Mama In Crisis

My Dad once told me about a button. A button, that on the front says press to test. Naturally, You press it, but as soon as you press it the little display flashes up with release to detonate.
This is where I am right now. My finger firmly pressed on the button; stuck. Petrified of loosing my grip and watching everything explode. Trying my hardest to keep that little button pressed in, whilst trying to do everything else. But my hand is tired. My grip keeps slipping, and one day, soon my grip will fail me completely and it will be the end. 
Of course there isn’t really a button, but it explains how fragile my mental state is right now. I’m in crisis. Angry, obsessive, I have extreme anxiety and maladaptive coping strategies. Everything is linked. Everything has the potential to make me loose it. I’m teetering on the edge, desperate to find a way out. A way to a better me, a calmer me. A me that doesn’t cry because I haven’t managed to wash dry and fold the washing in one day. A me that realises that the cleanliness of my house has no bearing on the events that happen outside my home. A me that doesn’t scream at people for daring to leave things in the wrong place. A me that accepts that something out of place isn’t going to cause death or serious injury. That it’s ok not to have everything scrubbed clean until my fingers bleed. 

The world will not end if I let my standards go, just a little. 

But I can’t. 

I cannot let go. 

 No matter how much I tell myself it will be ok, this constant fear sits there and tells me it won’t. 
You left a cup on the side? 

Boom. 

You didn’t put your shoes away properly? 

Boom. 

You don’t have your shit together? Well then, no one else will either, it’s infectious, like a yawn or a smile, if you’re a ball of flustered mess, then other people will be disorganised and flustered too, and this will lead to mistakes. Mistakes where people will get hurt. 
It all stems from the car crash last year  in the first few weeks after the crash I barely left the house. I chalked it up to exhaustion, reassured hubby that I was just tired, that hypremesis and a toddler to care for left me no energy for anything else. Going out was too hard. Too tiring. 
In reality, I was (and still am) petrified. The noise as the van slammed in to me playing on a loop in my head. Any sudden noises scaring me so much I burst in to tears. Scared to set foot outside the house in case it happened again, and maybe next time I wouldn’t be so lucky. 
My beautiful children. My wonderful Husband. They could all be taken away by someone else’s actions. I could loose everything. Every time I step out of the house I feel the bile rising in my throat. 
So until I know a better way to protect everyone and everything I hold dear, I will continue to be this mess of angry anxiety. Everything I do, no matter how misguided it seems to others, I do so protect us. To stop my finger from slipping off that button. 
On Wednesday, finally I will have help. A psychologist. Therapy. In the same way that I trusted a neurosurgeon to dig around in my skull and fix me when I had my brain tumour, I will be letting the Psychologist dig around in my thoughts and help me to rearrange them in a way that helps me. I so desperately want to be fixed. To be better. To worry less. To be less angry. To cope better. To obsess less. To make my husband happier, my children be more loved and be a happy, easygoing less obsessive person than the monster I have become. 
On Wednesday my journey to recovery begins. I don’t doubt that it will be a long hard road, but it can’t be as hard as living like this.