My very old mother-in-law falls one night heading for the bathroom. She calls an ambulance. At the hospital they say there's nothing wrong, no particular cause, and no injury from the fall, so back home she goes. When we visit the next day, she can't walk, her ribcage hurts and she's short of breath. Crisis.
I act. I insist on calling her doctor. He asks some questions I relay to her because she can't make it to the phone, then he says if her breathing gets worse to go to the hospital. The next day it's worse, but she won't go. I call an ambulance anyway. (My husband and his siblings aren't taking this too seriously. I'm the only one ringing the alarm bell.) This time they tell us she cracked a rib and punctured her lung.
It turns out well. The puncture is small and the rib will heal on its own. She spends one night in the hospital (telling each visitor as they leave: "Remember, DNR. If it comes to that, don't intervene").
It would seem I handled it well, right?
But after a crisis has passed, within a short time my vigilance turns inward. I begin to examine myself - from every conceivable angle, in every conceivable light. And again I find plenty to ring the alarm bells about.
- Could I have prevented any of this?
- Did I do the correct thing at each and every step?
- Did I insult anyone?
- Maybe I contributed in some undefined way to it all happening in the first place?
- Did I overreact? Did I underreact?
- Was it really my place?
- Have I caused a rift in the family?
- And, finally, how will I survive - not the crisis but the anxiety that follows?
When I consider every angle, from every perspective, in exhaustive detail, I find myself at the crux of everything. This thing I do, this anxiety show - it's like paranoia turned inside out. Instead of forces outside myself conspiring against me, it's me causing, directly or indirectly, presiding over, knowingly or unknowingly, and bearing responsibility one way or the other for every misfortune imaginable. I blame myself on each and every count, with no evidence or argument, and meting out no mercy. I even blame myself for blaming myself. The crisis itself is resolved, but for me it's just beginning. It's already gathering steam.
Yes, of course I didn't overstep my bounds! Of course I couldn't have prevented it! Of course I didn't cause it in the first place! Of course people weren't judging me - they were busy dealing with the crisis! Of course I wasn't "wrong" because there is no one right or better way to handle things - there's just me as I am with my strengths and intentions. Of course I'm not perfect.
Of course to all of that.
But I don't believe it - not in my bones or at the bottom of my mind. I can't accept it. I won't let it rest. I worry; I ruminate. To ruminate is to chew the same wad of food over and over without ever breaking it down into manageable bits your throat can accept. When I worry, my mind chews on itself in the same way. Even when there's absolutely no point in it and I know it - especially when there's no point in it - my anxiety roars down the tracks like a runaway train. Except the runaway train is on circular tracks.
It's a terrifying ride. It makes your head hurt, it keeps you up all night, it makes you literally pull your hair out and scream and cry. It makes you doubt your sanity. It makes you doubt you can ever get off and that you'll walk away under your own power if you do.
* * * * * * *
Most people stay on that train until someone stops it or it runs out of fuel. For me, somewhere along the line I must have learned (by trial-and-error?) another way to pause the broken record. Sometimes when I've been on the same groove for a very long time, or the ride is especially rough, my unconscious mind tries to hit the brakes. It issues an imperative to create a new crisis, one that is about me, one I did cause and can control (well, usually). There will be no paralyzing uncertainties. No one else will be involved, much less endangered (except they will be, and it will hurt them terribly because they love me). I really will be at the center of this crisis and at every one of its turns because I created it and am carrying it out.
For me this imperative is usually in the form of incising my arm or thigh with a razor blade, or burning myself with a "safety" lighter - the kind you use to light a gas grill - or taking too many pills but not enough to kill myself. Sometimes I bang my head, sometimes I slam my fist against the floor or drive my leg into some furniture over and over again to watch it bruise in living color. The worse the anxiety, the worse the damage I do.
Thus, a new crisis is born to take the place of the old one. One train pulls into the station, another one leaves. And pretty soon this new one's picking up speed. The needle's hitting the groove. I'm getting anxious.
* * * * * * *
The crisis with my mother-in-law and what ensued was relatively mild. I didn't end up hurting myself. I white-knuckled it through. But it says something about anxiety, I think, that spending a good two days paralyzed by self-doubt, chewing my lips, balling my fists and hitting my head with them, spewing my circular "reasoning" all over some Facebook page (or no, please, not my own) and telling my husband long into the night that I was such a worthless piece of shit I'd do everyone a favor by being dead - that was a milder case of anxiety.
Bipolar cycling plays a part too - but a small one. This is anxiety's show, although bipolar sometimes sings backup. Everything starts with worry, continues with worry, and ends in worry - if it ends at all. Obviously going over and over the past and future, obsessively and inconclusively (or all too conclusively) is futile. But it's also self-perpetuating and self-sustaining. It becomes me, or I become it. We swallow each other.
Psychiatrists call this kind of worry "rumination" for a reason. Cows chew their cud to digest. Some anxious humans chew their thoughts just as steadily and vigorously, but for us the cud doesn't thin or pass, it just gets larger. It lodges in the mind undigested. And sometimes it only comes loose when a new crisis emerges to take its place - even if we have to whip one up ourselves.
Then we can start all over again, chewing our thoughts, wringing our hands, picking up steam.
