My anxiety levels are continuing to overwhelm me. I’m having an anxiety ‘attack’ almost every other day.
Some days it’s worse than others.
I have reached this place where I am examining each wave with a scientific eye to try and identify the source. I realize my ADHD is fueling some of this, as is perimenopause. But that obviously isn’t the whole story.
I realize that for the last year I’ve been in a paralyzing state of anxiety, and it’s directly tied to all I was intuiting from these goings on with my mother.
But since finding out how ill my mother was, I have anxiety about seeing her, and I have anxiety about being too late to see her. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my father or to Jomo. I have anxiety about not getting to say goodbye. I have anxiety about having to say goodbye.
Add to this that my inability to work the last year has made life so rough. I have anxiety about food, about bills, about all the mundane shit. It’s also ironic that this is when my landlady just grew increasingly nasty and showing her colours. The pressure she kept putting on me contributed to just baseline stress in my life.
Now that I don’t have to deal with her anymore, it’s left more room to sort through what is really going on. Especially since I came back to Barbados.
I have anxiety about what it means to actually be responsible for a house now. What taking on the responsibility of my mother’s affairs means.
To say nothing of my anxieties about even being in Barbados again, a place I generally do not and have not ever enjoyed living in.
I have anxiety about what it means that I am the last man standing. I have anxiety about the power in my two sword arms (because ambidextrous) even as I thrust and parry.
Why has this just become the theme of my life since December 2021?
I now believe that, just like I knew something had happened to Jomo the night he died, I think I knew something happened to my mother.
The state of our relationship notwithstanding, my mother is as much a witch as I am. So I think now, with all I have learned, that she began calling for me as soon as she got too sick to fend for herself.
I find myself in the strangest of emotional places.
For a year I was feeling the call, but could not respond, and the call got louder and more demanding… and not for nothing, Spirit was in agreement.
The longer the distance between here and there went on, it’s the more intense my anxiety attacks became.
October through the end of January was just a horrible, horrible time for me. And at no time did I connect it to my mother. Not ever.
It was the same with Jomo.
In both instances, I just felt all these emotions, dread, trepidation and overwhelming grief without connecting it to either one of them.
And now this… This stupid fight with a stupid man over his insecurities and greed and the wickedness it has enabled. I mean really, how much grace and patience must I exhibit before I get to be a full cunt like some of these people trying to dictate to my mother and myself what our relationship is?
I am dreaming of my mother… she is like she was in her early 50s, still wearing black jeans and tank tops, her hair blown out and her Cruella De Ville grey streak bright and her hair black…
She’s always packing and dressing to leave the nursing home, and I’m always there to help her go.
I am crying as I type that, because I know that’s what’s happening. And well, what it really means.
How do children of abuse navigate this?
How do priests navigate this?
I don’t know either, I just keep trying to move forward.
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