Back...at last

Wow. This is going to be a long post.

I've been on vacation since July 20 - a good, solid three weeks for both rest and moving. We spent the first week in Old City visiting Beloved's family, enjoying some time at the lake cabin, and celebrating his birthday. Week two was spent with final preparations for the move last Tuesday: buying appliances, scheduling appointments with the cable guy and the phone people, setting up garbage service...all the exciting stuff.

Then, last Tuesday, we moved in. The movers were great, the stuff was all in the house by 2:30pm, and we started to unpack. The goal was to have as much done as possible in a week, at which time I'd go back to work. With both of us there, and family to help, we figured we'd do well.

But then, last Tuesday night at midnight, our first night in the house, Beloved woke up in a panic. At first, I thought he might be sleepwalking (which he's never done before, but there's always a first time). He said he couldn't breathe, that there was no air flow in the house. He got up and started pacing and crying and said this had been a huge mistake, that he wanted to go home. He was, without exaggeration, hysterical. After three hours, I finally persuaded him to take a muscle relaxant which he uses periodically for jaw pain, and which tends to make him very sleepy. He finally fell asleep at about 3:30am.

Wednesday morning, he was about the same. And for the next three days, it continued. He paced all day. He hyperventilated almost all the time. He cried about everything. He was unbelievably anxious about the move, about whether he will find a job in New City, about leaving his family - and he kept repeating that this had been a mistake, that we had to leave, I had to quit my job and we had to go home. He began to panic about the panicking: "why am I like this," "what happened to me," etc. He panicked whenever we couldn't find something silly, like the Tupperware organizer and the pole for the sun umbrella (and when you're moving, as you probably know, you can't find a damn thing for the first week anyway).

I cannot really explain how terrified I was to see him like this. This is a guy who doesn't like change, and we both knew that; and he's someone who does show his emotions (which is great), but his reaction was completely foreign to both of us. By Saturday night, we knew there was something seriously wrong. We called his sister and asked if she and her husband, a family physician, could come for a visit, which they immediately agreed to. They drove until midnight to get here. Sunday morning, we went to urgent care and the doctor there prescribed a low dose of Xanax to start breaking the anxiety, and told us to follow up with a physician.

To make a long story slightly shorter, Beloved is doing much better. We went to the physician yesterday, and he thinks Beloved had a "night terror," which apparently is like a nightmare on steroids, with an adrenaline rush that can last for up to two weeks after the initial event. That adrenaline rush intensifies your emotions, causes extreme anxiety, and explains why the guy literally could not sit down for five days. It's more common in children, but can be brought on by situations of extreme stress or emotional turmoil.

As of today, Beloved can finally sit down. He actually had enough concentration and interest to go work on unpacking the garage (the fact that he didn't want to go anywhere near the garage during the worst of the panic was what really worried me, because this guy LOVES the garage). He started to laugh. He laughed about how panicked he was when we couldn't find the sun umbrella pole. He takes deep breaths.

It's better. It's not entirely over, because there are still anxieties about being homesick and about finding a job. But those are normal, and his reactions to them are calming down. The best thing is how willing he was to talk about this, and how quick he was to accept the fact that he needed help. For awhile, we thought he would probably have to go on anti-depressants, and he had very little problem with that.

There's a much longer story here, more details, but for now, this is enough. We're back. We made it through a very dark valley. It seems that the sun is coming out. You always forget how grateful you should be for normal life until you lose it. I can't tell you how grateful I am today. Thank God.