I'm in a Freefall

While I sit and type away on this tonight, letting thoughts percolate like a good strong cup of coffee, I have to take a little bit of time to reflect. It's been two years, pretty much to the day, since I published the first post on this blog. Two years ago, I was 6 months removed from being pulled off the road, taken out of work by my psychologist who was rather blunt in her assessment that I was a danger not only to myself but also to the community I was sworn to protect. Looking at the time, I was inspired to tell my story, to talk about my struggles because it was necessary for me to drive my healing. I was inspired by those who told their stories on the podcasts that I listened to. Inspired by the journey's they had embarked on and the successes they had. I can look at my writing, things were inspired too, and open and raw. Which was easy because that's where I was in my own journey, things were raw, things were still fresh, things were moving positively because the only real direction I could go was up. The writing slowed over the past 18 months, just as my healing did. I didn't feel very inspired any more. I certainly had imposter syndrome, and I was dealing with a lot of what ifs and hurry up and wait. I didn't want to write because I didn't want to admit that I wasn't doing too well, I didn't want to admit that I was just floating along, that I was just simply surviving again. And maybe part of it was that I was lying to myself too, that I wasn't willing to admit my struggles because it felt like weakness, it felt like failing, it felt like the darkness was coming back into my life. It was fear. Fuck, it IS fear. The fear never goes away, it sits there, reminding you that it's there, but it gets so much strength from the fact that I know how debilitating things were. The fear of falling off the edge, that edge that has continued to creep closer and closer during these past months, not knowing if the darkness is a few inches or a few miles deep. Not knowing if a slip off the edge will end with death, not from the depth of the fall but from the unknowingness of if the energy will exist to try and climb back out. And sometimes life has a cruel way of reminding you that there is still a lot of work to do. It was the prospect of still needing to do so much work, knowing that there are going to be memories that have to be brought back up, emotions that were ignored that can't be ignored any longer, that gave my nervous system the push it needed to remind me that healing isn't linear. Healing is a motherfucker. 

Having been avoiding things for so long, I was missing the clues that something was coming. The irritability, the constant tiredness, the lack of desire to do simple things like wash dishes or shower, things that I attributed to the life changes of a big move as opposed to it being the warning shots that my mental health was starting to slip. A night of constant nightmares, something that I'm used to dealing with but ones that were particularly vivid started the day with my system already on edge. Then it never settled. The anxiety was palpable, my skin literally felt like it was crawling, I couldn't sit still, couldn't focus and sure as shit couldn't feel okay. The crack had started to form in the carefully curated walls. I dug into the toolbox to try and stem the flow. Grounding, meditation, one of the usual movies I can count on, cold water, fresh air. The crack started getting bigger. I felt that impending sense of doom that anyone who has had severe anxiety knows. My mind started going every possible direction it could and none of them were places I wanted to go. I tried the last stand method, getting into the coldest possible shower I could create to literally shock myself out of the spiral. When that didn't work, I knew it was about to be a really shitty day. All I could do was get to safe spot and hold on.

That fucking panic attack truck hit me like a tractor trailer at highway speed. Lying on the floor, struggling to breath as the emotion exploded out of me, made me wish I had been hit by a truck. I couldn't tell you how long it lasted, probably no more than a couple minutes, but by the time it was done I was sore to the core of my being. My bones ached, my muscles felt like they had been tensed tighter than they could have ever been, my lungs burned and my mind was still roaring. It took a lot of work to gather myself again, to find my bearings and make sure I wasn't going to have another one. That fear, the not knowing if my mind was going to be okay or if that truck had made a u-turn and was coming back for another pass. 

As that anxiety continued to thrash and I was barely able to get to the couch to lie down, I knew that I needed to do something to try and force some kind of calm into my system. I turned to music to try and ground. Artists like Parkway Drive, Asking Alexandria, Falling in Reverse, I Prevail. Songs that don't give the mind a chance to avoid them, songs that have depth, that can pull at my core to try and help reset things. Songs that harken to the darkness and discomfort one feels when they have already had to try and maintain an uneasy peace with their demons like I have. As I listened, letting the riffs and deep kicks of the drum try and break the shit of the day, I couldn't help but focus on my tattoos. Sitting with death again, wondering why the demons were trying their hardest to break the balance I have worked so hard to come to with them. Why now?

Then a recommended song came up and the title grabbed me. Freefall by Nothing More and Daughtry. I still have the original Daughtry CD somewhere in my CD wallets. Nothing More is in my rotation already, so why not give it a listen. There have been times in the last few days that I wish I hadn't but I am also grateful that I did. While the song is immensely more powerful than I imagined it would be, the video took it and drove it straight through my heart. As a warning to anyone who has worked in first response or dealt with trauma and loss, it's fucking heavy. Prepare yourself. Tissues, your support network, however you handle a strong activation, take care of yourself properly. But beyond the visual representations, the lyrics took whatever self imposed defences I had been so focused on maintaining and blew them the fuck up. I sat on the couch as the song faded out, tears pouring down my face, snot dripping, the kind of heaving cry I haven't had in two years when I first started trying to take care of myself and work toward healing.  I've had cries more recently than that, but nothing like this. The kind of cry that leaves aching in the bones, that takes the breath from your lungs and really reminds you of what pain truly is. 

