Yesterday was pretty close to the most miserable, awful day I have had since I got here. I spent the morning having an anxiety attack and crying. (This started within minutes or me waking) and basically having an anxiety attack with ranging severity for about 6 hours. It was. not. fun. I will spare you the details because it is sort of a long saga and too complex to explain. Plus, I don’t want to re-trigger myself into more anxiety.
The end result of my day of angst was that by bedtime last night I felt completely unsafe and just wanted to go stay in a hotel. I just wanted to have a night of no worries, of safety and of actual sleep. Since going to a hotel was not an option, I used better-living-through-chemistry to manage the night.
I have not taken any of my as-needed lorazepam (anti anxiety med) since I got here. And usually when I have taken it at home, I take 1/2 to 1 whole tablet. Last night, I asked for whatever the max dose was. It turns out my max dose is two tablets. I have never, ever needed to take two! But I figured the only way to get through my anxiety about the night was to numb my nerves and be oblivious to the world. So, I gulped down my two pills, while wishing that I could have taken a handful. Then I got into my pajamas, turned the volume on my soothing-noise/white noise app up all the way to drown out anything that i might hear, and I turned so that I was facing away from the door-side of my room. And I burrowed under my blankets.
I still didn’t feel safe, but pretty quickly I could feel the smoothing calm of the lorazepam wash over me and with the roaring of the white noise app, I was able to cocoon myself to sleep. I don’t know what, if anything, happened during the night…But I had rendered myself oblivious. As a result, I slept pretty much straight through the night, only waking up maybe once and again when my alarm went off. I felt a little groggy from the meds, but that wore off pretty quickly once I started moving.
So, the night in which I was feeling the most unsafe turned into one of my better nights of sleep thanks to lots of anti-anxiety meds and nearly deafening white noise. I can only imagine how much better my night would have gone if I could have taken more of the lorazepam and just completely deadened myself to the world.
Today is another day. Most of my angst about yesterday is gone, though I still have a reminder on my arm where I self-harmed. That will take a while to heal. Maybe it is a good representation because even though I say my angst from yesterday is gone, it will take me a while to feel safe here again at night and a while for me to heal from the emotional trauma of the day.