falling away from me

I’m falling apart.

This is nothing new — I’ve been falling apart since forever. I don’t know that I was ever really put together at all. My whole life has been a slow unraveling of the threads that hold me together and lately I feel the threads being pulled slightly faster, harder.

I’m not alone. A pandemic, a country in a state of unrest, that will do it for a lot of people. Being home for so long, unable to turn to your usual distractions — no restaurants, no concerts, no bars — takes a toll and we have a nation of people coming apart at the seams. Does it make it better that we are all unraveling together? No. No, it does not. The people I usually turn to for support when I feel the threads slipping away are all dealing with their own issues; we commiserate about our mental state, but can’t offer each other much in the way of hope or help. Even my therapist at times sounds like she is starting to crumble.

My unraveling manifests itself in several ways. My anxiety is spiking, my medication unable to keep up with the tempo it is setting. I’m restless, I’m agitated, I am a weepy mess sometimes, angry and ready to fight at other times. I have lost control of my emotions. I have nightmares. Terrible, harrowing nightmares that leave me awake at 3am, afraid to go back to sleep.

In my dreams I am always trying to get home from somewhere unfamiliar to me. I’m lost, I’m abandoned, I’m dead and the afterlife is just a series of mazes. I worry in my dreams as much as I worry in life. My kids are little…