Screaming Inside, but still treading water

It’s been a while since I last blogged. All that time I have been fighting against the anxiety dragging me down. I can’t honestly say I’m winning the fight but I’m not losing either, just treading water.

I had rather a bad panic attack a few weeks ago. I’d been doing pretty well I thought, managed 6 hours at work although the last couple had been quite a struggle I stayed. I was chilling in the bath just before bed, as you do and listening to music on my phone. I had a message come through so I dried my hands and read the message, then decided to surf Facebook as my hands were dry. I read something on there that affected me and sent me hurtling into a panic attack, luckily hubby heard me crying and came up and started trying to calm me down. All I wanted to do was scream, cry and rip my skin off. I was good (or it was good he came up when he did) as I have no new scars.

I’ve had no major attacks since, am still managing to go to work 3 times a week, still going out on a social basis to all appearances I’m doing great. What people don’t know is how bloody hard it is to go out of the door some days, let alone going to work, going out socialising. Often I get home and all I want to do is curl under a blanket and cry.

But I’m not going backwards, I’m treading water.

If I try to look inside my head all I can feel is a scream, a scream that wants to be let out, a scream that is trapped inside and can’t escape. There is no other feeling, no other emotions just the scream. I feel that I now know what Edvard Munch was trying to express in his painting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream

The dreams don’t help much either. I still have nightmares most nights; just don’t seem to scream anymore. I try to climb stairs or steps in my dreams and I can’t, I’m disabled in some way, my legs don’t work or are too painful to climb the steps. I can’t keep up or follow the others.

Last night’s dream was equally disturbing, but one I didn’t want to wake from as it made me feel happy. I was cutting myself. I had dismantled a disposable razor and was carving patterns in my arms and legs. I watched as the blood flowed out, perhaps put a bandage over one or two and watched as the whiteness turned to red. I coated the cuts with something, not sure what but it didn’t make them fade and go away but made them more bright and vivid. There were some who were trying to stop me but I fought them. It was what I wanted and needed. I guess that was what was scary when I awoke, not the fact I was dreaming about cutting myself but that I NEEDED the scars, the pain, the disfigurement to feel better.

Maybe I should worry more that the nightmares, the bad dreams, the horror no longer makes me scream out in fear, it is just part of the norm. Perhaps I should start another blog and note down my dreams/nightmares. Often they are very odd and strange, I sometimes forget parts of them but for the most time I do remember them, vividly, so realistically I am often confused when I get up as its so hard to tell dream from reality.