mental health update

My mental health has been pretty bad lately.

I cried at a bunch of things I wouldn't usually on Wednesday night. It didn't feel like oh I'm having a bad day, it felt like I'm the little pebble at the beginning of an avalanche and I don't know how to stop things feeling worse at increasing speed.

I finally remembered I have a few diazepam left from a year ago when I wasn't coping with the broken ankle and the impending operation. I took one of those at bedtime and I didn't feel any different but I did sleep.

But it's freaking me out to go from such an obvious and clear reason to need benzos then in the complex trauma of the broken ankle and its treatment, to nothing particular going on now.

Why am I finding normal stuff so difficult lately??

Of course there needn't be a reason. But I want there to be so I can address it.

Thursday morning I had to go to London for work. I felt okay until the train to London was actually moving, and then I felt so claustrophobic. Which I'm not normally; I love trains! The only other time I remember

I can't stand all the people talking around me, it's not even loud it's just overwhelming. So weird. Normally I love trains. But I'm seriously struggling not to get off at any stop and go back home...

I calmed down eventually, and did the presentation I was in London for (not after arriving late and flustered thanks to more crip-travel assistance -- luckily everyone was super nice but I think it still contributed to me going almost completely astray from my carefully constructed notes, sigh). People seemed to like it and it was fine.

I wrote most of this on social media and at the part where I said it felt so different to struggle so much now without anything obvious like a horrible broken ankle, a friend of mine made a very wise reply.

from my pov you have been dealing both with prolonged stress (from discrimination and the demands from your work, which sometimes cross or double themselves too)

plus the covid isn't really gone but everyone acts like it is too situation, plus just the overall decline in society and it's economic consequences

those alone are heavy enough

but also short stressors, like the situation with Gary and all that entails, he might be technically a dog but he is a family member none the less, his sickness is also a great demand

that plus the current season, while you are a summer person, plus the confrontation with the upcoming dates

pfew

i do not wonder why your system is sending you alarming signals at all

prolonged stress does really bad things to you, and the pile seems to get bigger from my POV

but maybe it helps to tell yourself, there are reasons for this, you are not weak (you really aren't!!!) and it's just very complicated for you right now

I could assure them that I wasn't feeling weak, more...frustrated and exhausted. But not beating myself up about it at all, so I guess that's something.