I had a bad night
Oct. 14th, 2018 03:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistHere's what I wrote about it on Facebook this morning:
I had the most horrific anxiety attack last night.
The weird thing about it is I never felt anxious. I was livid with anger.
I was angry because a bus drove past me without stopping, my bus to a nice night out with friends to see a favorite comedian. There wasn't another that'd get me there in time.
I've shared many times my frustration and despair about bus drivers disabling me by not stopping for me, but this time I was so angry my body interpreted the overwhelming emotion the same way that it does anxiety.
This happens to me sometimes with non-anxiety triggers causing anxiety reactions. Even with positive things: I never used to be one of those people who cried if I was happy or relieved but now sometimes I am (most recently when that amendment I proposed at ldconf paased; people were trying to hug me and congratulate me afterward and I just cried at them).
Any sufficiiently intense emotion sends my body into overdrive and wipes me out. I feel nauseous, I can't trust my legs to hold me up, I can't process information at all.
I could still have gotten a taxi to the gig, Emily offered to drive me, but I was in no fit state to go at that point.
I'd been idly tweeting about how bad other buses were while I waited for mine. So I wrote a bunch more angry tweets, though I knew they'd be futile as ever, at Stagecoach (some of which are what I've screenshotted here). Friends, bless them, quoted and RTed them, tagging in Andy Burnham and Manchester Labour because they run the city and Transport for Greater Manchester. And I think Stagecoach's social media person is going to have a few tweets about this to read when their shift starts this morning.
After I calmed down enough to get home, I sat down, not even able to countenance a cup of tea Andrew offered me.
I did want my pajamas but didn't trust myself on the stairs to our bedroom. He had to get them and bring them down to me.
It was an hour before the nausea had calmed down enough to drink that tea.
I went to bed very early. Crashed out for a couple hours but woke up still feeling terrible. Cried until I woke Andrew up.
One of the triggers of the midnight-relapse was also positive. Susan Calman, the person I'd been on my way to see, had gotten tagged into the thread by some stranger. I'd carefully avoided doing that but of course she was kind and offered me a book. Again I was overwhelmed. And embarrassed.
So I've had about six hours' sleep, in two chunks. My eyes are sore, probably both from the crying (there's a reason I never used to cry! it always fucks up my eyes forever after) and the tiredness.
I feel worse than I would expect to, though. I've had a lot of anxiety attacks and they're never this bad for this long. And they're not usually so unrelated to anxiety!
Yes the frustration/despair of being disabled by buses is cumulative, yes I have no hope will ever change because nothing has happened all the other times I've complained. Yes I'd had a long and draining day before that. But this still seems out of nowhere and that's scary.
And inconvenient! I have to go to work! I have a reading quiz to do for my typology class! I have to be able to enjoy Doctor Who by this evening!
I think the most important thing I have to say about this is in one of those tweets from last night: a lot of visually impaired people have anxiety. I wasn't diagnosed until my 20s but once I knew that was the name for it I realized I'd had anxiety from the time I started kindergarten at the very latest. The world is confusing and draining and forever holding you to standards you can't meet and telling you it's your fault when you fail to. Though it may not seem this way to some people it's all connected, from that bus driver zooming past me to how terrible I still feel now.
The vast majority of the time it's not my sight that disables me, it's society, and that's exactly what's happened here. I wish people understood that better.
I had the most horrific anxiety attack last night.
The weird thing about it is I never felt anxious. I was livid with anger.
I was angry because a bus drove past me without stopping, my bus to a nice night out with friends to see a favorite comedian. There wasn't another that'd get me there in time.
I've shared many times my frustration and despair about bus drivers disabling me by not stopping for me, but this time I was so angry my body interpreted the overwhelming emotion the same way that it does anxiety.
This happens to me sometimes with non-anxiety triggers causing anxiety reactions. Even with positive things: I never used to be one of those people who cried if I was happy or relieved but now sometimes I am (most recently when that amendment I proposed at ldconf paased; people were trying to hug me and congratulate me afterward and I just cried at them).
