I am dissociating as I type this so please forgive me if it comes out wrong. I had a serious panic attack yesterday and I thought it might be instructive to diary it and my reaction to it. I have a combination of mental illnesses. A personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and am bipolar. I grew up in a world of violence and chaos and have worked very hard to get away from that. I work hard to understand my illness and to work on healing myself and being a better person.
Yesterday there was a violent fight on my front porch that left blood everywhere. I though that the neighbor who I share a porch with, Mr A, was falling down the stairs. He is a big man and it would have made a lot of noise. Ben and I rushed to the door and opened it to find Mr. A standing over two men who were on the porch floor fighting. I thought the two of them would end up going head first down our rickety wood stairs. I dissociated very fast. Usually when I dissociate it happens fairly slowly like my head drifting away from my body. When it happens this fast it is like having your soul torn out. I said to Mr. A, "Do you want me to call 911?" He did not react and I did not call the police. The reason is that I fear them. I am a middle aged, minority , mentally disabled woman and no good can come of getting the attention of law enforcement. Especially when I am now i the middle of an episode.
When I said that though the two men fighting paused and looked up and I recognized them as Mr. B another of my neighbors and Mr. C. a frequent visitor to Mr. A. Mr C made a movement like he was going to heave them both over the railing and Ben and I and Mr. A all said at about the same time "Mr. C!". He stopped and looked at us and I went back in the house. The part of myself that stands outside and watches what is going on without feeling was gone at this point and I think I was acting on instinct. The moment they cleared off the porch to await the police I got a bunch of wet paper towels and started to clean up the blood.
I only did one small area before it dawned on me that the police might want that blood for evidence. There was alot left so I just went inside and began pacing as that outside part of me came back and started reminding me how stupid I was and my panic began to grow. I ended up going in my room and taking a couple of my anxiety pills. I turned on the world war two movie that I had fallen asleep to the night before and smoked some marijuana. I have medical marijuana. I sat there thinking about my reaction about t he blood and everything. I reacted like I was a little girl again scurrying around to clean things up before the cops get here. Anxious to put on the show of being a happy, normal little kid so they wont think my parents are bad people.
I cried my eyes out for the young, Japanese American Lt. who was killed by the Germans and for his 18 year old kid brother who was on his way up to the front lines at the time. I cried for my neighbors who were going through this problem and for Mr C who I never really trusted or liked because he got the worst of it. and I cried for that little girl I used to be, trying hard to keep out of the way and trying even harder to put the best face on the situation.
Some background. I live in a big old house that has been broken up into apartments. My neighbors are all good, working class people and we all get along great. Mr. A shares our porch and stairs. Mr B lives on the other side of the building and we are close friends with him and his wife. Mr. C is homeless and a little sketchy. He comes to our door once or twice a week trying to sell or trade us things. I do not feel comfortable around him so when he comes I resort to a traditional role. I am always polite to him and I go get Ben and stay in the bedroom while they talk. It is all smalltime. I'll trade you this for $5. I'll give you that for a few cigarettes. I do not fear him stealing from us as he has seen inside our place and can see we have nothing easily converted to cash. We are the kind of people he goes to to try to convert to cash.
The police came. Noone was arrested. The police told Mr. C to never come back and he went off tho the hospital to get stitches. Ben cleaned up the rest of the blood. when I tested my blood sugar(I am diabetic) it was up so I took my insulin. Then I had to eat. I paced back and forth eating a tuna sandwich that tasted like sawdust. Finally Ben suggested going for a ride.
He really takes care of me. We went to an isolated county park that neither of us had been to before and had a wonderful bike ride and long walk. Nature is the best therapy. I did not want to go home. When we did I was so exhausted that I took a two hour nap. I actually think I did pretty well with it. The bike ride definitely helped. I keep swinging in and out of dissociating and I did have a nightmare last night where my dad was one of the ones fighting.
Later when I saw Mr. A and Mr B. outside talking Mr B told me his side which was basically that Mr. C had exchanged words with him during which Mr. C had said he would rape Mrs. B. I agreed that he was within his rights to go to Mr. A's house and tell Mr. C to leave and never come back. I think his mistake was to escalate things when Mr. C refused. He should have called the land lord and asked him to handle it at that point.
One of the things I have learned in therapy is not to escalate problems into crises. I spent a good deal of my life doing just that. The dissociating does not help with this as when that part of me is really gone is when I am in danger of doing the really stupid things or giving in to the delusions that I am sometimes subject to.
I think that getting out into the real world, nature(as opposed to the world we humans make for ourselves), really helped. For one thing I did not have to hide in a bottle as I did when I was a kid. I did not have to stick my face in a book to get out of my reality. I went out into that other reality to see the peace and beauty of the world. The ugly things that I have experienced are just a small part of a much bigger world. When I was a child there was no safe place, no port in the storm. Now the storms still affect me but there is a safe harbor.