The Girl Without A Face

My anxiety has been kind of sky high since I arrived on vacation. I can be honest here, this is like my confession. In theory, getting out of my house and enjoying life again is easy. I used to travel all the time like it was nothing. Sure, I’ve had moments of anxiety with it before, but never this bad. I read somewhere that your anxiety is trying to tell you something. That somewhere in your body something is disregulated. So I’m trying to stay curious about what is happening.

I’m not saying by any means I’m not having fun. My son and I have gotten our bearings, we’ve walked around for hours, went to the pool, saw a show. All in about 24 hours, so this is just the start. I flew into Las Vegas and we are staying here for a few days. I’m scheduled to get a rental car this morning, and on Wednesday we drive to LA. My son is an artist so he is dreaming of moving there someday, which is why I planned the trip in this way. This is for his 16th birthday. Right now, as I am typing, it is 5:30am. We didn’t fall asleep until midnight, yet I’m wide awake. I was tossing and turning trying to figure out what is at the bottom of my anxiety. I think there are a few things.

Well firstly, it’s all riding on me. That weighs heavy, my son is a young almost 16. I feel I likely babied him in some ways, maybe I don’t trust that he would be ok if something were to happen to me. Or maybe I just need to trust more that he would know what to do in an emergency. Second, it’s absolutely the change of pace. This is a great thing at the end of the day. In March 2020 I went from always having worked in an office around people for over a decade, to leaving the office one day never to return again. More than that though, if you’ve been reading along you’ll know, I had a mental breakdown that caused me to lose most of my family and friends. I’ve had to essentially rebuild from scratch, but what comes along with that is loneliness. Hermit mode I think they call it. And so for almost 2 years now my world has become very, very small. I just recently started incorporating going to the gym again. Getting healthy. I quit smoking cigarettes. I so badly just wanted to be normal again. I went from having everything seemingly “together” pre-breakdown to having a hard time leaving the house. In many ways this feels like my first trip back out. Back into reality, something I’ve missed out on while I’ve been healing myself. It was necessary for me to go back and heal, but I guess what I was hoping was that my anxiety would taper off as well. I’ve noticed in stores and other places where I typically would have anxiety I didnt have it anymore. I was so proud of myself. But this is showing me there is still work to be done.

The thing is I think somewhere deep down inside I knew this trip was going to be deeply stressful for me. That’s likely why I didn’t really think about it. I don’t like limitations. I want to see the world, I want to get comfortable doing these things. I want to drive in difficult places even though I used to have panic attacks while driving because of the accident I was in when I was young. I learned how to overcome that, it was by continuously facing it. Showing myself there was nothing to be scared of. So maybe that’s what I’m doing with this trip. I’m going in partially blind, kind of petrified, but I’m doing it anyway. I need to for so many reasons. I need to learn how to self soothe, to continuously rely on taking control of the narrative in my head. I need to learn how to calm myself down. I need to learn to not rely on anyone else to regulate my emotions, and anxiety is a disregulation that I need to work through for growth this trip. I cannot allow myself to hold myself back.

The one other thing I will say so far is that I am doing this completely and utterly sober. Well, I guess besides the help of some caffeine. There is not one ounce of alcohol, I don’t have any medication, no Xanax, no cigarettes, nothing. Nothing to calm my nerves but me. I used so many coping mechanisms over the years, and honestly none of them even appeal to me anymore. This is the first time in my 35 years that I haven’t used anything to assist in how I feel. Other than myself of course. And its strengthening my will I’m sure, but damn is it hard.

It makes me wonder how many of us are expert escape artists?