Issue #46 Heart Beats

I quit Facebook and Twitter earlier this week. I am like the thousands of other people who quit (mostly) social media on the reg. (I kept Instagram because it is delightful and less stress-inducing.) There is also the horror of my natural inclination when I am bored and antsy is to type "F" in Chrome which autocompletes "facebook.com" or "T" for "twitter.com" and I will scroll mindlessly for hours. Everything gets pushed ahead for that quick take of wordy verfication when I post. Nothing else matters other than a compliment, a heart, or a like.

I quit (most of) social media because last Monday found myself in the ER after work as a headache piercing my soul for the last two weeks exploded and shortly after the explosion, my right arm went tingly. I thought I was having a stroke. I limped that block and a half home, crying while I did so, and TEH hustled me to the car to head to the hospital.

I stumbled into the ambulance entrance by mistake and my tears turned from sniffles to outright howls. "I think I am having a stroke!" I managed to put together my punctured story while using my forearms and the insides of my elbows to wipe tears away as the waterproof mascara and black eyeliner lined my cheeks. Someone led me to the check-in desk where I was cataloged and waved towards the bank of chairs to sit. I was shaking. TEH arrived not long after parking the car.  Shortly, I jumped ahead of the queue when I was led behind the steely doors into the emergency care area.

I recounted my story several times to the point I could shorthand it. Headaches for nearly two weeks. GP thought it was tension but hasn't seen it last this long. He gave me 800mg of Ibruphone and migraine medicine, both mostly useless. Headache exploded at work Monday, nearly two weeks after they began, and my arm went tingly. Nurses and physicians nodded and asked questions, interns milling about since the hospital is a teaching hospital. They led me to a cat scan; then I was tucked into a curtained room. 

And I waited.

Eventually, TEH was brought back to me. Patiently we sat. Him reading on his phone and myself wholly enthralled with Nick Jr. on the TV above my head. I was scared and I felt, even with TEH there, utterly alone. Both of my parents died from heart complications and my greatest fear, outside of going blind, was having a heart attack or a stroke. I will not go into my obsession with death and my almost irrational fear of what happens when we die but that thought reared its ugly head the longer I sat.




Nurses came and went. An IV was administered with a drug cocktail to manage the headache which abated a bit. It turns out I did not have a stroke, so my care went further down the list. Every now and then a new nurse would whip the curtain back and introduce themselves to eventually blend back into the busy ward. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

Clearly, something had happened. What?
​
The answer I have been able to cobble together is, they don't know. It could be a complicated migraine, tension from stress, or my allergies being their usual asssholish selves. The last nurse we saw conversated about his time in the Navy SEALs and the comparison of the stress of his current vocation. "Are we being shot at or is our helicopter nose diving towards the ground? No? Chill." He eyed me up and down, appraising me while we talked, and intoned we only had one life and we needed to take care of ourselves. Yoga, meditate, make time for yourself. Eat better. More looking up and down. I felt naked while I was clothed. After five hours of sitting in my curtain room, I was given a referral to see a neurologist, a promise extracted from me to make an appointment with my eye doctor to make sure nothing happened to my eyes, and a wish for my good health. Then we were let free.

It is, of course, when we feel that we're looking down the barrel of death we will make promises to whoever and whatever to not die. We will DO anything we bargain. So that is what I did: No more processed foods, absolutely no cow dairy, cut out as much gluten as possible, exercise more, meditate every day, and get off of social media.

The diet thing went slightly out the window not even an hour after my promises when we grazed on chicken tenders from a local place after I was let free. (What is with all the chicken tendies only restaurants lately? Don't get me wrong, I am internally five, but it just seems to be the new beer craze.) (I do really well for breakfast, snacks, and lunch but dinner KILLS ME every time.) In the last week, I've only meditated once and yoga-d twice So, how are those promises working for me?

I have, however, absolutely stayed off of Facebook and Twitter. It was easier than I thought. Sure, I miss sharing my zingers and witticisms but at what cost were those two seconds of relief? I am an extremist in such matters of interests and things: It is all or nothing. Either I could continue reading the news on social media, freak out, step into arguments that were ultimately pointless, or I could shut it all down and read a book or a magazine. Take up knitting again. Write more. Learn a new skill.

