As I sit here after finishing my delicious cup of Nespresso (had to) and my Kraft Crunchy peanut butter toast at pretty much the similar time - I do everyday. I realize that I do everything the same unconsciously or consciously, it’s so built into my routine, I’m not sure any more. This is probably the best thing to do when you suffer from BP1, because it allows you to get organized….. I allow this time for preparation of the day and to begin my day of stress and anxiety. See, my stress is the trigger, my anxiety is the fuel, and the BP1 after a couple days of no sleep, this is the catalyst for another hospitalization. They work off one another. It’s always a scary time, especially when I allow myself to think the natural thoughts of protectionism. My sleep gets disregulated because I just don’t want to go to sleep, my brain won’t allow me to. When my brain goes off, my fight, flight, flop, freeze or fawn response kicks in. I cannot control this trauma response and it has taken 18 months of therapy just to understand this response, to recognize the symptomology, and to just fawn it out. My brain is still engaged with the content, but due to the medication my natural response has been taken over due to the medication and my natural survival mechanism. I fawn, it’s not the most healthy trauma response, but it allows me to watch from a distance and study the playing field. This study occupies my time, which takes away from what I’m actually supposed to be doing. It’s hard to constantly focus on people, attempting to understand their motives, their biases, like where is the trust…. But, this is a survival mechanism it’s something that I have had to adapt from an early age. Why does it need to come up? As we get older we start to think older (not to be condescending), but it’s an adaptive process. In my case, I didn’t sleep for 5-6 days and ran through a hard object (literally). This was my harsh reality, I had no idea what I was doing, why I was doing it, or what it had done to me. I was triggered from my time in the military with noises from the past and all of a sudden I was engaged. I have never cried so loudly as I sat in the hospital. My career was slipping away, my relationship was slipping away, and my reality was slipping away. It was tough. Very tough. Because, I didn’t know I had a problem, I just thought I couldn’t sleep. My fear response came out and it was very much an instinctive animal response, the fear response you get when you corner a wild pig in the bush. It was animalistic, but it was me vs. myself the whole time. It still is. I need to give myself a daily routine to stay predictive, I cannot just do something random anymore because now there is so much more preparation needed. I want to just leave and do my every whim, but this is where anxiety fuels the fire, then I can’t sleep. So everything has to be regulated and predictive. I’m not going to lie, it’s tragically boring. I live a boring life now, but for my own survival, I need to live this Nespresso and Kraft Crunchy lifestyle because if I don’t, I risk (insert days without a meltdown sign here). When people don’t understand mental health it becomes the focal point. I’m not entirely sure I understand my own mental health struggles, let alone am I overly confident in sharing my experience. But, that’s why a therapist is so important, because this is their job. They listen. They look for the hidden meaning in the text. The meaning we cannot fully decipher because we are to close to the ideology and etymology. Therapy is a vital tool for when you are not sure, they can clear up the picture.
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