Gray Sky Morning


I am not going to spend too much time talking about the feeling that comes creeping on my skin when an anxiety attack comes a-knockin' at my door and ignores the "no soliciting" sign.  The thing is anxiety can't read. If it did, it surely would have absorbed something of the over two hundred books I have read on the subject purely by osmosis. Maybe it would be diffusion...whatever physic process is involved when a living entity is transferring information to a non-living entity. Maybe that is the problem. Anxiety seems to be alive infecting its host like some unwelcome virus or parasite and my unwillingness to account for its existence makes it angrier, itchier and somehow more dangerous.  I was up all night and thoughts and fears assaulted my cerebral cortex like paint gun pellets. They weren't lethal, but they sure packed a punch and left staining on the inside of my skull. I could almost see where they left their mark, but then my attention was diverted to the crawling under my skin.  My good friend says her shadow character lives in her stomach and rises up into her thorax and takes over that whole space when he decides to visit.  Sometimes he hides behind a clavicle.
For me, however, it is always the skin. I was watching a show about people who cut themselves. One person said, "It does not hurt because the cut is already there". I know what she means when the neurons are misfiring and sending wrong signals to the epidermis and you really start to think that there is something or someone that has to get out of there!   I met a woman one time, a kindly grandmother, really who was going into her backyard and gently hammering finishing nails into the skin on her shins.  It was helping her " a lot," she said so she did not know why her doctor had recommended she do something different.   I have always withstood the urge to draw blood to the surface of my skin...mostly because I hate the sight of blood, even though I am a nurse. I know...it is a bit ironic.  I choose to dowse myself in water or use the heaviness of a quilt to calm myself down.  My husband hugs me tightly and says he hates to see me suffering this way, but since I am always a person on the move and ferociously independent, it is one of the rare times I allow an embrace for an extended period. In the middle of everything, this lovely man says, "I know exactly what you need to watch!" He wraps me in a heavy quilt and turns the TV to one of our favorite Netflix animal shows.  Our love of creatures and life, in general, is a commonality we share.  Our other interests are varied and, in many ways, we are opposites, but we both were born with a deep reverence and love for the natural world.  It binds us together in unusual ways.  I have not seen this episode, however, and suddenly I start giggling even while my skin is crawling and the paintball pellets are ricocheting around inside my cranium.  Only this animal could distract me!  He leaps and bounds and races and attacks!  I had been sent a cheesy meme from a family member a while back and seeing this ball of energy in action, I know I have found not just my anxiety companion, but my spirit animal!
 
 Animals have always sensed that I need help and try to sit on me every chance they get. I enjoy the pressure from their bodies when I feel like I cannot calm down and my body is going to float high in the air like a hot air balloon, they keep me grounded.  There was even an old sheep that broke out of his pen to follow me around when I was just a toddler.  His name was "Buck-Buck" and he broke into the house and left those little lamb poopies that look like chocolate chips, but aren't. Don't ask...that's a different story. My friends and family have always remarked that maybe there is something special about me that attracts animals to me, but I think the opposite is true. They know I need help and they are there to give it. Animals have remained an important piece for our whole family who deal not only with anxiety, but schizophrenia, autism, ADHD and Tourette's. 
 When one of our daughters was struggling, the voices were back and would not leave her brain.  One morning, in the quiet space between asleep and awake, a loud thought came to me, "Get her a dog. Animals are our guardian angels on earth". I did not relay this to my daughter, we simply got her the dog off Craigslist.  Pookie joined her soon thereafter and the voices abated.  She drew a picture of the dog with wings and renamed it, angel.  It would not answer to angel, though, so "Pookie" she remained and went on to help my in-laws in later years.
     In trying to get to the bottom of my latest anxiety attack, I realized I had been off the higher dose of L-methylfolate for several months.  The hematologist had said I did not need it as my homocysteine levels were fine.  I quickly did the AMAZON Prime shipping thing and ordered the Turmeric again while I was at it.  I was trying to save money and not have to be on so many supplements a month. Now, 48 hours after taking the extra folate, my skin is calming down and the pellets are not attacking as much.  Some may call it a placebo effect, but this has happened 2 times before and my own mother has told me not to go off those "vitamins again". 
        Today I was even up for a bike ride! Which I have not been willing to do in over 2 weeks because I did not want the wind touching my skin! While I was in the bathroom putting my biking shorts on...yes, when you are old and heavier someday you will pee AND put your shorts on at the same time, it's easier, my husband entered the bathroom. Someday when you have been married to the same person for 28 years you will pee in front of them AND put your biking shorts on! He said, "I have a song for you! I heard it yesterday and I am dedicating it to you!"  Right there, while I am on the crapper the sweet strands of Vertical Horizon reach my ears...and I start to sob.  There is no way that my husband could have known that while I've been suffering the last few weeks I've been listening to my favorite rock bands from the past.  My husband had been working at the Urgent Care a few shifts. Just yesterday I had been listening to  "Vertical Horizon" and this song in particular because it reminded me of my brother who also suffers from anxiety but can talk and paint me pictures about the world and the universe just with his words. He is truly gifted.  I could not reach him, yesterday so I listened to his favorite songs instead.  There was no way my husband knew this unless...there really is a God and he told my husband. Hey, "Play Nicole that song right now. Even if she is on the toilet. GO ahead. She will laugh and cry at the same time...AND she will remember...I AM THAT I AM...

So you sailed away into a gray sky morning
Now I'm here to stay, love can be so boring
Nothing's quite the same now I just say your name now

But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
You don't want me back
You're just the best I ever had

So you stole my world now I'm just a phony
Remembering the girl leaves me down and lonely
Send it in a letter, make yourself feel better

But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
You don't need me back
You're just the best I ever had

And it may take some time to patch me up inside
But I can't take it so I run away and hide
And I may find in time that you were always right
You're always right

So you sailed away into a gray sky morning
Now I'm here to stay, love can be so boring
What was it you wanted? Could it be I'm haunted?

But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
I don't want you back
You're just the best I ever had
The best I ever had, the best I ever

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