jekyllandhyde

First of all, I'm in the midst of a hellish move and dealing with some personal issues, so I'm sorry for not having time to read anyone else's blogs for a while. That said, God this week has been awful. As if the normal complications of moving across the country weren't enough, my girlfriend is having a breakdown.

She isn't exactly depressed (she was in the past, but not so much now), but she has severe anxiety problems. And I mean severe. Not panic attacks, but nervousness about everything, beginning when she wakes up in the morning. Her stomache is a complete mess; she has to eat constantly but when she actually begins taking in food she gets nauseous. In the past few days she's thrown up almost everything she's eaten -- it got to the point tonight where she balled her eyes out and swore she couldn't handle this; she even thought she was going to get really sick from not being able to eat and maybe even die. We think it might be stomach acids caused by the anxiety, but antacids aren't helping. What's more, we're in the middle of a move and she doesn't have insurance through her new job yet so she can't go see a doctor to get a prescription for any anti-anxiety drugs.

And I don't know what to do. In many ways I feel responsible; she's moved with me twice in the past year. I'm going to grad school in Baltimore and she's coming with me, away from her family in Indiana. I'm very patient with her, and so far I've managed to be as supportive as possible without letting any of my frustrations with this situation show, but these past few days have been a real test.

She thinks things will get better once we're actually in our new apartment (it's our first time living together, which she's also terrified about) and life settles down, but I'm afraid her anxiety will just keep coming back. I even asked if she wanted to move back to Indiana with her parents for a time so she could take this $600 anti-anxiety program without having to worry about making rent or being in a new place, but she shot down that idea.

It's weird... after another bad spell tonight (the medicine was working, but then she got all freaked out that it was the only thing that would work), I got online to read the opinion pages on yahoo.com. I actually found myself smiling to only be worrying about those abstract problems. They used to get me so upset....

I'm not sure what I'm expecting from posting this; if anyone has any suggestions, they'd be most welcome. Really, I think I just need to write this out where someone will read it, because this is the only one of my personal sites (MySpace and Facebook, for example) that she doesn't read.

I'm staying up late at night after she goes to bed just to have some time to myself. That sounds selfish, but fuck, if I didn't take that time I might lose my patience and say something like, "You need to toughen up," when I know that's the worst thing I could say. It's a different way of viewing the world; I know I don't fully understand it, and I'm trying to do the best I can. Mostly, that means patience... lots of patience. Fortunately that's something I've always had, but this is whole thing is trying it.