Half a Hydroxyzine

Half a hydroxyzine and 20 minutes meditating. Kill the monologue and pictures. Or try to, at least. I had a feeling today was going to be a strange day. I talked about it when I woke up. 

In the last handful of months, since January, my mood had been steadily dropping (I have a mood tracking app with a number of data points for this very reason), and in the last two months it had been dropping faster and faster until, well, things got out of hand. C'est la vie. The last couple of days had been better, but there was something off this morning.

I drove north to see my family. In the last fifteen minutes or so my heart had begun to race and there was a pressure in my head. The signs. I said my goodbyes and drove home.

Half a hydroxyzine. Sat on the couch and spoke outloud to myself. As if I were on the outside. 

"It will pass."

"This does not matter."

"You will get through."

(Nine grams.) "You don't want to miss what's coming."

Meditated for 20 minutes. In with light, out with shadow. Simple binaural audio in headphones. Let my thoughts disappear. Kill the monologue and pictures. 

In my early twenties I had to stop smoking weed. Each time I did I was having something akin to an out of body experience (though not quite as fantastical). I would see myself from an unbiased third party point of view. I could see my patterns. My connections. I could see what was actually happening in my life and the ways in which I was running from and coping with it. It was crushing. Each time it would sink me into a week-long depressive wave. So I stopped. Lately, those states have become increasingly frequent.

A few weeks ago, on the interstate, an epiphany struck me. I suddenly, and without reason, saw a pattern I had never noticed. A thread running through a list of important events in my life. It answered a number of questions I had been asking myself, and it birthed a few more. I saw myself from the outside. Three or four days went by and I couldn't return to my normal state. I was working, driving, waking, living in this 3rd party perspective. I became intensely concious of each word I said and each motion I made. Each direction I steered a conversation and each reaction I had to everything. Any connection to the person driving that body seemed to be lost.

It faded eventually, and the wave hit me. I had already been in a bad state, but as it goes, you can always get worse.

I isolated for weeks (I'm isolating now, if I'm being honest). I ate little to nothing. I barely spoke at work and often broke down. What I had seen wouldn't leave me. I was back in my body and it was too much. The monolgue was aggressive, abusive, and constant. The images were all consuming. The repetition of so many moments and futures and mistakes. It all dug into me, coring me out. Grinding away at my chest and head. And eventually, well, things got out of hand.

The next morning I felt like I had been dropped off somewhere. Kicked out of a speeding car, but alive and free.

I began to do everything I could to fight back. To not let it happen again. Meditating more. Using my medications whenever I noticed the signs instead of ignoring them like usual. Actively talking myself down out loud in the middle of my empty house. Focusing on what I could change. What I could fix. What I could build.

The first day was hard.

The second day was easier.

The third day was almost a good day.

I sat down to write this. The hydroxyzine kicked in, and today will be a good day.