The Bloody Doors Off

Panic attacks suck. They suck worse when your triggers are magnified, and over the simplest things. Like grocery shopping.

Yeah, like groceries should set off alarm bells, right? Only tonight it did. The day started off well enough; no bouncy walls, no bouncy brain. It was grey outside (welcome to fall, welcome to rain and dark clouds), but I was up and made coffee. Working on changing my routine for sleep; asleep around midnight, up by 9:00 (okay, 9:30, still working on not hitting the snooze… maybe I need to set it for 8:30?). The usual breakfast: bagel, peanut butter and jam. Checked email, Facebook, quickly jumped onto local news over the latest Rob Ford developments. Yeah, that was fun.

Routine is good right now. It might sound boring, and sometimes it is, but it helps. I get why they encouraged that on the sixth floor. So my mornings are fairly routine, or starting that way.

And earlier this afternoon my brother Wayne came to visit, and we went for a bite to eat and coffee. It was great. I’m feeling much closer to my siblings since the crisis; I wish it didn’t take this to encourage our relationships. I own my fair share of that. That’s something I’m going to continue to fix. I can talk to my brothers about what happened. How, when things get dark, you think you’re doing people a favor by not ‘bothering them’ with your problems. And then learning that they want to be there for you. It’s something I need to drill into my head.

So, he later drops me off at home and I putter off a bit. Then it occurs to me.

‘End of the month, gotta log in the last of my expenses for the bankruptcy trustee. Maybe I should get some groceries and add them to the list. I need a few things, including margarine. No harm in hitting the No Frills.’

No harm. No harm…

Yet I’m second-guessing every item in my cart (and it feels like a shit-ton, yet when I get to the check-out counter there’s only 15 items). And then I hit the aisle with teas. I’m trying to drink less coffee. I want tea, something less caffeinated. And we’re talking No Thrills here, so there’s not a huge selection. And I’m debating the number of tea bags v. cost v. brand and… it just hits me.

‘What the fuck am I doing? Can I even afford this? What If I spend x only to need y for prescription pills or…’

Panic attack. I just freeze in the aisle. Thank god no one was passing by. If they even as much as said ‘excuse me’ I might’ve lost it.

But I didn’t. And I’m writing about it, which takes away some of the sting.

Now I just have to parse what brought on the manic episode last night…