me is always proud of who I am, and I’m proud of Me.
But I’m not the best version of me. I want to take the oath I’m afraid to take, the path that would make me better. No one’s perfect, and everyone should except that. No one should be left out, everyone should feel important.
I believe the purpose of life is to Survive, Love, Hate, Feel, Die. To survive, and be a survivor of your own war. To love, have friends and family there for you. To hate, to know the difference between someone you should be with and someone you shouldn’t be with. To feel, to feel happiness, fear, heartbreak, anger. To feel the emotions of life. And to die, end it, and give space for someone to go on their own path of life.
By-WeWillBand
by Band Back Together | Jul 15, 2016 | Anxiety, Fear, Rape/Sexual Assault |
I had my meeting today with the university, to go through with the complaint. I went in thinking, “Yeah, I’m not going to believed. He works here, of course I’m not going to be. ”
I didn’t think this would become a reality. I sat down at the table with my best friend on my right and some strange old woman who is apparently “unbiased” and high up within the university.
She just went straight into saying how the university cannot do anything, saying there is no proof. Oh I’m sorry. Did you even give me a chance, or did you even try and find evidence? I am still suffering with bleeding after it, is that not proof enough for you? I’ve had to see the counselor for the past five months for my anxiety …No. It’s still not enough for you. Why? Oh yeah because, as you begin to tell me, he is a close friend and you’ve worked with him for years! …unbiased ..what bull shit.
She told me, plainly and simply, “get over it.” Come back next year and have a fresh start. Does the bitch not think that I have been trying to put it past me? I’ve barely slept! Because of the fear of this meeting coming up and having to explain what happened, I probably only got, at most five hours of sleep, for the past eight days.
But this is the end of it, apparently. I can’t do anything else because he works there. I knew this would give him an advantage, but didn’t think it would get to the point where I was being questioned if I truly think it even happened…
Life is down the drain.
by Band Back Together | Jul 15, 2016 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Anger, Caregiver, Family, Health, Hepatitis, Infectious Diseases, Viral Infections |
I have a dear friend who has Hepatitis C. He went through interferon treatment, which is considered the gold standard for hepatitis C treatment, last year. The side effects were severe but it didn’t kill his disease and he will undergo an experimental protocol in January.
His wife, an even dearer friend, lived through hell during his treatment and now she has to return.
All I know how to do for them is be there when it starts. I will to walk through hell with them. They would do the same for me.
Ironically, they will probably have to one day. My better half has tested positive for Hepatitis C. I am just grateful that his viral load is still low enough that the doctors recommend against the interferon treatment; instead they are waiting, watching.
It is bad enough that these two men, so full of life and benevolent mischief, have this disease that wants to kill them. Yet, to add insult to injury, all four of us are recovering addicts. You’d think we had walked through enough hell just surviving addiction, getting clean, and finding a new way to live.
I feel so powerless, so inadequate. I want to scream. I want to fucking punch something
by Band Back Together | Jul 14, 2016 | Abuse, Adult Children of Mentally Ill Parents, Anxiety, Bullying, Depression, Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship |
Not sure why I’m posting this …hoping someone out there will have an answer? Or maybe I just need to vent or find out if there are others like me? Maybe someone out there can explain why these things keep happening to me?
Anyhow, in a nutshell, I’ve had a really bad life and I’ve come full circle with it. Seems that no matter how hard I work, no matter how “positive” I try to be, bad things just happen to me. Things go wrong for no reason. People try to pump me up with positive thinking and then are surprised when the bad things I think might happen actually do happen. While things will just go wrong for me for no apparent reason, nothing really “right” seems to happen. I mean, I have no good luck. If an unexpected tragedy can happen out nowhere then why can’t something wonderful and lucky happen out of nowhere, like magic? Yet I have to work extremely hard to make things happen, and even then things seem to go wrong.
I guess I’m trying to figure out why my life is the way it is and whether there’s a way I can turn things around. I’ve begun to believe I’ve been cursed, or there’s a dark spirit following me around, preventing anything good from entering my sphere. I’m wondering how I can stop this dark spirit, karma, or whatever it is and bring positive energy into my life. I’ve gone to churches to have people pray over me, gone to Reiki shares to have the energy of the universe sent to me, seen therapists, career counselors (for my money problems), gone to Debtor’s Anonymous meetings (hated them!) Still, the bad luck continues.
I also thought that maybe I’d done something wrong to cause all this, so I’ve volunteered to help people in need, but that hasn’t changed my luck.
Okay, let me try to be brief and give a few examples. Both my parents had mental health issues when I was a child, and I spent my early years transported from friends’ or family members’ houses until my parents were ready to take care of me. Then, a housekeeper took care of me while one parent went to work to support me. Meanwhile, the other parent was hospitalized with severe mental illness. My extended family was very unloving and I never see them now, as they are toxic people. I was close to one parent who died a few years ago. Now I’m the guardian for my other parent. So I’m really my parent’s parent and always have been since “childhood.”
