katespencer1

My stomach has been rolling for days.

I wake up throughout the night in cold sweats.

I'm living on Gatorade and protein drinks. I'm lucky if I can keep one meal down.

The pills I started taking to get myself out of my head are making me go insane. At least for now.

Friends I have who also take it say the side effects will pass. I've been taking them for about two weeks now. I'm ready for them to pass. To feel the shadow lift. To be hungry again.

Nothing sounds good. Nothing tastes good. I've been off work a week sleeping and not eating and being in more of a funk than before the Prozak.

Now I'm wondering how much of my nausea is from lack of food as it is from the pills, but when I eat it sits like a rock in my stomach.

I started a new therapist. She quit on my 2nd visit. Leaving the practice for one that may or may not take insurance. So I start anew in January. But I'm already on the meds and weaning seems silly until I see if they work.

My stepfather did pass away a couple of weeks ago. Exacerbating some issues already ongoing in the family. I may be having a breakdown. I did have a breakdown a few nights ago to Mems and to my mother.

I don't know if I'm built for handling stress. I've worked in news for 15 years and can handle the worst stories but I truly feel like I'm breaking now.

Part of my problem was keeping it all inside. Amazingly I felt better after my mini-breakdowns. And I felt better after talking to some friends about everything going on.

I'm pretty used to handling things on my own so it is surprising to me how much talking about something relieved my anxiety.

I feel like this year has been one sucker punch after another. I'm ready for it to stop. I'm ready for my pills to kick in. I'm ready to stop puking.

Something's gotta give.

"If you go to the doctor and get your head under control then you'll lose that weight," Mems says as we're talking about holidays and shopping. She's talking about my return to therapy.

She's right. I yo-yo constantly. I'm on the heavy end of the yo-yo at the moment. It's no doubt tied to the ebbing and flowing in my head.

Weight has been an issue for me as long as I can remember. As a pre-teen, my mother asking me, 'don't you want to be cute and tiny like Clarissa on that show you watch?' (In her defense Clarissa did explain it all, just not my weight issues.)

After years of ballet, I quit because of leotards, my self-esteem, and my growing jiggle. I wasn't a fat kid, just a chubby one uncomfortable in her own skin.

Once I hit teen years and hormones then it became more of an issue. I had more control over my diet and that manifested into overdoing it on the foods I'd never eaten at home. Fast food was a constant. Exercise non-existent.

Then I countered it when I started gaining more weight by limiting my food intake to a ridiculous amount. Fat-free hot cocoa and dry wheat toast for breakfast. Diet Coke for lunch. Chicken and veggies for dinner.

I remember those sparse meals nearly 20 years later. Sitting at the kitchen table alone, chewing deliberately.

As I got older my weight became intrinsically tied to relationships and my state of mind. I was my thinnest out of college when I was in my most insecure relationship. I constantly worried if we were stable, if it was real or if it was all going to fall apart and I barely ate and gave myself gastroenteritis.

When it ended food became a crutch, a comfort, a companion. I put on all the weight I lost. I still wasn't comfortable. Would I ever be?

It continues. Now as I hit 36. Sometimes as I'm sitting at my desk or table eating something I don't need, that isn't healthy, that will exacerbate my autoimmune disease I think 'this doesn't even taste good,' but I don't stop eating.

I lost 25 pounds in the first quarter of this year while training for a half marathon then got sidelined by a hip injury that ended my running hobby. The 25 pounds came back. Again. I've lost the same 25 pounds dozens of times in my life.

I started going back to Weight Watchers for the 700th time. It always works at first. Then my brain starts to kick in. The insecurities return.

I'm great at the starting gate but the follow-through lacks.

I'm surrounded by stuff.

It's highly organized and sorted. Neat boxes and cubbies and shelves to keep like things together. I'm obsessed with organization. I'm obsessed with things.

Like books for example.

Last summer I got three boxes of books out of my attic. I have an antique lawyer bookcase in the guest room filled to the brim, with some stacked on top. There's a bookcase in my room too. Books I've never read. It's two books deep. I'm literally hiding books I haven't cracked behind other books I haven't read.

I went through the boxes. It took a few weeks. Every book had a memory, some good and some bad. I said goodbye to some. Reorganized and returned one big tub to the attic. The unread books still sit. It's hard to say goodbye to the promise of a journey to another world.

Who knows when I'll need that escape? I keep preparing. I don't stop buying books. I sort and re-sort my unread shelves. I like thinking more about the escape than living life.

I've been slowing down from seemingly never-ending plans, the schedule I create for myself so I don't have time to take stock. If you're busy, you can't breathe. You can't look around and tell the facade from the reality.

There was a time for everything, a spot for everything, a shelf for this and a drawer for that. A shelf to stack the books that would interest the person I aspire to be or the person I'm running from being.

I picked up a book from my to-read bookshelf the other day. "Lincoln in the Bardo" I took it to a waiting room. I sobbed through the first chapters. The words about grief tapping into the part of me I try to ignore. The tears soothing my soul as the words opened the wounds. The want and sadness that follows the death of a loved one.

Is this why I leave these books stacked? So I'm not forced to confront an aspect of my life I've quietly organized away into a shelf in my psyche?

I'm digging my way out of my head now. Piece by piece. Maybe I'll find more parts on my bookshelf.

I feel like I'm treading water. Barely keeping my head up sometimes. Sometimes I sink. I feel a pit in my stomach, my hands shake and the urge to vomit.

I don't know how to handle it anymore. It's one thing after the other. When I feel like I have one thing under control then something else happens.

Complaining about it from my world of privilege exacerbates it. Sometimes I feel like my brain is vibrating with anxiety. Sometimes I want to go to sleep to get away and live in a dream world.

But I keep going. I find solace in being Type A and trying to control what I can as the chaos ebbs and flows around me.

Is this the new normal? Existing until the next thing throws me off my axis, then fighting to get back in form and paddle my feet until it happens again.

I'm trying to get help. I have a therapist's phone number written on my to do list. One day I will call it. I'm making myself get to the gym consistently in hopes that the endorphins will help. Endorphins make people happy (Thank you Legally Blonde).

I'm to stubborn to give up, but damn if it's not appealing at times.