"I'm in a freefall." The haunting way the song opens, that line echoing through the first moments. Freefall, the scariest possible thing that can happen when you're fighting to stand on the edge of the cliff and not slip. No control, no means of stopping it. After some therapy this week, my therapist was kind enough to remind me that a freefall usually precipitates pulling the cord and deploying the parachute. But when I was in the moment, listening to that line echo that idea escaped me, in that moment it was the freefall right off the cliff's edge because that's where I had been standing and praying to stay away from for so long.

"One step ahead, but I'm still behind where I thought I'd be by this time." Months removed from retirement, the many months beforehand to mentally prepare myself for it. I'd left bags full of old kit, my serge crumpled in a ball. I cried the first time I put it on, felt such pride seeing in hanging in the closet, wearing it for my wedding, for regimental balls and regimental funerals. Yet as I left it behind, I felt nothing beyond relief. I felt that relief would carry through the move, through unpacking boxes and slowly moving into my new life. I was going forward, but it felt different. Starting therapy with a new clinician, breaking down walls that I had put up around progresses made years prior to try and keep them from escaping, feeling like so much of what I had done outside of Kelowna was just enough to keep me surviving. I knew there was some work to do, to make sure I could succeed in retirement but I wasn't prepared for how deeply I was still impacted by it all. These weren't little layers being peeled back, these were deep cuts that needed to be made, to cut right through the bullshit and to truly let the pain and the trauma be seen again so I could confront them. Unfortunately, those demons were waiting for their chance to break out too, ready to dig their own knives in and create their own wounds. 

"It's hard to please, much less believe the screaming voice in my head." That fucking voice, always there, sometimes whispering, sometimes yelling and sometimes overpowering every other sound. Constantly there, constantly reminding me that it's there and drowning me in hate. So what do you do? Go back to the unhealthy things you did before. Dissociate, doom scroll, do little things like bead a hat or colour a picture. Find "peace" in those moments because for those few seconds that motherfucker is quiet. Try to drown him with crunching snacks, which then makes you hate yourself more because just surviving is taking every ounce of energy and the retirement body is taking shape. Putting less energy into self care because there is no real benefit to it. Nut up when the girls are around, try to ignore that you're avoiding the world again, uncomfortable in public and in your own skin. The screaming voice just won't shut the fuck up.

"I'm in a freefall, racing to the ground, scared I'll lose it all" The chorus ripped the fucking band-aid off and made sure I fucking felt it. Scared I'll lose it all. Everything that I've worked so hard for, everything that I put my girls, their mom, my friends and family through while I silently tried to find new ways to die to unburden them from me and my bullshit. My fear isn't death, I made peace with him. My fear is what death will do to those who aren't taken. My fear is that one day, the life I've worked for goes on without me because death decided I'd used up my goodwill. As I sat wracked with tears after the words tore through me, it came clear to me why people take that final step and embrace death after starting the healing process. The sheer weight of the emotional explosion, that voice still screaming even with hundreds of hours of work done, the prospect of unending peace can beckon with calming promise. But again, my fear isn't that calm, it's the destruction that death will cause to those I care about. Daughtry carries the second verse, "I've got a million reasons to hold on but I only need one to let it go". Well okay motherfucker. That truly captures it, there can be so much going forward but if that one thing that stands in the way that feels insurmountable, then it becomes a battle of what's the point? How much more am I willing to take, how much more can I do? 

"I think that I'm thinking to much...it's all spinning faster and faster." The middle of the verse carries drinking too much, something that I haven't gone to. I quit drinking almost a year ago because even one beer, one drink cracked the door open and those fucking demons came roaring out. Not when anyone else was around, but burying deep into my mind and pulling nightmares out to make sure that I would wake up in the morning fully aware that they were still there and deeply in control. The spinning though, faster and faster out of control. Unable to get out of the spiral until there was nothing to grab on to or no chance of getting out of it safely. Sometimes it slows enough that you can get an arm out and you latch on to something that provides comfort. A connection, a minor task that doesn't require much work, a hobby. I'm guilty of this, pulling as hard as I can, trying to drag myself out of the spinning without realizing the impacts it has on the things that are getting pulled on. Then the thinking starts again, the spiral tightens and the cycle starts all over again. Coming out the other side always feels like shit. And then the shit piles up and piles up, the hatred for not being able to be stable, to feel the guilt and shame of old grabbing with the demons and latching on.

As the video continued, the lyrics continuing to drive the knife in, the reality of being in the freefall started to sink in. The reality of being scared, scared of the work that is left to be done on myself and the impacts that work is going to have, scared of falling back into the abyss, scared of fulfilling all the shit the voice in my head has been telling me. Freefalling into the abyss is terrifying because the ground could be 6 inches or 6 miles away. The hurt is going to be the same, sharp and then gone with recovery. As the song finished, as the tears slowed and I was able to catch my breath again, I sat in the silence. Sure, the voice was still there but it wasn't screaming, maybe it was or maybe I was just too trucked to give it notice. All I could do for the time being was just sit. Eventually I pulled myself together enough to get the girls from day care and kept it together until bed time. Then the walls came down again as I hugged the girls, I couldn't stop the tears again, feeling their unconditional love that had saved me for years before. The emotional toll of the day, of the weeks and months before, left me completely destroyed, exhausted to a level I haven't felt in years, I'm not sure how I managed to adult the evening away and go to bed, but I did. 

In the days following, Kristen reminded me you've got to feel to heal, which is the harsh reality of it all. I'm not really looking forward to it, feeling the feels fucking sucks. It hurts, it drains, it takes so much more than it gives. Freefalls don't last forever. Or so I hope.