It’s cold. My hair is all oily because it’s dirty and because I got a massage tonight. I do think it helped but my body is all out of whack. Which is funny because I don’t feel like my mind is out of whack. In fact, my mind is probably too much in whack.
My body responds to something before I even have time to recognize that I might have thoughts about it. I woke up last night with a burning. This sensation has started to happen — it began when I went back on anxiety meds a couple months ago — where it feels like my dermis is on fire. Like just below my skin is boiling. This is secondary to the profound sense of dread within me when I wake up at 2am a few times a week like it’s a part-time job.
Last night, I woke up and tried to breathe it all out. I tried closing my eyes, I tried staring at the ceiling. I tried good old-fashioned numbing out and my new skill of saying “hello” to Anxiety and a prompt “the door is there when you’re ready to leave.” And still, the burning. So I took a Xanax. Alprazolam. And I solved 10 clues of a crossword and I went back to sleep.
I always used to think that you had to have lots of random knowledge in order to solve crossword puzzles. And sometimes, you do. But when you really start practicing crossword puzzles, you learn that there are tricks. There are clues the crossword makers like to use over and over and there are jokes and there are patterns. And the more you become familiar with the clues and the jokes and the patterns, the easier it is to put things together. And then, it’s exhilarating. It gets easier. I guess it doesn’t get easier, you just get better.
Right now, my anxiety doesn’t feel solvable. It feels like 1000 jigsaw pieces and I’m frustrated because I can’t tell if these pieces even go to the same puzzle. My only point of reference is the last puzzle I did. And I want to be in the present and that annoying voice is saying “you’ve tried that, and look where it got you.” I want it to make sense. I want to feel like I know exactly why my skin’s on fire so I can finally calm down. I don’t want to feel scared but I am. I’m scared that the clues are repeating and I’m not learning them. I’m scared of it not getting easier.
I think I’m just having a bad day. I think Anxiety has been bored lately and he’s latching on to three letter words. I think, I think… blah blah. But when I wake up at 2am there’s no thoughts. Only fire.