Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my first therapy appointment. I'm a lot more nervous than I thought I'd be. When I made the appointment I was so desperate for relief. So anxious for help. It was like a piece of heaven imagining sitting down on that couch and spewing forth the longest, possibly incoherent, ramble of all of my woes and begging for something to help me right this second. However, ever since I made that appointment, it's like things have been noticeably better. To the point where now I'm sitting here the day before my appointment, thinking, "do I really need to do this?". But I know the answer is yes.

I suspect a couple of things going on here. Since I made my appointment, I've known in my brain that help is around the corner, and it has made things easier to deal with in my day to day. So I've been better able to cope. Better able to not let the world crash down on me when Ada only sleeps for 35 minutes, or Ryan spends 3 hours on Saturday morning playing video games while I'm confined to the couch holding a baby and reading a book on my iphone during her catnaps. And then repeats the cycle a couple of hours later. Usually it makes me feel like my life is spiraling down the toilet. But this past week I've been surprised at how I've rolled with the punches. Only briefly yesterday did I have to go upstairs with Ada for a little bit because I felt the panicky, suffocating tightness rising up in my chest, and the tears starting. I talked myself down pretty quickly though, and we moved on to other things. In some psychopathic way, I was relieved to have that moment, because it made me feel like I do, in fact, still need this appointment tomorrow.

The other thing I suspect is that I'm just doing what I always do when I'm nervous about something, or out of my comfort zone. My mind suddenly plays a game called, "everything is fine, you don't need change" because I do fear change. So my brain tries to convince me that I've solved whatever problem caused me to seek help in the first place, and that I no longer need to face this big thing that has been looming. It's sort of a self preservation measure, I think, to keep me safe in my comfort zone. But that in itself is something that therapy will help me with. So, fail. Fail, brain, fail. I'm not falling for it this time, and I'm going to therapy anyways, so suck it. You can't hide in my head anymore.

I've realized that even when I am doing pretty well, relatively speaking, I'm still just constantly in a state of tension. That's my anxiety in full effect. I don't really know what it's like to feel truly relaxed. It's like my insides are just always tightly wound, and even when I'm appearing relaxed on the outside, I'm a chaotic mess underneath, and everything is in overdrive. This is why I keep myself awake so often with the most random, unnecessary dialogue in my brain, just constant chatter up there about any and everything. And the problem with the dialogue in my brain is that it never needs to stop to take a breath.

At any rate, I'm nervous about going tomorrow. But I know deep down it's the most right thing I've done in a while. And that feels good. I just never imagined myself getting to this point. I don't know. It makes me sad that I'm so sad, so often. I didn't want to be this person, and I let it go for too long. I know I'm taking the steps to change it now, but I regret wasting so much time and life being so much more unhappy than I needed to be. You can't get it back.