Last night I was watching Parks & Rec with Ken and started having another panic attack. My chest feels tight. I debated making a drive to Wendover to buy some chewies but honestly, I don't think they do that much for me. I do sleep better sometimes with them but as far as the stress, I think maybe it's better to feel it and try to deal with it?
Anyway, this morning I got up before everyone else, which is normal. I made my coffee and watered the plants and sat down to play games on my phone. My chest still feels tight. I felt on the verge of tears again and yet felt angry for no apparent reason.
I thought about my daughter and the things she'd written to me. I debated talking to her about that and decided I wouldn't because it would get in the way of my goal, which is for her to heal from the hurt I inflicted on her.
A few moments later I realized something about myself. Something key that I feel explains a lot of what I've been feeling for a long while.
I am an EXTREMELY goal oriented person. Ken (husband) says as long as he's known me I've always been laser focused on whatever it is I want to accomplish. We talked about this epiphany of mine for a while this morning. I often say he and I are the same person and since we generally like ourselves, we like each other. But we aren't the same in some ways. He's different from me in this way and I am very aware of it. He pointed out an incident that happened a while back. Here's the story...
We went to the mall and stopped to eat. I was starving and so was he. We ordered some greek food. We sit down to eat and then Ken tells me he sees some suspicious activity going on and instructs me on what I need to do if he's right. (Nothing happened - part of his cop background to observe and he does it well) I hadn't noticed any of the people around me or anything going on because I was hungry and that's all I cared about at the moment. This is normal for me. Walking in a mall, I look at where I'm headed. Ken looks at everything. He sees things I don't notice all the time. Ken is much more distractable and in some ways, aware, than I am. It's a difference between us that works well. I tend to pull us back on task when we're doing something and he tends to pull me off to the side to see things I wouldn't have noticed without him.
That highlights a basic personality trait about myself. It's actually a pretty great trait in my opinion but now I'm seeing the dark side to it. When I have a goal, anything that does not serve the goal is pushed to the side, stuffed and disregarded because if I acknowledge it, it could interfere with my goal. If it never serves the goal it never gets dealt with.
Take the situation with my daughter. Regardless of how hurt and angry I felt about her facebook post, I can't bring myself to talk about it further because I want her to heal and be at peace because I love her. No matter how much her texts to me after the post hurt me, I don't want to fight or argue with her or defend myself because I want her to heal and be at peace. It's my fault that it started in the first place.
So now I understand something about myself that I didn't really understand before and now I understand why I'm having panic attacks and what I've thought of as irrational rage (which is actually a pile of rage that has been stuffed and has been creeping out sideways here and there lately) and why my heart hurts ALL THE FUCKING TIME now. Because in order to accomplish my goals I set aside other problems that get in the way of accomplishing my goals.
I've been doing this with my job for years. I mentioned in my last post how I was doing better with it. I sort of am. I'm learning how to walk away from it so I can have my personal life. BUT I still fight panic attacks if I think about my job when I'm not working because of the looming mountain of work over me. If a client asks for a status update I'm triggered and start hyperventilating and my heart starts racing. I wait a while until I have control and then I'm professional as I give the status update that once again I don't have time to get this work done yet.
On Facebook I curb my rage in order to try to hear other points of view and to avoid hurting people I love (which is vital). It's a good thing since this rage is actually a culmination of all of the painful, hurtful, stressful things that don't serve my goals that I've shoved to the side and not dealt with because I can't have my goals interfered with. So now I'm fighting the rage and pain that's living in me constantly. I'm fighting not to lose my shit most of every day. No one knows I'm doing this because generally I'm pretty good at hiding what's going on inside.
When I worked at the office I'd sit there feeling so stressed and bitchy and miserable but my coworkers would tell me how I was always professional. How they never knew anything was wrong. I can be a seething mess inside but people sitting next to me don't know it.
This has become my new normal and it's gotten bad enough that once again I'm struggling with physical side effects. The heart racing, fight or flight panic reaction and feeling on the verge of tears or wanting to physically attack people. Tightness and aching in my chest. Dread at the thought of interacting with people. Dread at the thought of work. A lot of dread. A lot of bad feelings all piled up in me.
So now I know this about myself. I know that there are great things about being goal oriented because it helps me accomplish things. It's kind of an awesome trait about me! But now I understand that there's a cost. This is a struggle because the things that are causing these side effects get in the way of my goals and I can't bring myself to fuck those up so I'm not sure what to do about this.
The current issue with my daughter highlights this perfectly. She's angry with me for not fighting with her. She says I'm dialing it in. She said I put more heart into the mean comment I wrote. She's right about that because for that moment and a while after, my rage came pouring off me in waves! I was furious with her about that damned post!
She's tried to hurt and trigger me, seeking a passionate reaction. Instead I feel that if I did that, it would slow her having time to heal and feel better again. I regret publicly shaming her. I should have kept that private. We don't have to agree but I'm really not happy that I did that in a public forum no matter how angry I was.
If I fight back or tell her about my rage and fears, she might miss the message that I love her and am sorry for doing what I did. So I push it all aside. When I consider this isn't healthy for me to keep doing I still can't bring myself to address those things because it could fuck up my goal. My goal is sending a message of calm, love and apology. Not fueling the battle. My drive still is towards the almighty goal being accomplished.
I wonder if I need counseling? But with all the potential medical things coming up in the next few months I don't know that I can afford counseling. I need money to pay for medical things, not personality things.
I've been feeling the urge to call my mother lately. Maybe this is something that would help? It certainly can't hurt.
