Baby Terror. And Agoraphobia Terror. And Just Plain Terror.

Lou can tell when I haven't been taking my zoloft, and his accuracy is alarming. It never ceases to astound me how totally chemical anxiety is.

Without getting too detailed, having another child is almost a physical impossibility for us at this point. We've decided we won't be having any more kids for some time, and knock on wood, there won't be one. But that doesn't stop me from peeing on a pregnancy test every single month, even though pregnancy is nigh-impossible and my husband is rolling his eyes in exasperation. There's no way we could be pregnant this month right? I ask, three times in a row, rapid-fire. Without fail, he raises his eyebrows in a 'you're insane' way. No, he says. Have you taken your zoloft? So there you go.

But I can't help it. I think it's how your hormones shift after you ovulate. A doctor drew it for me on a napkin once, after I told her that during ovulation, I feel amazing. Great! Stable! No anxiety here! Depression? What's that? And then a week later, I am hyperventillating, crying, obsessing, and generally wanting to hide in a hole.

Go figure that your hormones (progesterone, I think? And estrogen) plummet after you ovulate. And when your hormones plummet, you start to feel like shit. Your anxiety (or depression, or both) comes back in full force. You go from thinking, hey, life is pretty great! to over-analyzing completely everything. When I'm ovulating, I think, you know, having another baby wouldn't be so bad. Maybe in a year or so...? We're in a good place right now. A week later, I think of having another baby and my heart starts pounding. Oh Jesus no, I think, no no no, please don't send me another baby, I couldn't mentally handle it. 

Truth be told, another BABY wouldn't be so bad. Pregnancy and birth are what I hate. I have an intense fear of vomit and some vestiges of medically-related PTSD that makes birth and pregnancy a whirlpool of uncontrollable anxiety. A pregnancy without antidepressants is not possible for me, but now that I've had a child with a neural tube defect, I'm so terrified of taking anything during pregnancy, in case it was a medication that caused it. I start skipping my zoloft after I ovulate -- you know, on the near-impossible chance that we actually did concieve a baby and on the premise (which is not evidence-based, by the way) that the zoloft actually caused his NTD somehow. Anyway, I'm terrified. And the terror convinces me to skip a dose or two. Which makes it worse. Which means until I start getting some mad therapy (and until we get, like, our own house, obviously), there are no babies on the horizon.

If it were morally licit and I had a zillion dollars, I would totally have a test tube baby. No vomiting for months on end. No danger of me poisoning the baby with my very-much-needed antidepressants. No painful, terrifying birth. No danger of a post-partum hemorrhage. I would have like ten test-tube babies. I would have my own Jurassic Park full of test tube babies.

Literally a conversation my husband and I have had, post-delivery. 

So it's with alarming accuracy that Lou can tell whether or not I've been taking my meds. I start sounding a little bit like Shoshanna from GIRLS, hyper and fast-talking. I start talking over and over about things I can't control and I start imagining worst-case scenarios. An example: I was pinning away on Pinterest the other night, dreaming of having our own condo and what it might look like. For some reason, people like to pin pictures of trap doors in houses - trap doors under the stairs, hidden rooms behind bookcases, that kind of thing. I'll admit it's pretty cool, but when I haven't taken my zoloft that day, I start imagining myself as a Jewish woman in 1930s Germany, cowering with my children while Nazis tear through the house. Or I imagine I'm Jodi Foster in Panic Room, and I have to corral my child in a safe room while intruders try to coax us out. Basically, I start running through a billion scenarios in my head where my children are in danger and I have to protect them. And then my heart starts pounding. And I have to shut off the computer, take my medicine, and go to bed. All because of this:

OH JESUS, YOU CAN TOTALLY SEE THE HINGES, THE NAZIS WILL FIND US

I also, ever since being diagnosed with PTSD, have struggled mightily with agoraphobia. When I skip a few days of my zoloft, and then convince myself I'm miraculously pregnant, and then skip more zoloft so I don't poison my imaginary baby, and so on, and so forth until I'm literally incapacitated by anxiety, it is hard -- nay, impossible -- for me to leave the house. This was a phenomenon I never really understood until a counselor sat me down, opened up the DSM-V, and showed me the part of the book where it spelled out explicitly what agoraphobia is. I half expected to see my picture next to the description.

