Under Pressure

I have been having some troubles as of late. Specifically, I have re-developed some major issues with anxiety. I've been having panic attacks more frequently than I would like, as well as outbursts of pure blind rage and moments of paralyzing fear. All of these symptoms have been triggered by both serious and banal moments of day to day living. As such, I've been kind of a scary person to be around and I fear that my relationships with my husband and daughter are suffering.

After a night of completely erratic behavior I decided it was time to see a doctor about this. I don't care much for doctors. Now, I am taking a daily "sleeping pill" and a certain well known member of the "Benny" family on an as needed basis. I was also referred to a psychiatrist for further treatment, but due to hangups with my insurance, that's still up in the air. By the by, I vote that they outlaw insurance entirely. It will force medical care prices to go down because without insurance no one could afford to see a doctor. So, either they would lower their prices or we would all die, and I doubt they'd let that happen.

 So far, the "sleeping pill" has been helping a little, but not as much as I would like. I never feel rested during the day and I think that my panic attacks have found their way into my dreams. Last night I dreamed that I had not graduated high school, even though I had my B.A. For some reason, I had been going to two of my classes regularly, two of them sporadically, and the last two I had not attended in months. The school year was coming to a close and I had "F"s in the two classes I had been skipping. I was panicking about not being able to graduate. I was running around the school trying to figure out what I was going to do when I decided I would talk to one of my teachers about it. My guidance counselor had recently retired, so there was no one else for me to talk to.

I found Mr. Izzard in his classroom, very angrily grading papers with his pet goose sitting on his desk. It was grey and it bit me on the nose. He was very irritated that I had come to see him after school on a Friday. I asked him if he wanted me to help him grade papers, but he declined my offer. I was getting ready to leave, feeling very rejected, and then I woke up.

This is ourselves - under pressure. Source

What's my point? Clearly, I am dealing with a lot of feelings of failure and rejection which are either exacerbating or being exacerbated by this anxiety and panic issue. Why? I don't know. It should be noted that I've had this not finishing high school dream several times now - it seems as though it may have replaced the "Guilt/Dead Body" dream. I don't know what I can do to solve this issue, but I do know that it would help if the smallest things didn't cause me to literally quake with fear.

Seriously. I was making dinner last night and the whole time I was shaking, fighting to stave of a debilitating panic attack, fighting the urge to scream at my child, fighting to stay in control. I'm not particularly proud of the fact that I now know that Crystal Light Fruit Punch and Tanqueray go well together, but in a moment of weakness I sought any solace I could readily grab a hold of. It didn't help.

Right now, I am working toward applying for Graduate School in Fall 2013. This means I need to take the GRE and pass it sometime soon, as well as get my other affairs in order. I find myself wondering, if I can't cope with daily life right now, how am I ever going to get into Grad School, much less manage to stay there?

On the one hand, I feel like it would do wonders for my self esteem if I could make something of myself in Graduate School, but on the other hand, I feel like it would kill me to blow it in the same way I feel like I've blown every other major life goal I've ever had. I really need some success to tuck into my hatband, but I'm so shellshocked by failure that maybe I'm too scared to even try.

Being afraid sucks. How I envy the fearless among us. Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse is a whole lot better than Live in fear, die old, leave a lot of regrets.