Sleep, she wrote
It's 10:30pm, and I am having my first panic attack in months. There is so much adrenaline coursing through my body that I feel like I'm vibrating, and my brain takes me on a tour of my worst, most anxiety inducing memories. I am fighting back tears when my boyfriend asks me what's wrong, because nothing is wrong and everything is wrong. The unfortunate outcome of this is that going to bed for the next few days is difficult, as my body has linked a harmless activity with my fight or flight response. Sleep has never been an easy task for me. Lying in bed with nothing to do, nothing to distract, gives the demon a stage to work his magic. As a child, my mother spent an agonizing number of nights with me, trying to run me through relaxation exercises or talk me through my fears to try and settle my brain. I used to have ambient noise CDs to play to give me something to focus on besides worrying that my chest pain was actually a heart attack and that I was dying. I was an int...