So, I got all saucy in my big girl pants with last week’s exposure therapy. I’ll blame Dr. Mandolin because it feels better than saying I’m a pansy. She told me that my first exposure triad was positive, that there was progress. I wasn’t perfect and didn’t make it through like I should have, but I’m not striving for perfection.
Welp, throw that progress down the drain. Hard and fast. Basically this week was a bust. Charged with three shower sessions, one of the things I avoid for reasons I’ll divulge later, I only made it through two. Each of those was cut short, and I completely forwent the third. Yes, I went 7 days with only 2 showers. I’m still clean, wash my face and hair, brush teeth, wipe my body down, and all the things. It’s the act of being in the shower or tub that is connected to yucky stuff from my youth. Oh, I floss like a boss. Obsessively. And I’m proud of it.
The thing is, I can tell you that the shower is a safe place. That I am in my own home and the bad people aren’t here from my youth. My doodle dogs are here to protect me (one via barking, the other by staring aggressively while chewing a squeaky toy), and I have a husband and kids that would hear someone attacking me in the bathroom. Logic, right? Seems nothing makes sense to a body driven by emotional responses and has a very long memory.
My first exposure was a shower. I’m supposed to stay in there and hang with the discomfort until I notice my panic and SUDS score decrease. 30 minutes. Or maybe it’s 30 minutes of dealing with hell and then checking my score. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do, I just know that I don’t want to do it. Dr. Mandolin tells me this helps, so I forge forward.
The shower was a disaster. I can’t remember why I got out, what my thoughts were exactly, or what happened afterwards. I was exhausted and crying. Shaking from the inside out. Deep tremors that originate at my core and splay outward. It’s not fun and people have actually asked me if I take drugs or are detoxing because they’ve seen the tail end of a panic attack. Assholes. That’s a subject for an entirely different post, but suffice it to say that you should never approach a stranger and ask what their malady is. Unless, of course, you are calling 911 and need to relay information to some medical professional for help. That’s it.
The second exposure, well, I opted for a bath. Same thing. Log my SUDS score before getting in, ruminate in my discomfort, let my brain come to the conclusion that I’m safe, and get out once my discomfort resolves or significantly decreases.
For those of you that have never had anxiety or panic, let me explain something. The brain becomes a rapid processor of information. Fast and highly efficient. When you think about the reason for panic, self preservation, it makes sense. Survival is our most basic instinct. There is no time for ruminating over what to do next, the brain makes a decision and the body follows. As if your life is at stake.
The thing is, I have noticed that the forced panic attacks (the ones that stem from me deliberately exposing myself to stabby situations) don’t seem to play by the same rules. Most but not all. After being in the tub for a bit, rearranging the shampoo bottles, soap, razor, and loofah thing, I started flipping out. When this happens, my brain normally finds the best and most efficient way out of the panic. Survival. Normally, I’d have just gotten out of the tub and been done with it. Avoidance. Not this time.
Fear of letting Dr. Mandolin down (that’s a subject for an entirely different post), I forced myself to stay in the water. But the part of my brain telling me I had to stay was at odds with the part of my brain telling me to get the hell out. The part of me telling me to stay in was resolute and the part that wanted out began searching for distractions. This is not my normal panic attack. Never has been. Distraction is for later when you’ve made it through the storm and you don’t want to think about what just happened.
I drained the water and grabbed the Soft Scrub with bleach and the smiley face tub scrubber sitting on the ledge. Sitting in the tub, naked as people do, I began scrubbing. I’m not sure why and I cannot pinpoint the moment when my brain was like, “scrub the tub.” I just did it. Admittedly, having two kids and two dogs, the tub needed cleaning. But not when I was in the tub and cleaning chemicals were all over my body. Yeah, that stuff burns. Badly. It’s not meant for tender skin.
After my brain realized I was trying to torture myself via chemical burns, I hastily got out of the bath. Only hastily might not be the right word. It’s slippery, Soft Scrub. And my bathtub is a sunken garden tub that isn’t the easiest to get in and out of. So, freaking out with skin burning, I struggled for several minutes, which seemed like an eternity, to get out. Adding to my exit time was the fact that I had bleach on my feet and I wasn’t entirely sure I got it off. Stepping on a green bathmat with bleach on my feet would ruin the mats. Why did I even care?
Once out, still covered with Lemon Scent Soft Scrub; Same Product You’ve Always Trusted But New Packaging!, I was forced to get into the worst place. The shower. I had to rinse the burning off. And it was starting to hurt like hell. Not gonna lie. As I stood there looking at what my brain believed to be acid rain pouring from the shower head on the ceiling, I had no choice but to jump in. One of the places I hated most was required to make me feel better.
When your brain is at odds with your body, and at war with itself, the outcome of any situation can be rather unpredictable. This is entirely new to me. I felt a sense of physical relief from getting the chemicals off and decreased emotional angst from getting out of the tub, which lowered my SUDS score. The progress was short lived; one part of me was grateful for the relief and the other waged all-out war because I’d willingly jumped into the vortex of hell to rinse off.
It’s a strange thing. I crave a bath. A shower. The relaxation, the feeling of warm water washing over my skin, and the collision of fragrances from hair products I love. It should be like a miniature spa treatment. But it’s not.
Until I figure this out, the shower remains a scene right out of some mind-bending horror flick that remains utterly terrifying. Dark, twisted, and all encompassing. And I think I just made it worse.
At this rate, I’ll be using a garden hose in my driveway to clean off.
