Scottish Lass Likes

“Acute Stress Reaction”.

*Awful* start to the morning. Dad had another bottle of vodka and was completely drunk at 8.30am. He was crawling up the stairs like an animal on hands and knees, collapsed on the landing. I was in my room hearing him groaning outside. If this had been last week I would have opened the door and checked to see if he was OK. Now, I was getting ready to go to the GP, I was just so shit scared of what I would see if I opened the door (had he injured himself again?) I stayed in bed, shaking with nerves, just wasn’t going to risk having to deal with his shit when I’m such a fragile state. Thankfully after an hour (longest fucking hour of my life) he seemed to sober up enough to get himself down the stairs again.

GP diagnosed Acute Stress Reaction in me and signed me off work till 30th Dec. Just had one shock too many last Friday and this morning *really* didn’t help either. To use a boxing analogy it’s as if all year I’ve been absorbing jabs dealing with his alcoholism and erratic behaviour but Friday I got a KO blow and it’s flipped me into something stronger and altogether stranger. After previous dad ‘events’ I’d feel shock in the immediate aftermath, often too shocked to speak later the same day then the next day the fatigue would kick in and so on and so on, similar kind of pattern with my mum and my brother slightly different plain out not getting much sleep at all. But this one is different, Not the kind of person who cries much, maybe 2,3 times a year with PMS and usually less than 5 minutes. Last Friday I cried for a solid 3 hours. Ironically it wasn’t anything dad did that day, it was the sense of ‘abandonment’ by the CAT team, hope was being taken away that finally made me snap. The GP was great, pretty scathing about that team and the way they are organised, kind of reluctant to contact them again.

Physically this is weird. Feels like wading through treacle, mentally all my reaction times seem slower, it feels like I’m even talking slower and certainly quieter. A feeling like there’s a physical weight on the top of my chest and seem to be taking much shallower breaths than usual. Staring off into space, head empty (completely useless for problem-solving at work), Strangely I can type OK but thinking, concentrating or physically talking is proving to be difficult right now mainly because of the lump in my throat being almost at the point of tears most of the time.

Wednesday night I was so proud of my brother. He came in dog tired from work, got filled in by mum who was still visibly distressed about dad this morning and my health condition. He channelled all the rage,upset and pain in the house into the most spectacularly eloquent and forceful “stop drinking or else” kind of ultimatum of a speech. Me and mum sat next to each other on the stairs listening in, sad, weeping but totally in awe of what my brother was doing and the way he was expressing himself. Telling dad to HAVE SOME BALLS. Fucking *awesome* stuff dude. Off the cuff oratory but he went unbroken for 20mins detailing all the problems, possible solutions, outcomes if the drinking doesn’t stop (like being homeless!). I’m totally pessimistic that it will have the least effect (GP also thought dad’s not the kind of person who’ll stop) but it’s a heroic effort. You did good kid.

Reading up on ASR at least it sounds like in most cases it sounds like it *should* be a short term thing from a few days to a few weeks. But that’s in situations where the ‘stressor’ is removed. How does it pan out if continuallly exposed to more of his antics in the short-term? God knows. Well that’s five days now. Was a wee bit concerned to see that ASR can sometimes turn into PTSD in the longer term so if anyone’s got advice of good things for me to be doing right now to make sure that doesn’t happen please let me know.

Update (17 Dec 2009 15:15), more physical symptoms:

• circulation? Feet cold
• pins and needles in feet and hands and lips
• open pores
• mild headache
• pulse slightly *slower* than normal for me (low to mid 60s)
• feeling of tension/heaviness in my nose/upper lip/upper jaw, really bizarre sensation.