In my zeal to scale back from social media, I upped my monthly newspaper subscriptions so now I read The New York Times, Guardian, The Times of London, Q music magazine, and The Washington Post on the reg. The difference from my presence on social media before, perhaps, is the lack of engagement with others on
the social media version of the stories. I've never been one to read the comments on articles, I am not stupid, but the disconnect of engagement overall speaks volumes. I can read a story, digest it, form thoughts and not have this immediate need to write an op-ed on my FB wall who maybe 10% read the entire thing. 

My world did not suddenly alight itself and all was good. Of course not. But I did notice a few things nearly off the bat when I quit. The first is my habit of writing thousand word screeds and tomes on FB could be channeled into essays or elsewhere like this newsletter. Ideas that eluded me before are now forthcoming. The reading habit that intensified this past summer and waned has come back. I'm hyper conscious of my choices. I remind myself of how good I feel after I exercise despite my dragged feet approach to it. Food will always be a fucking struggle, there is no doubt, but even as I slip, I'm weighing those choices of long term effects. I work harder to make better choices tomorrow. 

What are my stressors? I have a good job, I have someone I love who loves me back, I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach, I want for nothing. But stress, and anxiety, are utterly irrational. A few years ago, I had a phobia I could not drive on the highway because I would be decapitated when my car slammed into a tractor trailer and my car would be cut in two after it slid under the truck's chassis. The hiccup in this plan of not staying on highways was I had to take the highway to and from work every day. That was fun! Other times it's slipping in the shower and breaking my head or slicing a finger when I am cutting something. Sometimes it's getting jumped and stabbed out of nowhere on the street as I walk to or from work and no one helping me or being convinced that a friend who is hanging on the down low doesn't love me anymore.  It can be worrying that I'm not doing a good enough job at work or how I look in black eyeliner (fabulous by the way). 

Stress can be about anything, anywhere, at any time. These things are not always passing thoughts; it is I stewing and sulking about whatever it is, rolling it over in my mouth and body like a fucked up message. And it's not always in the forefront of your mind. You can be, as I often have, at a party having a good time and then BAM. Your body is in revolt and the stress about the stress piles on.

I have a history going back over 20 years and half a dozen ER visits over that time to back up all of my aches and pains are about stress. We don't talk about it in the mental health community because people sound like hypochondriacs but I can tell you, with absolute certainty and experience, we are not faking these symptoms or crises. When your body, in flight or fight mode, mimics a stroke, suddenly your whole world and perspective shift a few rows to the left and you wonder if you'll ever know when it's the real thing or not. (I asked this of the last nurse who saw me and he said to take my vitals. If your BP is normal is, you're more than likely not having a heart attack or a stroke or whatever.) 

There is a level of shame attached to these attacks and I'm making it a personal mission to destigmatize this side of mental health.

I would like to live another 46 years. I am not too old things cannot change my ways to make that happen.

It's never too late to change.

P.S. I saw my eye doc a few days after the attack and my eyes remain as fine as ever in their current state. My headaches he's diagnosing as allergies due to the traveling pressure so I'm snorting Flonase every morning. A neurologist appointment is set for December (first available). Everything is getting covered. 

P.P.S. An irony of ironies, I walked a 5K this morning for the local American Heart Association daily walk. I raised $310. I get a "free" t-shirt. (The walk is a nice reminder, despite my slow changing of the ways, in I CAN walk a 5K without huffing or puffing or feeling out of breath. I am trying to remind myself to not accept this as the an indicator I'm in the most excellent of health. My blood work always comes back normal and my BP hangs out at 110/70, but if everything is okay, I wouldn't end up in the ER with a mimicked stroke.)

 

You've just finished reading A Most Unreliable Narrator, 
the spill-your-guts newsletter by Lisa Rabey. You can
find me on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook if you're so inclined.
If you dig this, pass me on to a friend!
Comments? Questions? Want to say "Hi!"?
Just hit reply and send me a note!   

pookie bear industries: a librarian | a writer | a newsletter | effing mindful | excessively diverting