I dont know if this is a rock bottom stage or what that Im in.
Church has stressed me out. The noise, the un-peacefulness, the pressure of being surrounded by people, constant movement, of talking with people up close and being "on", people hugging me (which sounds horrible to complain about but its the stimulus of the intense interactions that overwhelms me), and the choir singing with loudness, high pitched voices that are not pleasing (or relaxing), and that might be about it.
The pressures are that Im always going to be asked to do something - make something - as had been done in the past. I realize I could just say no, and in fact I had to do this recently even after my husband told the person not to ask me but they did anyway. So you can imagine that I dont have much confidence of feeling "safe" with this person. I can chalk their behavior up to them being scatterbrained, but is that an excuse? Should I just ignore this, or do I try to protect myself from them like I do with everyone and everything else?
Church has definitely ruined my life. The act of going, of being in the building (because I've already made the association between anxiety & stress & racing heart beat & dizzy spells, and being at church), and all the other things a protestant unchurched person would giggle with glee at thinking I was being loosed from the chains of religiosity. (I can say that because that used to be the way I thought when I was a modernist christian.) The fact is, I want to go to church services. I feel terrible about not going, and avoiding it for fear/anxiety of being triggered.
Ive got to the point where Im truly barely leaving my house. I can go to the market with my husband, or go at night when there aren't a lot of people. If I go and its crazy loud or something, I can't function, I cant focus, and I've had to tell the husband to take over deciding which way to go or what to buy because I literally couldn't think anymore.
I was supposed to go and clean church today, Saturday. At the last minute I lost it, started crying, couldn't handle that pressure, and got super frustrated with myself. Husband and kids just left to clean for me.
I feel terrible about it, and guilty. But Im about ready to also say that I need meds. I need something. Im not getting better, only worse. And whatever I have going on is definitely getting in the way of me living a regular life. So I might just admit it out loud that Im done with even thinking about going to church until Ive got the meds thing and my psycho anxiety under some sort of control.
Another thing I've been thinking about is weather or not there is some type of ocd going on. I always reference my past to myself when the kids were very small, and I was overwhelmed by thoughts of leaving them in the car, or accidentally killing them...or would it be on purpose? I even had these fears with my husband taking them onto the balconies. It didn't make any sense why I would even be concerned with something like that? My husband was never violent with me or anybody else...It was awful and had I realized just how much help I needed at that time Im pretty positive I wouldve been mostly definitely dx with ocd. It was horrible.
So now I realize I have a tendancy toward obsessive and intrusive thoughts that could very quickly spiral out of my control, into very a stressful existence. Where I might differ from just being a neurotic to being ocd is not having the action to go along with alleviating those thoughts. My intrusive thoughts do feel out of my control sometimes, and I do try to have a plan of action for when I need to distract myself (crochet, music), but as soon as I stop those activities the thoughts or feelings can come right back. Sometimes my brain is just too tired that all Im left with is a lingering pressure of stress, and a depression that leaves me limp. So I might "freeze" at that point, or if the anxiety gets bad enough I will just dissociate. And I know I will dissociate because it actually feels like as the pressure within my bodies raises, all of a sudden a valve gets opened and all that pressure leaves at once, and I am left empty. Maybe I cry afterward, but its like unfeeling tears, and they just spill out as i go about pacing around, trying to figure out what to do next.
At the start of this I said that church has ruined my life. From the very beginning of deciding I needed to get connected, I knew it would be hard. I never had an easy time, and I struggled from the very first time I set foot through the door. I kind of knew what I was in for, but i pushed through it. I don't know why I did that, except that i felt guilty for not trying and pushing, especially when the kids started to come with me and they wanted to experience the church socialization aspect of it. So I kind of did it to myself.
I also just needed to learn when to say NO, and be ok with that. In fairness, I did try to say NO once, but was , in my opinion, unfairly cornered on the matter, and the matter was presented as "not that bad". So I did it, and it gave me the most challenging panic and stress I'd ever experienced, like I was going to literally drop dead of a heart attach if I didn't get a grip. It sucked. That was the last time I participated in that activity, but now Im reluctant to participate in any more. I don't stay for lunch anymore, let alone contribute to cooking. I wouldn't mind doing that again, I just need to get stable.
I don't blame the church experience, and I dont really mean that church has ruined my life. If anything, it just opened my eyes to particular promblems I actually deal with. And, I think what's made my life's journey so confusing, is that my issues have manifest themselves in different ways. I can see my life as a series of "phases", and problems getting resolved or managed or lessened, only to have new ones come up.
I don't want meds. Part of my neurosis if being freaked out by the thought of having to take them. So Im in a cycle. But as I said, Im only getting worse. And while Id rather live a life that I need in order to avoid those things that trigger me, I also can't even do that things that I actually want to do. (Mastergardener, japanese, music, etc)