Any sufficiiently intense emotion sends my body into overdrive and wipes me out. I feel nauseous, I can't trust my legs to hold me up, I can't process information at all.
I could still have gotten a taxi to the gig, Emily offered to drive me, but I was in no fit state to go at that point.
I'd been idly tweeting about how bad other buses were while I waited for mine. So I wrote a bunch more angry tweets, though I knew they'd be futile as ever, at Stagecoach (some of which are what I've screenshotted here). Friends, bless them, quoted and RTed them, tagging in Andy Burnham and Manchester Labour because they run the city and Transport for Greater Manchester. And I think Stagecoach's social media person is going to have a few tweets about this to read when their shift starts this morning.
After I calmed down enough to get home, I sat down, not even able to countenance a cup of tea Andrew offered me.
I did want my pajamas but didn't trust myself on the stairs to our bedroom. He had to get them and bring them down to me.
It was an hour before the nausea had calmed down enough to drink that tea.
I went to bed very early. Crashed out for a couple hours but woke up still feeling terrible. Cried until I woke Andrew up.
One of the triggers of the midnight-relapse was also positive. Susan Calman, the person I'd been on my way to see, had gotten tagged into the thread by some stranger. I'd carefully avoided doing that but of course she was kind and offered me a book. Again I was overwhelmed. And embarrassed.
So I've had about six hours' sleep, in two chunks. My eyes are sore, probably both from the crying (there's a reason I never used to cry! it always fucks up my eyes forever after) and the tiredness.
I feel worse than I would expect to, though. I've had a lot of anxiety attacks and they're never this bad for this long. And they're not usually so unrelated to anxiety!
Yes the frustration/despair of being disabled by buses is cumulative, yes I have no hope will ever change because nothing has happened all the other times I've complained. Yes I'd had a long and draining day before that. But this still seems out of nowhere and that's scary.
And inconvenient! I have to go to work! I have a reading quiz to do for my typology class! I have to be able to enjoy Doctor Who by this evening!
I think the most important thing I have to say about this is in one of those tweets from last night: a lot of visually impaired people have anxiety. I wasn't diagnosed until my 20s but once I knew that was the name for it I realized I'd had anxiety from the time I started kindergarten at the very latest. The world is confusing and draining and forever holding you to standards you can't meet and telling you it's your fault when you fail to. Though it may not seem this way to some people it's all connected, from that bus driver zooming past me to how terrible I still feel now.
The vast majority of the time it's not my sight that disables me, it's society, and that's exactly what's happened here. I wish people understood that better.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 02:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-18 02:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 08:35 pm (UTC)All the other buses (I was waiting for a less-frequent one at a stop that has one particular very frequent bus) that someone else didn't want to get on or off just zoomed past without stopping, too. None of them should be doing that, they should all stop for someone with a white cane. But thats only happened a couple of times ever, for me.
This time I'd seen that the bus approaching was mine, though, and I had stuck my hand out in plenty of time. So I don't know what the driver's problem was. I can only assume that because the bus was running late the driver thought they could ignore me and I wouldn't know because I can't see it happening.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-14 10:29 pm (UTC)Fight-flight-freeze-fury. Seems like all those networks can get activated simultaneously.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-15 01:44 pm (UTC)When a friend commented on the Facebook version of this to suggest "fight," I replied "I would've absolutely fought that bus. I ran after it. If I could've caught it I'd have tried to eat it or punch it or something." I was yelling and swearing and stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-15 05:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-10-15 01:50 pm (UTC)That's what it felt like. The last time I wrote about this I said "I just have no recourse, no expectation that my having to walk in the heat and discomfort will be recognized as an entirely avoidable thing, no hope that anything will be done to improve it. I am reliant on this system, I can't make it any better. and I hate that."
Turns out this might not be the case any more (I'm talking to someone from RNIB's legal team...) but that's what I thought Saturday night when I was flailing and yelling and crying and stuff.