Karma bit me in the ass

Since I haven't been around much, I just took a quick look through my blog roll to see whose blogs are still active so I could delete any dead links, but didn't take the time to read anyone's posts. Don't really have time for that right now, but I'll be back around either later today or tomorrow. Certainly sometime in the next week I can get caught up with everyone. I miss blogging and it's not like I don't have the time for it, I just haven't made it a priority like I used to. Ever since I did the outpatient program, I've retreated back to writing in a journal, though I need to switch back to blogging because I have far too many paper journals already that I have to hide from everyone and no real place to hide them.

Against my better judgment, but in an effort to make some extra cash to take my daughter to Disney World for her birthday, I volunteered to be an election judge this year. Given that I have become borderline agoraphobic and have great difficulty leaving the house without someone I know by my side, I never should have agreed to do this, even for the money, which really isn't much considering I worked from 5 am until 8:15 pm. 

Karma bit me in the ass from the start on this one and the polling place I was assigned to was the local fire station, the one that services my house and has been called to to transport me to the hospital on numerous occasions for suicide attempts and/or drunken blackouts. Luckily for me, I've always been unconscious or unable to make out faces, so I didn't recognize anyone, but as the evening progressed and other firefighters and EMT workers came in, I could tell that some of them recognized me, which made things really uncomfortable.

Having had emergencies called on me so many times, particularly where I used to live with my ex where most ended up being involuntary admits, I sort of have mild PTSD and panic at the sound of sirens. The fire station didn't get many calls, but each time they did, even though I clearly knew they weren't coming for me, I couldn't stop the panic from rising as soon as they pulled out of the building and turned their sirens on. One call was extremely triggering because it was an ambulance call to the children's psychiatric hospital because a patient had somehow managed to cut her wrists. (Yes, while people were voting, emergency calls with the details were still being broadcast throughout the station, which makes me wonder why they'd even hold any voting there.)

After an entirely long day of complete anxiety from being in the fire station and being around hundreds of people I didn't know (and having to actually interact with them), I still have not mentally recovered. It didn't help that I wasn't mentally well enough prior to Tuesday, so being there just made everything worse.  Wednesday I spent the entire day in the darkness of my bedroom, mostly sleeping. I didn't want to see anyone, hear anyone, talk to anyone. I didn't even check my email or log on to Facebook. Thursday and Friday I had stuff that needed to get done and was forced to leave the house, but today I'm back in avoidance of people mode, though not nearly as strict as Wednesday. In fact, I should go take a nap now. I'm so emotionally and mentally drained my head hurts.