{"id":2239,"date":"2020-02-18T20:21:20","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T03:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:10","slug":"on-the-edge-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2020\/02\/18\/on-the-edge-of-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"On the edge of the day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today wasn’t a good day. It began somewhere around 3 a.m., but I honestly don’t know what time it was. The first time I was aware of the time, the clock read 3:15 a.m., Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

My day actually began Sunday at 8:30 p.m. That’s what time I get up for work. I did my job as usual and went home, looking forward to a few days off. I was feeling fine, went to therapy, and did the laundry, but then I couldn’t sleep. I ended up staying awake until about midnight Monday before I fell asleep. Though I hadn’t had any rest, I still felt good and settled in to get some sleep.<\/p>\n

At some point in time, I had a nightmare. I’ve been learning how to recognize when the nightmare is a flashback<\/a> and have been getting better at waking myself up to stop it from happening. Even when I’m not successful, the amount of time from the end of a flashback to getting back to \u201cnormal\u201d has shortened and coping has been a bit easier. I doubt this issue will ever go away. It’s something I know I will work on the rest of my life. The coping skills are vital to my progress. Some days, things don’t go as planned.<\/p>\n

Tuesday morning was one of my more terrible days. I didn’t recognize what was happening when I was asleep. When I woke up, I was shaking, scared, and crying. For the next few hours, I cycled through this process several times. I couldn’t shake any of it.<\/p>\n

By the time I was able to gather myself together, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I was supposed to visit a friend in the hospital. I could barely get off the couch.<\/p>\n

Then, it started again. Time passed. I fought some more.<\/p>\n

Somewhere around 2 p.m., I managed to get a shower and ended up at Maverick<\/a>. I stood and stared at the cold, enticing alcohol in their refrigerated cases for several minutes. \u201cThis is not what you came here for,\u201d I told myself. I honestly didn’t know what I went there for.<\/p>\n

Reciting in my head all the available drinks Maverick had for sale, from beer to soda to bottled water, calmed my mind. I opened the door and pulled out a bottled water. On the way to the register, I grabbed a packet of strawberry Mentos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I got back in my car and drove home. I left the water and Mentos in the car. I don’t really know why. I just felt like that’s where they were supposed to be.<\/p>\n

I put the key into the front door and unlocked the locks. I walked to the couch and collapsed on it. I still couldn’t sleep.<\/p>\n

Paul came home from work at 4:20 p.m. He knew something was wrong. About an hour before he came home, I stopped cycling through the process of shaking, crying, being scared, and stopping another flashback. The day, however, was over. I was nearly non-functional and I had to find a way to pull myself together to get to therapy.<\/p>\n

These intense types of flashbacks don’t happen often, but when they do, they are devastating. They sap every ounce of energy from me.<\/p>\n

As I sat in my therapist’s office tonight, I pulled my legs up close to my body. My dirty shoes, still caked with dried dirt from my hike on Friday, rested on the edge of the sofa cushion. I don’t sit this way, but today it was comfortable. It felt right. It was what I needed to feel safe.<\/p>\n

I put the garbage can in the office next to me in case I puked. Another thing I get to deal with when I have a bad flashback is the nausea. Today, the urge to vomit came and went all day long. I barely ate. There wasn’t anything in my stomach to really puke up, but I placed the trash bin next to me just the same.<\/p>\n

Words and thoughts were difficult for me, but I persisted. By the end of the session, I felt another step closer to normal. I’m better at 8 p.m., than I was at 3 a.m., but I’m not quite five-by-five<\/a> yet. I know I’ll get there. It will probably be sometime tomorrow. Today was a more difficult than usual day.<\/p>\n

This is me. I deal with this, albeit on a less intense scale, every day. I lost today’s battle, but I’ll be better tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today wasn’t a good day. It began somewhere around 3 a.m., but I honestly don’t know what time it was. The first time I was aware of the time, the clock read 3:15 a.m., Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[143,238,294,377],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-flashback","tag-mental-health","tag-ptsd","tag-trauma"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3713,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}