13 Jan 2021 - Weaning off Facebook, Day 2 (Coldplay and Excessively High Blood Pressure)
My theme song today was the theme song on my birthday (December) as well. It seems to find its way into my head on a weekly basis; but I don't mind - it makes for positive, soul-filled background music :-) Plus, it's from my 16YO's and his musical friends' album of the year, so it connects me with that side of my oldest son. The album, Everyday Life, was released live at the Amman Citadel, Jordan, on 22 November 2019 and broadcast live around the world. The first half was performed at sunrise, and the second half was performed at sunset. It's the first and only time the album has been performed in full. You should listen to this particular song the first time by watching the video from that concert - not just to support the band but because you can actually feel the magic they're creating.
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Now for the thoughts I would have posted to Facebook today if I weren't weaning myself off of it.
In my previous post, I mentioned I had recently experienced sudden (extremely) high blood pressure and panic attacks. I don't say this lightly. My husband randomly took his blood pressure in bed one morning, so I took mine and realized it was consistently ~170/110 (120/80 is normal). I expected it to be high - Covid hadn't been good for my family relationships and, therefore, my anxiety level; but I didn't expect it to be this high, and it only made me more anxious.
Actual recordings of my blood pressure from the day I realized it was high.
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I determined the time had finally come to do the things I've been telling myself I need to do for years. I forced myself to do "high-blood-pressure" yoga every day, took a magnesium supplement (recommended by a friend of my husband's who is a surgeon), and generally tried to relax and be nonreactive.
But my blood pressure didn't go down; it went up. One night I woke up in the wee hours of the morning feeling so tingly and dizzy that I thought I was going to pass out and die right there. I literally broke down the next morning and (finally) contacted my physician. (The previous year, after going without health insurance for ~6 months, my family enrolled in Affordable Care insurance, and my physician's office did not appear to be in network, leading me to skip my physical and any doctor's appointments for nearly two years and counting.)
After a lengthy conversation, my PA immediately wrote me a prescription for HCTZ(a diuretic) and, when this had only a small effect, amlodipine (a calcium channel blocker). But my blood pressure still hovered around 180/110, which is well within stroke range. I was becoming more and more anxious, particularly because I was becoming more and more convinced it was all in my head. But no matter how I tried, I couldn't get away from it. When my blood pressure rose to ~200/120 and stayed there, I decided to at least get away from the environment it spawned in.
Along with my computer, cell phone, and purse, I threw my sleeping bag and pad in the car and, after stopping in Greensboro for a prearranged (masked and outdoor) reunion with childhood girlfriends, spent the next four days and nights alone in the NC mountains, using the back of my car for accommodation (minus one disturbing rainy night).
Over the course of those days, my blood pressure dropped to ~140/90, which is manageable, and remained there until I got home. I now knew without doubt that I could control it. The question was whether I would.
Soon after I returned home, I told my husband that we either needed to make some changes or we were not going to be able to live together. I wasn't necessarily talking about divorce; I was talking about living separately. We have wonderful times when we are purposefully together as a family or even as a couple; but the daily routine, such that it was, was literally going to kill me. I made it clear to him and our kids that they needed to show me some empathy and back off the passive-aggressive shit for a while (which I also determined to do).
My husband and I had a couple more come-to-Jesus confrontations since then, and I've fallen off and then back on the yoga mat. (I'm now determined, as one of my 2020 resolutions, to do a 30-minute high-blood-pressure yoga routine just 2x/week. Say what you will about yoga; it's clear it's good for one's health.) I've also taken two more car-camping trips - one with my 10YO son and the other alone. But I'm happy to say that I believe we are turning a corner.
My blood pressure has remained around 140/90; and, in addition to magnesium, HCTZ and amlodipine (and at the prompting of my mother), I'm now on a low dose of Sertraline (Zoloft) to help with my baseline anxiety level. But the biggest change in my life has been the change in my family environment.
It is clear that I literally cannot live in a passive-aggressive world, and that is what my family's mode of communication with me had become (and vice versa). It wasn't enough for me to try to be positive and not put people on the defensive; the people who lived with me had to reciprocate, and, in doing so, actually validate my feelings.
I am being careful not to think we have turned some magical corner and that everything is on its way to happily ever after. Twenty-two years of marriage is a long time, and the word teenager is almost synonymous with familial strife. The whole purpose of marriage and family is to reproduce and facilitate the good in our shared selves, our ancestors and our prodigy, which means revealing and overcoming the bad. But I am taking a deep breath and appreciating the pleasant and respectful atmosphere in my house this past month, the lack of defensiveness and yelling, and the voluntary willingness to lend a hand (yes, it's true). I know it won't last forever, but one of these days it just has to stick.
P.S. Here are those passive-agressive links again (they're funny because they're too true):
AwakenWithJP: https://youtu.be/3vnKPdMXIdo
