2:20 PM, Tuesday
This entry is originally posted via my Facebook account last April 2020 when I finally took the courage to talk about what I am going through. No holds barred. I don’t expect everyone to sympathize with me but I just wanna burst this one out. I cannot take it myself anymore. Without further ado, here it goes.
Note: This is for not everybody’s consumption. Not every one in my friend list can read this. If you get to read this, this is because I have faith in you. I have learned something from you in some way or another. It is very unlikely for me to talk about something that is personal. But today, I will lower my guard and allow me to share to you a story of mine.
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For the past two weeks, I am silently struggling with repetitive anxiety and panic attacks rooted from an unresolved childhood psychological trauma. For the longest of years, I honestly thought I’m way past through it but apparently, I was wrong all along. The demon I once knew is never really gone, but hid himself instead on the deepest corners of my consciousness, lurking and waiting for me to lower my guards for him to launch his attacks unto me again.
And yes, it devoured me. The torment has led me for not fulfilling my life to the best I possibly can. It has caused me too much physical and emotional distress resulting to sleepless nights, illogical thinking and lots of rumination on intrusive and unwanted thoughts. The feeling is too overwhelming and I cannot take it anymore. It felt like having yourself a handful of foul and smelly trash and bringing it with you anywhere you go.
Things got worse when I could no longer sleep at peace. I skipped my afternoon naps, made physical activities that can make me feel tired afterwards. However, it doesn’t go as planned. I still find myself wide awake until 4am ruminating. I then took sleeping supplements, drank warm milk before bedtime, searched videos on YouTube for any sleeping tips that may help me but it all deemed futile. None of these worked for me. What happened next is I start to develop fear and anxiety about night time. I pushed myself too hard that I act too desperately about it. I feel anxious that if I don’t get to sleep immediately, I am going to feel the same attacks like the nights before. It repeats itself every day. I find myself now running in an endless circle and never getting off it.
As I spend too much time wallowing on my anxiety and depriving myself of sleep, I lost my focus. I find hard to get through the day. A minute feels like a century to me. I am fighting but I am tired. But it is not the common context of exhaustion that we usually refer to but it is something I feel coming from deeply within me.
Until I felt the most powerful attack I could ever imagine on the wee hours of Wednesday, April 22 around 1 to 3am. It began from a triggering thought and it grew bigger and bigger until I cannot hold grasp to it anymore. It is just too much to handle. I ran short of breath. I trembled in fear. There is general numbness. It felt so strong that I am to make it or break it anytime soon. It is slowly occupying the fullness of me. Am I to lose control? I asked myself.
In hope to suppress my anxiety and panic attacks, I reached out for my Lego and started to build it piece by piece though it is very hard that time to focus. I scrolled on YouTube and played a Hillsong track titled “With All I Am”. It is my first time to hear that song but I’m crying singing with it. I listened to it repeatedly, on full volume until it is the only thing I am hearing.
I don’t clearly remember what happened next as I am crying too hard. I am tired and exhausted from all the physical, mental and emotional torture I am enduring. I reached the rock bottom.
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I take things my own. I gather my shit together and get away with it thereafter. This attitude I imposed myself has made me somehow relatively distant from all the people I truly love and care the most. I can share my wins but not my losses. I tend to grieve with my failures and disappointments alone. I beat myself up for falling short, for not being good enough. Unconsciously, by feeding negative thoughts to myself, I start to develop depression and anxiety. But then again, being the proud me and as it comes being the very least of my concern, it is one thing I decided not to talk with anybody and kept it myself.
I strongly believe that I can take full charge of myself. I clean up my own mess. I do not need to bother anyone. It is later then when I realized that help is given to those who seek it.
THE PILYO NEXT DOOR 