Tag: mental health

Highlights vs Real Life

Most posts on social media are the highlight reels of someone’s life. You see smiles and love and happy spins on events. People love to see that side of things. But we all know that isn’t real life.

Real life hurts sometimes. Real life can be ugly. Real life is full of death, broken bones, pandemics, anxiety, and pain.

Real life is what is behind the joy of helping your mother move on with her life after the death of her soul mate and healing from a broken hip. Real life is when your partner and best friend of 20 years, the person you can’t wait to talk to and share your life with, out of the blue wants space and asks you to leave the life you’ve built together so he can find himself.

Real life is spending sleepless nights crying or days on end too sick with hurt to eat. Real life is losing 10 pounds in a week because you can’t fathom how the person you love and trusted most in the world could hurt you so deeply the same year your father died.

Real life is worrying about the three children caught in the middle of everything who don’t deserve the pain. The children who should be able to look at their parents and know everything is going to be okay. Instead, those same children end up consoling the shell of the mother they once knew.

Life isn’t fair. This year has been less than fair to many people. And now, blindsided, hurt, angry, confused, and heartbroken, I have to put on a strong face. My children deserve me at my best. They shouldn’t have to see me like this but that’s the cards we have been dealt together.

Maybe this year is finished with its surprises and maybe it isn’t. Maybe my husband, who has been so kind, caring, and supportive our entire relationship, can figure out whatever is going on with him so I can go back home and maybe he won’t. Maybe I will be starting over with my mother and maybe that won’t be necessary. I will, however, absolutely pick myself up and be the best version of me I can. It may take a long time but my children deserve no less.

Pandemic Paramedicine

The first time I had to suit up to respond to a cardiac arrest at work during this pandemic, I was nervous. I have worn N95s and other protective equipment before but it felt different this time. It felt so much more dangerous.

This time I could bring home a virus that I didn’t know I was carrying. I’m already immunocompromised but so is my mother. She has been on inhaled steroids for most of her adult life and lives with us.

To all of you who work on a COVID unit, thank you. I don’t know how you do it.

I was so scared when I had to respond to the COVID unit of a local nursing home and transport a known positive patient. I can’t imagine that stress every time you go to work. You can’t become complacent because that’s when you get sick.

Thank you to everyone who wears their masks properly. Thank you to those washing their hands and properly socially distancing.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who works on the frontlines and to those in support services helping them behind the scenes.

Don’t Let Them Know

I’m having a hard time pretending. I don’t have an option. I have to pretend everything is okay.

I can’t let the kids know I’m not okay. I can’t let my coworkers know I’m not okay. I can’t let my patients know I’m not okay.

I have to continue my life as if nothing has changed. I have to go to work and face coworkers like I’m the happy person they have come to expect. I have to give my patients and their families my all because my problems are not their concern in the least. I have to show the brave face to my kids because my hurt isn’t theirs to burden.

How does one go about this? How does a person tell their mind to stop having anxiety attacks?

I’m trying. It isn’t easy but I’m working on it.

In the mean time I’ll cuddle my kids while they’ll let me. I’ll snuggle my puppy as long as I can. I’ll help my mother build her life again.

I cannot guarantee I will be able to be the happy-go-lucky person I used to be but I can promise I’m trying.

Hidden Smiles

My smile is a large part of my identity. I greet everyone I encounter by smiling. Regardless of what is going on in my life, each new interaction I treat as a fresh start. Everyone deserves the best side of the people they are around. Every patient I meet, every stranger I run into, every coworker I see, I welcome them with a smile.

Several years ago I had a very sick patient. When I arrived on scene, I greeted her with the same smile I still bear to this day. Maybe it’s a comfort measure to me. I don’t know when or why I started smiling but I do. She looked at me and said thank you. While we were treating her, starting IVs, placing her on the heart monitor, giving her medication, she told me my smile made her feel safe. She said it was warm and comforting and she knew she was in good hands. All because I smiled.

Now my smile is gone.

It’s still there but it’s hiding. It’s covered up by a mask. My patients can’t see me try to comfort them with my smile. My coworkers can’t see my warm greeting. I don’t have that as a part of my identity anymore.

I will still wear a mask. I will continue to wear a smile. But some days are harder than others.

Some days look more like this picture. The juxtaposition of the graphics on this shirt while I am in tears isn’t lost on me. This is me trying to show the world a brave face but hurting inside. Wearing my metaphorical mask. Hiding behind an actual mask.

I’m getting better. My mask is more literal than figurative now. I know masks have become a part of everyday life and they will continue to be a part of my life. I will have to comfort people in a new way.

I will find my smile again.

Anxiety

Anxiety is ruthless. It doesn’t care who you are or where you are. When anxiety rears it’s ugly head, it’s victims may not be able to fight back.

I know it’s all in my head. I know it isn’t true. But sometimes, it’s too real feeling at the moment to see myself out.

Tonight, when I got home from work, anxiety hit. I’m not talking about a little shaky feeling or unease. I mean full out panic attack. Out of the blue. While minding my own business my head asked me “what if something really bad happens and you have to take a family member to the hospital because they are critically injured and may not survive”.

You think that’s bad enough, right? Oh, my brain did not. It thought it should add “and what if when you get to the hospital you can’t reach anybody? Like no one. Not your husband, not your mother, not your other children, not even a friend. No one answers your call and you have to watch your child die alone”.

What the absolute f***? Where did this come from? Why is it there? Why did my mind add that last part other than to be extra cruel? Why, when I know that this is actually ridiculous, won’t the feeling of doom go away.

As I write these words my hands are still shaking and the tears still won’t stop. I am trying to compose myself so I can face my children without them worrying about me.

How do I tell myself I’m being ridiculous and believe it enough to stop?

I hate anxiety.