Bad brain days

I'm rough the last few days.  I can't sleep.  My brain is just cycling through things so fast and loud I can't let go of consciousness.  Fear is always present with me during these times, even after taking anti-anxiety medication to calm down.  I still feel the fear and the threat of it building past manageable levels.  It's like a coil of razor wire fence in my stomach that's about to spring open and shred me up inside.  All I've wanted to do lately is sleep.  Before the anxiety kicked in, I was retreating into sleep as much as possible without neglecting Zoë.  Because of the recent episodes with her, Mike and I always make sure one of us is awake during the day.  We don't take naps as a family anymore, but when I'm not sleeping, I'm thinking about sleep.  It's like a passive-aggressive protest against my life right now.  It's hard.  I don't want to participate.  I don't know how to move forward, past all this dysfunction. 

The realization I have come to is that the problem is not my life, it's not life at all, it's my brain.  It's the way my mind works.  It will analyze every sentence, every word and suck out every ounce of negativity it can find and then just obsess ceaselessly on that.  Never mind that the one negative words was surrounded by hundreds of positive ones.  I don't even hear them, just the negative.  It's like I'm wearing a selective filter that only allows the negative through.  It's even worse when I turn to thinking about myself.  I crucify myself for the slightest flaw.  I'm never good enough in my own estimation and in my relationships, the more someone loves me and tries to show me they love me, the more likely I am to hate them and push them away.  The worse they treat me, the more likely I am to pursue them.  I choose relationships that reflect the way I feel about myself.  My husband was a fortunate anomaly.  But sometimes I feel guilty for accepting people's love and affection.  I KNOW I don't deserve it and the guilt can be so powerful, I literally get sick to my stomach from it so I push people back and react angrily to them when they don't deserve it.  I used to think by not loving myself, at least the I was the only one hurt, but as I've gotten older and seen things more clearly, I realize that's not true.  I also wonder how do I teach my daughter to relate to herself in a healthy way when I have no idea how to do that myself?  In truth, the only thing I want to do at this time is start drinking and never stop until I'm dead or I've driven everyone good away so that I don't have to worry about dragging anyone else down.  I'm not going to do that though because I have a responsibility to give my daughter the kind of mother she deserves to have.  So I keep trying.  I keep trying to be someone better than I really am.  I keep praying too that it will be enough. 

I feel so horribly sad and lonely like I"m standing on the edge of the earth and everyone else is just a hazy background somewhere behind me.  The thing that makes the fear of falling into a pit worst is the knowledge that no one else can save you, no one can break your momentum.  Somehow, at your lowest and weakest, you still have to find the strength to catch yourself.  I don't believe there is a bottom.  I think you just keep falling endlessly.  At least that's how it feels sometimes.  It feels like the depths in me have no end and if I fell in them, I'd continue falling further and further down forever. 

The line of hope in all of this is that I do believe the brain can be healed.  I think with the right mix of medication and intense CBT or DBT, the brain can be retrained and the ruts currently worn in it through negativity can be smoothed over and soothed with positive thoughts.  Scientific studies have shown that the brain continues to grow and physically change through out our lives and that thought does impact the way the brain biologically grows.  I think sometimes when I get anxiety attacks or spells of depression, it's because I'm over stimulated and my brain can't process things as fast as the senses are feeding it.  It doesn't help that I have very few decisive conclusions on any subject.  Most people have definite opinions that don't budge much despite what information they come across on the subject.  Myself on the other hand, I'm constantly rejudging old choices and decisions based on the light of new information and constantly revising my beliefs based on this reevaluation.  It's a never-ending process.  So I don't have one stable bottom line on which to build further judgments on and comprehend the world by.  I see too many possibilities everywhere.  I would be happy if my brain wasn't so feral. 

What can I do though?  The options are to just give up or keep pushing on one day at a time.  The most important thing in my life is to be a good mother and I could never traumatize my daughter by taking my own life.  Even though there are days when I think she'd be better off without me, I know enough to recognize that those thoughts are the sickness of depression speaking, not me.  

SO pushing on a day at a time it is then.  I just need to hold on till the days turn brighter.  I know they will.  -