Choices.

It's Monday. I'm home, Matt's home, no one else is here. Everything is "normal." I think I'm starting to feel better, but I'm afraid to even say that, lest I backslide again. I have had a few moments today in which I felt panicky, but mostly, I've been calmer. I've had a chance to process some of the stuff that happened over the six days I stayed with my mother.

It was definitely a step in the wrong direction. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea in the first place. Perhaps it was some misplaced want of familiarity, a hope that going "back to my roots" would re-awaken the old me. My stay there did none of that. Before I went to my mother's, I had been slowly starting to feel better. I'd gotten some of my appetite back, and I was pushing myself to go out and do things. I was still fighting severe anxiety most of the time, but I felt like I was making some progress.

At my mother's, I was traumatized the entire week. I felt traumatized throughout the weekend after, despite the presence of my girlfriend and her husband. I still feel traumatized today. I close my eyes, and I see my room at my mother's. I hear that damn clock chiming in the living room, the clock that she's had since I before I was born. (My first word was "clock," or rather, "gock," when I pointed to it as a baby.) I hate that clock.

My room was not as I had left it. My mother, a life-long hoarder, had moved in all sorts of clutter. My desk was covered with so many knick-knacks that I couldn't even put my computer on it. I tried not to look at the "shrine" my mother had created on my dresser, with pictures of me in elaborate frames surrounded by figurines and tchochkes I thought I'd gotten rid of years ago. (My mother always went through my trash before I had a chance to put it out.) I found myself unable to leave my bed for anything except food and the toilet, and even that took an enormous amount of effort. My mother, as I said, was kind to me throughout my stay, treating me as if I were sick with the flu or something like that. She would bring me food and water. We would talk, some. We didn't fight at all. She was being a decent human being. It didn't matter.

I couldn't shake the memories. I couldn't stop the feeling that I was going to be trapped there indefinitely, and with two feet of snow falling during my stay, it seemed I was imprisoned in a snowy fortress. I had a shirt that Matt had worn before he left, and I clung to it as if it were the last thing I had to remember him by. Even when he called me, it felt like I was talking to a ghost.

I almost never shut the TV off the entire week. It was the only reminder that there was actually a world outside my mother's house. Sometimes, this soothed me, but other times, it made me cry, because it seemed like I would never be part of that world again. I knew it was irrational. I knew that my fears had no basis in reality, at least my current reality. It didn't matter. At times, I was afraid to move, as if the mere action of sitting up in bed was going to throw me into a state of pure panic. I did a lot of lying in bed, staring at nothing.

I am not sure that having Kate and Paul stay with us for the weekend immediately following my incarceration was good timing. On one hand, they were both there for me. On the other hand, it was stressful, because there were now four people in the apartment instead of just two, and at that point, I really just wanted to spend time with Matt. But, they understood. Kate and Paul were both very patient with me, and didn't pressure me to go out and do anything. They just spent time with me and did things like remind me to eat. I think it took some of the pressure off Matt, which was good.

Yesterday, it was time for them to leave. They had assumed I would not be up to coming with them for the trip back to Stow. Just before they left, though, something yanked me out of bed, and I found the strength to come to the top of the stairs and say, "Hey, wait up." I pulled on some clothes, not really caring what I looked like. A five-hour road trip (2.5 down and 2.5 back) is a difficult proposition for me on the best of days, and this was not my best day, but I went anyway. I wanted a few more hours with my friends, even if it meant fighting the panic and depression and being physically uncomfortable in the car. It wasn't easy. The anxiety followed me throughout the entire trip. I'm still glad I went. I did not feel good during the trip. In fact, I felt like shit. I still felt better that I'd gone than if I'd stayed home alone, floundering in bed for five hours.

So here's the stark, naked truth: I have drug-resistant mental illness. I can't control my brain chemicals, and I have decided to accept that I can't control the anxiety, panic, or depression. What I can control are my choices. If I choose to face the monsters and do things anyway- things that are scary, things that might trigger me- then maybe, little by little, I can learn to live again. It is hard to make those choices. There is always something that seems easier. Staying in bed instead of getting up. Sitting on the couch playing with my phone all day instead of getting on my computer and writing. Knocking myself out with Benadryl instead of facing the day. Taking glucose tablets instead of eating when my sugar is low. Staying home instead of going food shopping. Taking a nap instead of helping Matt with the dishes. The easier choice is almost always the worse choice, and I am not always going to be successful in going with the harder, but better choice. More difficult, still, is not berating myself for taking the easy way out when I can't manage the better choice. If I do that, I will sap my own strength. I will sabotage myself.

So, next steps. I'm going to the doctor about my high blood pressure and my IBS, both of which have become a problem since I went off Percocet. Both are related to my increased anxiety and depression. I also have more analgesic injections scheduled for my back and my neck. Maybe if I can get treatment for some of my physical symptoms, I will feel stronger. Eventually, I want to find a place to take Tai Chi lessons. I think any sort of martial art discipline would do me a lot of good, physically and spiritually. Maybe I can get back into my vet assistant studies if my back feels better. Maybe I can start to go places on my own again, without Matt. You know, be a somewhat-functional human again. I sure hope so.

I thank the gods that I've found the strength just to make these tiny steps. I am surrounded by love, even if I can't feel it sometimes. I want for nothing. There is no material comfort I could wish for that I do not have. My life is good. All I want is to be able to enjoy it.