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View Full Version : Anxiety is Weird, dammit



sae
06-15-2015, 12:05 AM
I made it back home to an unburned house and two very much alive neurotic friends after a few days at my parents' house. The trip was... okay.

My parents were great, my sister was her usual snarky holier-than-thou self (no problems there, she is just that way.. see seems to find it amusing her husband is actually still alive and mine isn't), my loving nephews are so very cute (and so so very loud), and being back at the old homestead was great.
We went through the attic storage for something my sister was hell bent on finding, sifting through boxes of papers and photos, old toys and clothes. She would pick up something and say "do you remember when ..." and each time I would shake my head. It occurred to me I don't remember hardly any of my childhood other than ghost memories and tiny faded fragments.
My sister and mother went through hours telling stories about days gone by and all I could do was listen. It was like I was hearing them all for the first time. I brought home a couple things my mother said I was especially attached to just to keep, an old Garfield piggy bank and a broken Teddy Ruxpin.
We sorted through whole boxes of spiral notebooks from when I was a kid. I remember being and adult and seeing them all but I flipped through it and was unfamiliar with most of it. A stack of paintings I did in high school packed with ribbons and trophies I had won... nothing.
I already felt on edge about being away from home so long, then I was left with the realization that I could remember almost nothing of being a kid or young adult. Pair that up with my sister poking fun, claiming I was just feigning ignorance so I didn't have to own up to being such a terrible shit head as a kid, and I was ready to throw in the towel and sneak out in the middle of the night.
I didnt. I stuck it out the whole 4 1/2 days with no incidents other than a little private freak out one nighy and a complete and utter lack of sleep that was not alcohol induced. I made it home, it was a happy occasion with the bf already sitting on my couch grinning from ear to ear as he showed me the new movies he bought and two very happy wiggly daschunds. I sat down, soaked in the feeling of being home... instant panic attack.
I was inconsolable, curled up in my spot, heart pounding out of my chest, running to the bathroom with the nervous stomach every 5 minutes. Just awful. It ended soon enough even in spite of having left my medicine bag at my parents' house. Without Mommy's little helper I calmed down in about an hour, exhausted and starving.
I don't get it. So i pose a few questions in all this jumbled mess you have had to struggle through:Why did panic wait until I was home again? Why can I remember almost nothing beyond 3 years ago? Is this sort of thing a common occurence with anxiety or did the little bit of brain damage act like a magnet on my hard drive?

gypsylee
06-15-2015, 01:03 AM
It's kind of like when you get home and instantly need to go to the bathroom for number twos LOL. Subconsciously your body knows it's "safe" and can release the crap (literally and metaphorically).

As for the memory stuff.. Sounds like a bit of PTSD/dissociation type stuff. My mother has a shocking long-term memory like that and I suspect she blocks things out that are too emotionally painful for her. Obviously I don't know anything about your childhood but that's my guess.

Evelyn Louise Bolton
06-15-2015, 01:34 AM
I don't know about the memory loss, but I sometimes have delayed anxiety too. :( Recently got a car and though it was the happiest I've been in a while, looking for it, picking one, test driving etc, the night I got it home is one of the worst of my life.

Just thinking now, perhaps your anxiety comes on as a kind of panic about looking back? I mean if consciously you know it was a shitty weekend, then you get home to you're family and have to relive it telling them how it went? I may not be making sense at all. :S