"God has a book"

Ah the polka dot dress...but I'll get to that in a minute.

God has a book is the term my cousin used on me yesterday morning after I confessed my deep dark secret from Friday night to her. I wasn't going to confess my deep dark secret because I was ashamed of myself. It related to the night before and I was pretty embarassed, ashamed and mad at myself for what happened.

You see, it was my friend's wedding the night before and I had done something that was completely unexpected, threw me right off guard and embarassed the crap right out of me. Thankfully, I had some really great people around me who understood, got me through it, and helped me see past it.

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Month really. There's been drama. And I tried to avoid the drama by staying out of it. Sadly, that brought the intense drama on. And dragged a large group of people into the drama. Making it a case of hard core drama. The result of which was that I had to move. Now, I could have moved into my own place. But with things the way they are (school, not sure how long I'm staying here, lots of other stuff going on) I really didn't want to sign a lease or buy a property. So after a long discussion with my cousin, I decided to move into her place. It's great really, she has a townhouse and she's on nights two weeks at a time. Not to mention that she's single and has a really great attitude to help me through stuff. Which I'll get to in a minute.

Suffice to say that the drama has had me stressed for a good three weeks. To the point where I'm waking up in the middle of the night with really strange dreams that sort of feed off of my deep dark fears, previous stress and stuff that happened at various points in my life. Not that I want to be a victim here, just that I'm having a hard time getting back on my equal footing and I really want to walk out of this nightmare soon.

So we get to Friday. Now, my friend that was getting married has been joking with me about setting me up with one of her husband's coworkers. He seems really nice. And I met him and thought he was cute. However, he's spoken for in the sense that he's not really ready to date anyone "exclusively". Added to that, I've just gotten back into a place where I was ready to date and had been interested in someone else. He ended up sitting behind me at the wedding and listening to him talk to another person there made me seriously think whether or not I wanted to spend time with him (I won't get into it, I just really didn't like his "attitude").

Fast forward to the reception. I went with a friend of mine who worked with both myself and my friend that was getting married. We had joked about going to the wedding together and I loved that she was able to drive the two hours to join me. I really wanted to have someone to go with since I knew no one of note (outside of the bridal party and seeing as the only person I really "knew" was the bride, it was a moot point as she would be busy). And I'm not one of those "high maintenance" guests...I just like to know someone...it's a comfort level thing.

Anyways...my big deep dark secret that embarassed me...I had an anxiety attack as we sat down at our table. And it was a nuclear reactor meltdown sized attack. One like I haven't had in about six years. One like I've had at times in my life that made me wonder if I'm actually going to be able to "live" my life in a normal sense. I mention this because these types of anxiety attacks really upset me and take me to a dark place that I don't like.

So how did it happen. I'm not really sure although I kind of know some of the triggers. I made a joke to my friend about spelling my name wrong and her sister in law was standing there. Then, when walking the receiving line, one of the members made a BIG deal about setting me up with a few single men at the party (which is one of my achilles heel things...I really don't like being set up...especially in that situation, when you're standing in the receiving line, trying to be polite and EVERYONE can hear her making a big deal about you being single and ALONE!) We went and sat down at our table and we were right by the buffet. It was extremely hot in the room and I had been drinking. All triggers...well, it was one drink on an empty stomach...and I don't drink.

It started. I started to get hot, flustered, faint, sick to my stomach. I normally can talk myself out of these things but none of my tricks was working. I got up to use the ladies room and seemed to have collected myself. Sadly, when I got back to the table, the waves hit me again. My friend noticed and high tailed me out of there (god bless her). We were sitting out in the lobby and the bride came out to see me. All. of. the. bridal. party. followed. And her sister in law made a big deal out of my comment about my name being spelled wrong. You can imagine what I was going through internally.

So my friend high tailed me out of that location as well. We went up to the hotel room, changed and decided to get some air. We thought maybe if I was out of the dress, away from the situation and not thinking about it I would calm down and feel better.

Not so much.

I started feeling like I had let my friend down, that I let my date down, that she had driven all this way to go and I had made her leave. That people would notice. That people would wonder. All of these stupid little things I shouldn't have been worrying about but I was. My friend saw just how bad these things get for me when I had to have her pull her car over so I could get some "air".

I wasn't going to tell anyone but then had to confess to my sister. If I hide it, it makes it worse. My cousin happened to see the conversation we were having (by MSN) and I had to confess to her. We ended up talking for a couple of hours about it which is where the "God has a book" comment came in. She really made me see that this is something I have to get through to be the person I'm meant to be.

People don't really understand it until they see it happening. And they realize just how forceful it is. And then they understand how hard it is for me to stop it. Now that one was a bad one, and I haven't had one of those in about six years...not since I was 'involved' with a guy I really wanted a future with and got a little scared about the situation. I can only think of my therapist and her reaction the next day when she said "Good, you survived, now you can move on!" Uh, not so much...

My friend (the bride) called me today to chat and was so great about it. It proved to me that my worries about how I acted and what I did were really for naught. But still, in the moment, I can't really think that way and it's hard to dig myself out of the situation that I'm in.

I don't know if it's going to happen again. I don't know if it will be that bad. What I do know is that I will get through it. I have to get through it. I have to move past it. I have to get stronger. These things aren't happening as often as they were when I was younger (imagine an entire year of university suffering daily with this thing) but they do take me off guard when they do happen. Thankfully I have great people around me who help me see past the dark stuff and bring me back into the light. Which is why I don't want to hide it, or be ashamed of it. The more people who know, the more people who can help me stop being afraid of who I'm meant to be.

As for the polka dot dress...well, it was everything I hoped it would be. Made me feel really happy to wear. I looked great. I felt great (when I wasn't all anxious) and I enjoyed the time I did spend at my friend's wedding.