I Made Plans Today

I made plans today. Now, before anyone tries to roll out the "Snowflake of the Year" participation medal, let me explain. It sounds rather insignificant and stupid to be sooo proud but this is HUGE for me.

I didn’t used to be scared of the public. I don’t know that scared is even the correct description of what I am most days. I know there isn’t much out there that can hurt me worse than I have already been hurt. There is no one that can cause as much pain as I have dealt with in the past. That doesn’t change the fact I would rather curl up in a ball and never deal with anyone but my fiancé.

Most days, at any given time, I am moments from a breakdown. When I say breakdown, I'm not talking about your run of the mill breakdown. This is shivering, shaking, sweat pouring off me, uber meltdown. This isn’t a little labored breathing, or mild chest pains. Trust me; I’ve had those as well.

That's if anxiety wins the coin toss. If depression called it, you'll find me buried in blankets, sleeping the days away. I won’t feel the need to shower or eat, or clean. There isn’t anything worth my time. No one wants to hear from me and I’m ok with that. If those two weren't bad enough, let's throw a dash of PTSD in the mix.

I could be having a great day. There's no shortness of breath because of a panic attack. I've actually been productive today! Yay!! I have been a well-balanced person that does well at her job. I can be kicking serious butt. It’s a good day to be alive, like the song says. Well, all of a sudden, a smell, a sound, a voice hits that perfect, horrible chord in my head. Now I'm reliving any of a dozen scenarios that I’d rather forget.

Thanks to my flashback, anxiety and depression now feel the need to come find me. Now, it's not one or the other beating me down, it's both of them. When I’m being tag-teamed, there is nothing that I can do. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, and I can’t function. When that happens, I cancel plans.

I've done this for so many years, instead of constantly canceling plans, I just don't make them. No one wants to spend time with me anyway. What happens if I have another flashback? I'm SOOOO going to be judged and called crazy. Better to just hide.

But, today, I made plans. I won't lie. I'm going to be thinking of excuses to cancel up until the second I'm hugging my girl hello. There is always a family emergency I can pull out if I need to. Most people don’t realize that most of my family has disowned me. (I’m ok with that BTW.)

Then, I'm going to be looking for escape routes AALLL night. Oh goody! I can have my fiancé send me a 911 text or phone call. What’s the emergency, you ask? The emergency is that I don’t want to be an adult anymore. I don’t want to socialize and act happy. Can’t I just go home and wallow??

I will be stressing until it’s over. Then for a brief, beautiful few minutes, I will realize what I'm missing. I will realize that I really did have a good time. I really did enjoy myself and honestly smiled or laughed. I will promise to do this again soon. But it doesn't last. It never lasts.

So, for today, I'll be proud of the plans I actually made. Hopefully, this happens more often, but I have little hope for that. I'm so very worn out. I'm tired and my body hurts. I know these are just the physical symptoms of anxiety and depression. That doesn't make it any easier to combat them.

I am a firm believer that someone doesn’t get over their own personal trauma/drama. You just learn to cope with it better. It still hurts like hell to hear that voice, or smell that smell. Just because I don’t end up in tears this time, doesn’t mean I am not being torn apart from the inside out.

When someone says don’t judge a book by its cover, I know what it’s like to be judged by my cover. At work, I am a happy, smiling, laughing girl that is smart and pretty and seems to be holding her ish together. But if you peel back that first, superficial layer, you would be surprised. I’m just a scared, scarred individual that just doesn’t understand herself most days.

So, I made plans today. I will stress about them, but I made them. My goal is to keep those plans for as long as I can. Tomorrow, if I still have plans high-five to me. If not, there I go again. One day, maybe I will keep the plans I make and maybe, just maybe, I won’t be petrified of keeping them.