Daily Archives: January 19, 2014

Driving Through Green Lights

When you are driving along, and as you approach a red light at a busy intersection, you stop.  You know the danger of just driving ahead, thru the light.

Now imagine that as you approach the same intersection, the light is green.  But your brain tells you, you must stop – there is danger driving on – it could kill you.  If you go thru the green light, you will die.  And you feel it.

Phobias are irrational fears.  Like the fear of driving thru a green light.  Intellectually, you know it is safe, but your brain is pumping out adrenalin, and screaming at you to stop.  You know that’s wrong, so you force yourself to go on.  But even after you get safely thru the intersection, your heart may still be pounding, and you feel like you might still die.

Phobias are the fear of the green light.  No matter how well you know the feelings are wrong, your brain tells your body to fear, and to run for safety.

I do not have a fear of green lights.  But I have a fear of going out my front door… of being strange places… of meeting new people.  It does not matter what my mind knows… all that matters is what my brain feels.

I do go out my front door.  I have to fight and overcome the fear.  I have to ignore the adrenaline… I have it go past my pounding heart… my tunnel vision.  And it’s not just going out.  There are many fears.  And all day long, I have to drive thru the green light, telling myself I will be okay.

It is draining.  And it does not matter how well things go, I still have to fight that fear.  It takes a toll… driving thru green lights.

There is no TGIF

I have struggled thru my life on my own.  Every day is the same – take care of the house, the cats, the bills, and maybe myself.  There are not any days off.  Even on the weekends, the expectation is that I will work on the same things.  There is no break in it.

I can’t even go out my front door without planning, and dealing with anxiety.  My every move to governed by errors in my brain chemistry.  And I have been learning about dealing with it.  It takes constant effort.  I have to fight back the anxiety… and constantly remind myself to avoid depression – if I can.  I have got better at it.

The day to day things… the mundane… the normal parts of life, become nightmares sometimes.  It is all I can do to make it thru the day.  And often I do not.  Several times a week I can not fight it anymore, and have to go to bed and hide my mind.

That makes it difficult to keep going the same way on the weekends as well.  There is never a break – except now I can get away, and go to Newport.  Once a month or so, I get a couple of days to recover.  It is very welcome, though not enough.

I know people have struggles at work… in school… and with other aspects of their lives.  And everyone needs a break.  My struggles are always around me.  I do not get to go home from work for the night, or the weekend.  I do not get to finish my homework, and rest.  There are no final exams.  There is never any true rest… there is only better control.

Some of you will understand.  We live every moment within our nightmare.  It is all around us.  We take it with us.  There is no TGIF.