There and Back Again

Sadly, this post is not about The Hobbit.

I have just come home from Atlanta, from my father's wedding and the kind of stress only felt in urban settings. I came home to heat and lightning storms and my grandfather's blood pressure spiking.

I didn't think I could handle another mile of sprinting for sanity.

It's no secret in my family that stress -- good and bad -- takes a disastrous toll on my psyche. I might seem fine in the moment, when I need a clear mind to help someone or make sure something gets done. But once I am home, alone or with someone, I shatter like cracked glass. I cry and scream and shiver and stop eating. It's just a natural progression.

I had a breakdown like this two weeks ago. It led to an impromptu getaway to the nearest big city, alone and without plans. Just a weekend away to relieve the pressure. It seemed to be working -- I got a lot of writing done and slept a lot and ate like a normal person. I smoked a cigarette, remembered why I hated smoking. I felt better.

When I came home, the cage around my lungs immediately reappeared.

The stress hasn't lessened since. And I'm not sure I can bear another day of my body in perpetual tension.

I just can't make myself relax. I don't know how to step back from the situations and stressors I face and breathe without the feeling of unbending metal in my chest. I used to deal with this seemingly insurmountable depression and anxiety by harming myself -- chain-smoking an entire pack of cigarettes, drowning myself in a fifth of vodka, numbing my skin with a handful of pain meds, cutting my arms and legs with bent razors, forcing the little food I ate back up my throat.

These dangerous cycles emerged. I have nearly died twice because of my own self-damage. In the last year, I have managed to break all of these habits, but I won't lie -- in moments like these, I really wish I could fall back on them.

I know I need to be working on my novel -- I want to be working on my novel. And maybe tonight, after a short (unneeded) nap, I will feel up to it. But right now I feel like I am right where I started when I first entered recovery -- raw and so full of emotion that I can't feel anything and unsure of every choice I make.

I have gone there, to sanity, and back again to madness.