When Things Fall Apart

A very wise editor once gave me a simple piece of writing advice: write from where you are, not from where you want to be. In naming this blog, “Sanity Break,” my hope is that it becomes a place of trust and honest rambling among persons who are struggling to live life normally—to function at work and at home, to be able to make it to the grocery store without breaking down in tears, to be able to laugh at a stupid joke or a comical remark by a 10-year-old … all the stuff people who aren’t handicapped by sadness and panic do.

So here’s where I am, which is different from where I want to be: My amygdala—the childish part of my brain that yells PANIC!—has hijacked my entire limbic system (the emotional center of the brain), and I have been hiding in bathrooms and cars during regular crying spells. I am experiencing a chronic sense of guilt –about petty things like letting the dishes sit overnight and about things out of my control, like my husband’s rash (it was caused by stress, I am giving him stress by being depressed, therefore I gave him the rash). Continue reading …