Slipping Xanax Under My Tongue

English: Xanax 0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg scored tablets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a Xanax under my tongue. I’m not proud of it but I’m also not ashamed either. I feel the stirrings of a big anxiety attack about to kick in and I’m trying to head it off at the beginning. I am trying hard to head off having a complete melt down like I had four weeks ago for the same situation so let’s just call this preventive medicine. Preventive psychiatric medicine intervention? That’s a mouthful but I do like the sound of it.

If “my friend,” the always funny and creative blogger, Jennifer Lawson “The Bloggess” can write about Xanax and mental health I sure can too. This isn’t my first posting about anxiety I have plenty of those but in this one I am telling you what I am worried about, out loud in real-time. Maybe that will lessen the anguish, probably it will be just the same. Or maybe I will just worry about worrying. It ‘s anyone’s guess.

There are so many things that are out of my control and they all involve a common theme, as I used to call it “Health and Welfare.” I’m worried about the health of three very important people in my life. Yes, all at the same time. Initially I wrote down who those people are but then I had a funny feeling and I knew that if those people saw this blog they would be mad as heck and I would worry about that too. So, problem solved. These are all my anxieties wrapped up in a tightly knit, wound up ball, the kind you make out of twine, beige, scratchy and unforgiving.

There is an expression in German that my dad used to say and that I have said for years : “nur gesund sein.” Loosely translated, “Just stay healthy, your health is the most important thing.” I really mean it, I’ve never been the type who has needed a wake up call, I’ve been on the edge of that wake up call since I could probably talk. I don’t ever take that for granted but now I’m being tested not with just one thing but many and all at once. I need to rise to the occasion,my fears and worries aside, there is no other choice.

Another thing my dad taught me which frankly is not easy to achieve is staying in Neutral. If we all could do that successfully, we wouldn’t need Xanax or Valium, bags of chocolate or pints of ice cream or whatever your soothing pleasure is. If a cup of tea worked, believe me I’d be sipping it right now. Since I am not sobbing in hysteria, nor am I in ecstatic denial all I can see in my future, tonight, hopefully, is sleep. If I can get that, a good night’s sleep, I will feel that I have accomplished at least a little something.

Those weird protesting people in my stomach are rabble rousing again. They aren’t rioting like they were before, those angry protestors. Now, it’s more like they are marching silently, still carrying signs. But, they are still there, they know it and so do I. I’m truly hoping I can surprise them and wipe them all out before I turn out the lights. Wish me luck. Please.

The World Is A Scary Place

Image by theirhistory via Flickr

Yesterday, the sun was shining, the color of the sky was that of a red robin’s egg, a perfect speckled blue. The trees nearby danced, gently swaying, together in the light breeze like two limber young dancers. Just a moment or two later, I heard the sound of engines whirling and scraping and banging at the same time. I heard deep, angry rumbling coming from the back yard and my first thought was that there was gunfire and bombs exploding. I couldn’t move to take a very deep breath; for a second or two I couldn’t even exhale. What was I supposed to think? There is way too much angst and terror and suspicion in the world and there is no one, no one that can tell us it will be all better now or that the problem has been fixed and will never come back.

President Obama, Anyone? We need your strength and assurance now. All of us are asking questions but not getting answers.  I realize no one can promise, no one can soothe our fears and it is terrifying but I am searching for some, small, secret. A medicine for our pain. A healer to soothe our fears because I fear that I am not alone in this suffering. We all need hope and a positive role model, right now we need to feel strong and hopeful and confident. How will we ever get THAT back? I can’t watch television anymore because seeing the visions from Japan and hearing the cries remind me of the horrors in the world and I am back again at 9/11 and the airplanes crashing into buildings, people jumping, screaming, crying. Now there is one tragedy after another.

Earthquakes, terrorism, tsunami’s, mud slides, water, abductions, pedophiles, murderers, two ongoing wars, a new attack on Libya, (when was THAT approved?) hurricanes,  nuclear reactors, radiation etc. and that’s not to mention the everyday fears of health and welfare:  sickness, cancer, death, mystery illnesses, chronic pain,  MS, ALS,  Alzeimers, and so many other horrible sicknesses that we have no cure for. I feel like something has shifted in the universe and no one knows what to do or feel. The only thing I can do is try NOT to feel but that is hard and unrealistic. Right now, I feel scared and alone and helpless.

My head pounds like the sound of jack hammers on cement, throbbing with no break. I am slumped over in bed, with chronic pain and an excruciating, dark, headache. I don’t know what to do to make me feel better.  Usually if I stay in bed and am able to hide and sleep I will feel better slowly. Now? I can’t sleep soundly. The world has been sucker punched, and sleeping is no longer, my designated safe place.

I am terrified and I am probably not alone though most people don’t talk about it. It seems like a land mine that could go off anywhere, anytime and in any place. Nobody is safe anymore. We are helpless onlookers as the world changes incredibly fast. Perhaps fear is what we all know we have in common. I just wish it didn’t have to come to this to find our link to one another.