Forward and Backward

I haven’t been posting lately because I felt like I reached a nice plateau in my mental wellness. Summer has certainly been an important factor and also the opening of U.S. cities given our lucky vaccination break. And of course one should be able to take a break from too much introspection. It’s exhausting work to look at the past.

Certainly I’m in control of my own therapy right? Well recently I had a panic attack flare-up.

One was on public transit and the other was on a Sunday night just before bed. The transit one wasn’t so unusual, it use to be a common place for me to feel uneasy and for thoughts to spiral. I just wasn’t feeling really good that morning and instead of listening to myself, I pushed through overcast skies, loud disruptive road construction, and that typical panicked run to an incoming train. Then once seated, feeling trapped, heart racing, unsure why “this” was happening. That was a reasonably anxious situation for me. The one at home at night, not so reasonable.

Or so I thought. I had spent the afternoon with friends at a pleasant coffee shop, working on the ACA Yellowbook. For dinner we went to a Sonoran restaurant that is significant for being the last place I had dinner with my late best friend. Later I watched a pleasant but emotional movie with friends. Instead of winding the day down, I wound up, looking at various personal…