Avoidance? Well ... I only avoid class because there might be a shooter or something. And I avoid Devon Avenue because it reminds me of India. And I can't walk to CVS without a buddy because there might be a stabber on the loose. But other than that, I'm cool!

Restricted Travel? Not really. Except I haven't been able to take the train in three months without a panic attack. And I'm late for class every day because once I muster up the courage to go to class, I have to walk three miles to get there. That's normal, right?

Fear of being confined? Uh, duh! If I'm confined, I can't escape if there's a shooter!

This would be the picture they'd include, by the way. Because CRAZY EYES!

I can safely say I no longer have PTSD. But I very much still struggle with agoraphobia. Even with medicine, it is hard for me to voluntarily leave the house. I can't tell you how many times we miss Wednesday Rosary at church because Henry pooped his diaper twice this morning and he might do it again when we're out! or June is potty-training and she'll pee everywhere! or there might be rain -- the sky is cloudy!. It's not logical. It doesn't make sense. But, I guess, the anxiety I have makes me have an incredibly low tolerance for anything surprising, or unplanned, or anything from whence I can't immediately flee. At the height of my PTSD, I couldn't ride in a car because if I had to pee while I was driving, I couldn't immediately get out and pee. I would have to wait and find a gas station or something first. That terrified me. Legitimately. One night, on our way to a friend's party, I suddenly had to pee while we were on the highway, and we had to drive around looking for an exit, trying to find a Burger King where I could relieve myself. We found a gas station within fifteen minutes, but by then I was a sobbing, hysterical, hyperventillating mess. Because what if I had peed my pants?

Believe me, it doesn't make sense, and I lived through it. That's the funny thing about anxiety. Your brain takes situations that, to anyone's right mind, are no big deal. Wearing a dress. Riding in a car. Going to Wednesday Rosary. And it takes those situations and warps and perverts them until they become insurmountable obstacles. You start thinking this dress is too tight! I'm gonna asphyxiate and die! I have to pee and I have to find parking before I get out of the car! I'm gonna have to hold in my pee forever and I'll die of uremic poisoning! And on. And on. Until you're a crying mess.

Whoever drew this knows what's up. 

By the way, the anxiety is never really about being in a dress or going outside. The anxiety is about things happening that you can't control. The anxiety is about the fear of having a panic attack. It just feels like you're freaking out about something mundane.

Even worse, sometimes anxiety manifests itself as a physical sickness. Ever wonder why people go years and years with untreated anxiety or depression? It's because sometimes anxiety or depression doesn't look like a humorous personality quirk. Sometimes, back in college, I would start coming down with the flu. Achey limbs, runny nose, sore throat, headache. And then I'd cancel my plans and all my flu symptoms would go away in an hour. That's weird, I thought, and thought nothing of it. It took years and years to realize that, oh, this feels like the flu, but it's not really. It's kind of like having a twinge in your stomach and then finding out it's cancer. It kind of tilts your world on its axis.

Anyway. I guess my point is that it doesn't matter what your triggers are. Anxiety triggers look different for everyone. And they only very tangentially make sense. And your anxiety symptoms will probably not look like the next person's. And they might change over time, as well. (Ask me about the time I developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I couldn't go anywhere without the fear of crapping my pants! Actually ... don't ask me.)

But my point is that anxiety is debilitating. And elusive. And it makes you crap your pants.

And all you can do about it is suck it up, take a deep breath, and try your best to make it to Wednesday Rosary. Even if June pees her pants on the way there.

And get some zoloft. Sweet, sweet zoloft.