trying to cope

It's one of the annoying things I've had to deal with in the past year and more. I try to do basic things, and find myself overwhelmed with panic. I'm not talking about trying to do things that are that difficult, like say, sorting out my finances or writing the dissertation. I'm talking about things like basic, ordinary household chores. I put away half a dozen dishes, and find my vision going dim and my heart pounding.

So I'm admitting I have a problem, and I actually forced myself to put up some ads looking for some help getting the apartment organized. It's frustrating for me, because none of these things is actually that difficult. I used to be able to do them with ease. I used to be able to do so many things with ease; or, at least, I could just work through the panic attacks, rather than getting wiped out by them.

But between the fibro, which makes me so easily fatigued, and the issues so many of my parts have with me being a "grown up" or working too hard or whatever reasons they have for wanting me to be doing less.... Between all of that, I am finding myself falling further and further behind.

Some of it doesn't really matter, at least in the short term. I'm keeping up with the absolutely necessary bills; we generally have basic groceries in the house; I'm eating and sleeping and bathing (at least occasionally).

But W. and I are leaving for the summer, and paying the bills will be far easier if we can get someone to sublet our share of the apartment. This requires that the apartment be clean, and that we actually look seriously for someone to take the space. The summer trip requires deciding where we're going, and making reservations at least for the first week of it. It also requires getting the car set up for a long trip (getting everything checked, getting a full-size spare, getting a tire gauge). And it requires getting ourselves organized in terms of setting up how the car is packed so it's not constantly descending into chaos.

Oh, yeah, and I need to get my system to a point of enough stability that I can cope with travelling for eight weeks without seeing my therapist or checking in with online sources of support that often.

One of the problems is that when I start to try to cope with any one part of what I need to cope with, I get flooded with all of the other things that need to be dealt with as well; it's like those tasks have their own voices, and if I walk into the space in my head where "tasks" live, then they all wake up and start shouting. Another part of the problem is that if I start a task, it feels like I have to do it "properly," or I get even more stressed out about it.

I miss how things used to be. Sometimes, I'm not entirely convinced that it wasn't worth those occasional descents into really suicidal behavior, just to have the other times when I was able to cope with far more than most people try to do. I miss being really good at lots of things. I miss being able to ignore my discomfort and get lots of work done. I miss getting things done so much it sometimes makes me want to scream.

I know that it was the right choice to stop putting up the "walls" around my parts, and to give myself the room to heal. I do know that. But I didn't expect it to take so long to get stable, and I didn't realize I was going to lose so much more of my capacity to cope.

I guess it's just kind of whining, but what they hey, this is my blog, I'll whine if I want to.