Wednesday, August 26, 2009

9 Days in Counting

...And this day is proving to be an especially hard one. For a swift moment in time, I allowed myself to peek into my hidden anxiety, and I have to say I am very sad.

My wedding is in 9 days. In 9 days I will be a 20 year old wife. In nine days I will be starting in on a whole new life, a secure life. In nine days I will be promising to love and cherish someone for the rest of my life. And in 9 days, my mom will still not be here.

Today, at work, I talked to my boss because I have been having bouts of dizzy spells for the past three days, ridiculous dizzy spells. It never really set in that this was my wedding I'm planning because I never let it set in, but as the days draw nearer, I am realizing that is my dress in the closet, those are my flowers, my shoes, my candles, my table cloths. All of it is mine for my wedding. I keep pushing those thoughts under the rug as soon as they settle in though, and when I told my boss about the dizzy spells, informing him that I do have sinus problems, though I'm not feeling much right now, he asked me about stress and anxiety...

Stress and anxiety? I chewed on that for about 30 seconds before I apprehensively admitted to having them both. In that same moment, I realized I have been refusing to think about this wedding as my own for one reason. If I dwell on the fact that this is my wedding, it will eventually lead into the thought that my mom is gone. Somewhere along the line, I refused to associate my wedding with my mom's death because I want the day to be happy. It doesn't help that my mom's death anniversary is two weeks away from the wedding and that this is only the second year since she died or that I am only 20 years old. I knew all of that when I started planning the wedding, though, so it is no fault but my own.

However, I have had a constant headache for about a week now. I have been losing sleep or not sleeping well. I have been reverting to many of my old controlling ways. I have been having more arguments with my fiance. I have had much more tension in my shoulders. I have had a lot more neck pain. I have lost my ability to focus, and I have all but put my relationship with God on the back burner. I'm still showering and cleaning my house, but with those to facts exempt, these are all my tell tale signs of missing my mom.

There is a huge part of me right now that is terrified of admitting that. I am terrified that if I allow myself to be sad right now in the midst of all the chaos, I will lose sight of what is happening in my life. Even more so, I am afraid of having the depression set back into my life and take control of me again because I do not take medication for depression. I don't ever want to be back in that place again. So somewhere along the line, I started refusing to allow myself to talk or think about my mom in relation to my wedding. When I realized that thinking about the wedding itself brought on anxiety, I went on planning the wedding as if it were not truly my own. It hasn't been until this week that I have truly felt like this was my wedding.

I tend to over analyze everything, even more so when I am dealing with anxiety and stress. Every step of the way, I have over analyzed people's opinions, feelings, emotions, etc about this wedding to the point that it became not my own but a pile of what other people want. Yesterday, I think the woman that is making our cake for us as our gift got frustrated with me because I was so laid back about how she did the cake. She was looking for some real decision, and I was giving her pretty much free reign as long as the cake looked like it belonged at a fall wedding. At one point she jokingly said to me, "I'll just do whatever I want then since you don't care." It has come to a point where I feel like I can't make any decisions without asking someone else. It is such a strange surreal feeling.

What really brought all of this on and to the forefront was not my questions about my dizziness, though. Since I work for a new business, we need to do an open house. We need to get people in to see what we're all about. During our meeting today, we were going over details for the Open House, and we had to choose a date. The dates were between September 19th and September 26th, and the moment I heard the former date, my heart sunk into my stomach. The former date is the 2 year anniversary of the day my family lost our mother. I didn't realize I even felt any anxiety about it until that point. I had honestly hoped to not even bring it up at work, to keep it to myself so I wouldn't have to explain myself, but I couldn't do that. I gained a little composure, and through a shaky voice asked them if we could do it the 26th instead because that is my mom's death anniversary. Everyone agreed and moved on quickly, but I have not been able to get my thoughts off the way I felt when I was asked to work an Open House the day my mom had died.

I don't know how the next 8 days will go. I do know that I cannot ignore my pain, though. My problem now is finding that outlet that is healthy and does not send me into a downward spiral.

1 comment:

  1. You need to be looking into family history and seeing a dr. over the dizziness. That could be much more than anxiety!

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