It's a new day, right? *snort*

I didn't post yesterday because I was busy hiding from myself. I do that a lot. I don't succeed very well, but I keep trying. I'm stubborn that way.

One year ago, I was out with a friend, spending some time before Oliver's arrival took up so much attention. While we were out, innocently going about our business, another driver made a stupid decision. The resulting crashed totaled my friend's brand new car, caused her almost a year's worth of physical pain, and freaked everybody out. The bruising I suffered made it very difficult for me to go about my daily life - making this household work - and made me realize how hard it was going to be once we had a newborn in our house again. That realization triggered a little mini-breakdown. I was so anxious and stressed out about how I was going to manage three children. I had nightmares for weeks about the house burning down, about losing my children at the store, or other disaster scenarious. I'd lay in bed at 3 am and just cry.

And here we are, a year later. Oliver is 11 months old. The laundry is regularly washed, dinner is cooked, the house is cleaned, and we're still just going about our business. Everyone is generally well cared for and certainly loved. We have three kids and I manage OK. Not always great (or even good) but we make it work.

Bear with me, I'm trying to tie this all together but it's a mess in my head.

Yesterday, I had lunch with that same friend. Realizing that it was almost exactly a year to the day that we'd had this car wreck experience, I came up with the brilliant idea that we should revisit the restaurant we'd lunched at before. Lunch was tasty, and the conversation rambling. A few quick errands together and I dropped her off at home all safe and sound. Then I ate my way through the rest of the day. I went to bed, but had trouble sleeping because I couldn't short circuit the anxiety cycle in my brain. What was so upsetting? In retrospect, I think that my decision to revisit the restaurant really stressed out my friend. And I feel so bad about that. I enjoy hanging out with her. Truly, I don't have a lot of friends (though the ones I do have are amazing) and I'm pretty sure I really alienated her yesterday. I didn't mean to. But I was wrong. I think. And my paranoia and anxiety just kept building.

Like always, I tried to stuff it down with food, but I just ended up hating myself more in the end.

Now. On to something equally rambling and related in a vague/chronological way.

As I was laying in bed, thinking about how I had made this serious misstep with my friend and how much I wanted to apologize, I was distracted by Oliver. He's very congested and the last two night have been very bad. No sleep to be had. He wants to nurse to feel better, but then as he's nursing he can't breathe very well due to the snot. It's frustrating and exhausting but he'll get better and eventually we'll all be OK. Things got much better for me in the wee hours of the morning when Marc just took Oliver away and I went to sleep.

Oliver entered into my evening when I was already riding that anxiety-crazy cycle. I was overly full, upset, and generally not mentally well. So as I'm trying to deal with him, I kept remembering when we went through somthing like this with Xavier. Only Xavier was about 2 months old and had to admitted to the hospital for oxygen level monitoring, IV fluids/medication, and wall suction (to get the snot out of his nose). We were only in for about a day and half. You can stay as long as you want with them, but the only place to sleep is a recliner. After days of going through all of this at home, I was exhausted. During admitting I couldn't remember important facts. Some friends showed up to support us and I just cried. The hospital preformed a spinal tap - I couldn't even wait outside the room for them to finish, I had to go to a different part of the hospital. And you know what? This whole experience was awful. I color the event by thinking: we weren't in the hospital that long, I'm so glad it was such a minor illness, it all worked out OK. And all of those things are true. But hidden in that is the essential truth: my kid was sick, it made me feel lost and helpless, and the entire experience was emotionally challenging. And when I try to face this truth I get upset all over again. Even though everything turned out OK. Because I have never really faced this truth. So it sits there, waiting.

Somehow, truly admitting to myself and others how much these "minor" incidents in life upset me feels like a disaster in the making. I'm still waiting for the time when the "black" mood days, when the anxiety creeps up, when I go a little too crazy. For just a moment, I'm going to try to set aside the euphamisms and be transparent: Once, 11 years ago, I was so depressed and anxiety riddled that I was slowly killing myself through starvation and actively contemplating speeding up the process with a chemical overdose. I haven't gotten close to that place since I came out of it 11 years ago, though I do find myself struggling from time to time with depression. But having lived through that experience, I live in fear that I'll fall into it again. And this time I'll drag all the people I love with me, and that's even worse.

Typing this post is so hard. My stomach hurts, my muscles are tense, my head aches. This is the truth. Inside, mentally, I'm a mess. I can't even go back and reread for typos.

I think this post probably belongs over on my other blog, the one where I embrace my freaked out mental self a little bit more. Sorry.

So. Back to the food thing. I ate my way through my problems yesterday and feel lousy for it. I woke up with those problems this morning but I stuck with my breakfast goals. The hard part will be letting go and not eating my way through today. I'll probably be back tonight with an update. Maybe. If I can face it. Thanks.