Panic

I've figured out 'Whatever it is...'.

The cause of my week's shutdown - My dear friend anxiety x 100.

I realized this Sunday when I experienced my first ever panic attack that, although I'd been playing it cool, it's apparent I wasn't so about the change to come. It had been a rough week kick started by Ryker's choking and in the following days crept the reality of going back to work and Ryker starting daycare - Both tomorrow.

I laid down for a rest because I haven't been sleeping well and then couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't tell if my heart was racing or if it had slowed and then I felt pain each time I exhaled. I couldn't be having a heart attack, a stroke? At age 29? Should I go to emergency or am I being dramatic? The more I thought and focused on what was going on, the worse it got.

Breathe. Just breathe. Relax. Breathe. I know this. But not this time. This time is had taken over my entire body and it was so strong. I couldn't break it.

Too scared to get up and tell my husband what was going on, I guess because I wasn't really sure and I was seriously terrified. My body was numb and I felt light and dizzy and my breath didn't return naturally for hours and hours.

It may be something physically unbalanced that has caused my anxiety to step it up a good few notches or my life unbalanced at this moment that has escalated it to this extreme.

By this time tomorrow after my first editorial meeting and picking Ryker up from daycare, I know I'll be back to "normal" again, and my next post will be about how excited I really am for the change. Haven't I been all along?

Breathe.
3.9.12

September Sunday swinging

This photo, I think, captures this next stage of our lives as a family.
Enjoying this day and swinging into big change.
Let's do that, just swing with it.
2.9.12

Whatever it is...

I have three posts started and nothing finished because I don't know which direction to go and I'm irritable and exhausted and not sure why. I'm going to wrap them all into one that's likely not going to make any sense and bore the hell out of you, but maybe I can make some sense of it for myself, while wasting the next ten minutes of your life.

A lot is happening. First off, I want to kill my husband who is amazing. I'm doing that annoying woman thing when you just want your husband to read your mind, and even if he could, it's hard when I'm not sure what is going on in there. So I ignore him. I need space. Let me be. Sort it out. Fuck off.

Secondly, Ryker begins his first day of daycare on Tuesday.

Thirdly, I have my first editorial meeting that same day. Back to work.

I crept into this next stage with excitement, eager for change, excited for Ryker to experience daycare and motivated to get back to reporting, especially into my new position as freelance/part-time reporter for the newspaper that I was full-time editor and reporter for before I left on maternity leave. Ideal. Ryker is in daycare three days a week, I write and walk dogs the other days and fight to find balance.

I was thinking of the change as a transition and not an end of something. Feeling fine. Now I am stressed, anxious and panicked. I feel like everything is racing. How did I get to this spot so fast?

It's been a hard week. I'm insanely irritable and feeling burnt out. I've drifted from the column I'm trying to write for the next edition of the paper introducing myself back into the game, and when you drift... It means you've hit a block. I started it four days ago. And here I am, back to my blog where I write a few lines but never publish and then walk away. I just want to be with Ryker all of the time. Maybe I should have done that more while I've been "off" with him. Whatever that means as life never did slow down since I don't know how to relax.

It may be that I'm struggling to find out who I will be in all of this, or am not sure who I've become or who I go back to work as. Maybe worried about not being able to balance everything or terrified of Ryker being in the care of other people all day, or sad that the time home with him is already up, or... Cant' make sense of it, whatever it is.

Trying to enjoy this long last weekend of summer before life stirs up.
1.9.12