In addition to the psychological abuse I experienced from my family once they were ready to take care of me, I was bullied mercilessly as a child, to the point of near insanity. I became painfully shy and anxious as a result, but I put myself into therapy and have practiced meditation techniques that helped me a lot.
But even the therapy was not too helpful, as most psychologists don’t understand social anxiety or shyness. One therapist accused me of imagining I was being bullied at school. She couldn’t believe I was really being bullied and acted as though I was just being paranoid. Consequently, she couldn’t help me to stop the bullying or to learn assertiveness techniques as I’d requested. I couldn’t find a therapist who would teach me ways to defend myself as they were too focused on trying to convince me that no one wanted to hurt me, that I was just being negative, paranoid or whatever. It seemed they were just reading from psychology textbooks and not really listening to me or taking me seriously.
As an adult, I get bullied at work a lot, am told I’m “too nice,” have trouble setting limits and boundaries and being assertive. Even though I’m a well-educated person, I can’t find a decent job, so I am working at a job for which I am well overqualified. Employers and coworkers are often threatened by my intelligence and I find myself holding myself back, trying to hide who I am. Also I get very bored doing data entry or office work. I only seem to fit into creative environments but creativity seems to be only available to the very rich these days.
I learned as an adult that I have an artistic personality and am very, very creative, so I began pursuing my artistic endeavors – playing music, writing poetry, making films, etc. I’ve also found I get along better with creative people and feel happy and free when I am creative. But this self-knowledge has only caused more problems for me as I’m now living in poverty because of it. In spite of great accomplishments as an artist I haven’t found a way to make money as an artist and I haven’t found a “day job” that enables me to adequately pursue my art.
In fact, I don’t fit into today’s job market at all. I ended up homeless a few years ago, and that was a real eye opener. I found that I have no friends. The people I thought were friends really didn’t care about me at all.
I also have chronic pain which, in time, is getting worse. I don’t have the money to get the health care I need.
Anyhow, as I’m writing this, I’m losing some of my sadness. It’s good to vent. But at the same time, I’m in a situation where I’m an adult, not considered to be young anymore, and I don’t meet people who are similar to me, so I feel pretty isolated.
Now, I’m staying in a situation where an acquaintance has been helping me a great deal but this isn’t a sustainable situation. I might end up homeless again soon unless I can find some way to start my own business, as there really aren’t any jobs out there for me.
I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Please don’t anyone respond with platitudes, i.e., “Think positive, things will get better…blah…blah…blah.” Look, I’ve been there and done that. I’m really a very intelligent person who overcame and extremely painful childhood. I’ve gone into therapy. I’ve been to self-help groups. I’ve gone to college, graduated with good grades, but now I have huge student loan debt and the jobs just aren’t out there. So what to do?
Anyhow, I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but it really would have been better if I’d never been born. My parents weren’t able to take care of me, my extended family didn’t want me, I’m not aggressive enough for this society, and I can’t earn a living. I cringe when I hear people try to talk other people out of committing suicide by telling them they’re suffering from “depression” and that things will get better. First of all, “depression” is not an illness but a natural reaction to things that happen to you that you can’t control. I can’t control this economy. I can’t control the fact that other people don’t appreciate my talents and skills. I know I’m capable of doing great things but I can’t get other people to appreciate what I have to offer.
by Band Back Together | Jul 13, 2016 | Hearing Loss and Hearing Impairment, Loneliness |
I’m the only one who deals with this. I feel like it’s holding me back.
I was born with a disability.
My right ear, first of all, looks hideous, and second, it doesn’t even work. I’ve never been able to sense exactly where a noise is coming from. It’s like living with all the noises coming through earbuds on both ears, only on half volume. It sucks to think about.
No one else I know at my school has a disability.
But there’s more.
I love being in the school drama club. I love acting in musicals and plays. I love being in our academy concerts. I really do. But I don’t enjoy songs the way other people do. I was born to remember and judge songs by the tune, not the words. I hardly remember the words of a good, catchy song. Because of this, it takes sweet time for me to remember the words to a song. Especially songs I don’t have feelings for.
Often the amount of time I have to practice my songs for my concert, or for my musical, is much more than the normal amount. By the time I’m on stage, I haven’t remembered the words. I’ve never had a real solo. I’m being held back from one of my dreams.
And Only I Feel It.
I now love to write stories, and it’s another dream to become an author. But I will never forget that other dream. It calls my name, but I can’t reach it.
And Only I Feel It.
People take advantage. I talk really loud, and it sounds normal to me. Raising my voice any higher is screaming.
Guess what?
And Only I Feel It.
I want to be normal. Why can’t I be normal?
By-WeWillBand
