My brain is a ticking bomb
I don't remember the first time it happened. But I do remember it always being there.
I would suddenly start hyperventilating, I no longer know how to breath properly. Inhale? Exhale? The world is getting smaller, and my legs turned into a brick. I'm dying. That's the only explanation. I must be dying. I should say something. What is it that you should be saying when you're about to die? I can't think of the words. My brain is shutting down. My vision is blurry. I'm definitely going to Jehanem. I'm falling.
"she just didn't eat properly"
"Her blood pressure is low, otherwise she seems just fine"
"Are you trying to lose weight sweety? You're skipping meals, aren't you"
“Get her inhaler, she’s having an asthma attack”
I always just node in agreement...
That often happened when I was a kid, and up to my teenage years.I remember it reaching a point where my dad wanted to take me to a doctor appointment for a full proper check-up but I refused. And my dad rarely notices things so this must've happened a lot. I felt ashamed. Why does this keep happening? Overtime, I manage to anticipate an upcoming “asthma attack”, and I would usually hide in the closest bathroom or empty room. I hid there for hours... I hid there for most of my childhood
As the the youngest of my siblings. I believe I was the luckiest of the five of us. I blocked out so many memories of my childhood but I can never forget the screams. Screaming and loud noises still get my heart racing. I remember self-harming for most of my life, as back as my memories can take me. I was too young to understand why I was hurting myself. But I knew it made me feel less guilty. Whenever my mom or one of my siblings gets beaten up and after I'm forced to watch. I'd hide in the bathroom and hurt myself too, I'd share their pain. It must've been going for 20 years now. In those years, I've tried almost everything. And eventually that turned into numbness. I was in pain on the inside. I was hurting but I couldn’t see that pain, so I reflect that pain on the outside.
As I got older, things just kept getting worse, but I got better at hiding it. Then I got worse, then I got better. And so on. I knew I wasn’t “normal”. I knew something was not right in my head. I sought professional help, I did that twice, actually. Both times I got scared away by the person requesting to "meet my family" and involve them because "I need help". That was the last thing I wanted. So I just walked away. Key words were always panic attacks/anxiety/insomnia/depression. That didn't encourage me to come back. Hearing all that just seemed like too much. My brain felt tired. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't function... Oh wait... I'm getting another attack... Yep that lady was right, I needed help.
Panic attacks, Anxiety, and Insomnia, those are my holy trinity.
I hated myself for the longest time (We’ve already talked about this, so I’ll fast forward) I kept trying to “fix myself”, I kept trying to “cure myself”. Somethings worked, somethings didn’t. using many techniques, I got better at controlling. However, last November, I had an hour long panic attack followed by an hour long crying session, at the ladies bathroom at work. That was a new environment for me, and typically my car would be my safe haven, but guess what? I carpooled to work with my sister! That was a bad one. Thing is, after that day, I collapsed because I felt like I failed. I always fail at life. The following couple of months, I just went back to either isolating myself or stay in groups because I was so scared of losing it in public, in front of a friend, in front of my family, and I wouldn’t be able to hide anymore, someone will find out. People will look at me weird... People will stop wanting to look at me...
And then came acceptance.
I’ve already talked about change, and how it has to always come from within. But, there are somethings that you just have to accept, accepting the fact that they’ll never change, and coming to peace with it. Sometimes, you just need to pause. People have good intentions, but most will come off wrong, they’ll tell you to “just stop feeling _____” and you end up hiding away because it’s just easier. That’s unrealistic. Do not just stop feeling whatever you’re feeling, on the contrary, embrace those feelings, and learn how to handle them. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, you do. There isn’t an expiration date on feelings, there isn’t a fixed date to “stop being a child and grow up”.
Saddest part, for me, is that everyone goes through this. Take depression as an example. Depression is like a cold, and at some point in your life, you're doomed to catch that cold. For some people, it lasts for a couple of days, some lasts for a couple of months. And then there are those unlucky ones, their cold is chronic and needs constant care to keep it in check.
So why do we keep thinking that other people have the right to judge us? why some people do judge? and as if you don’t already have enough shit on your plate, you have to also put people’s feeling and considerations in mind? YOU DON’T. I had an average of 3 hours of sleep, each night, walking up at least three times, ever since April, because my insomnia does not deal well with my new job change. So it’s on an all time high. I usually would hide this fact and say that everything is okay. BUT IT’S NOT AND I’M NOT. And that’s okay. That’s just my brain. It’ll get better.
Everyone is fighting their own internal battle. For whatever reason, you feel pain on the inside. You do not need to physically see that pain to validate it’s existence. It is there. Sometimes, it gets better, sometimes it gets worse. If your brain is also a ticking bomb, you don’t have to collapse every time it explodes. You did not fail yourself, bombs are doomed to explode. Get up, rebuild, and push forward.
