One of the reasons I’m glad my therapist called this an assault is that it makes sense for me of why I’m still off-kilter even though I’m home and everything’s now fine.
I’m injured.
Take today, which was a good day. I put my afghan on display at the Frist Museum:

I had the delightful experience of handing the afghan to my co-worker and watching his utter confusion when he realized I was handing it to him to take home to his wife.
Then I threw a three minute dance party for my coworker and she laughed so wonderfully that I thought my heart would burst.
And then I went straight into a two hour funk. I needed to ask my other coworker to help me with a thing and I just couldn’t do it. I had such anxiety about it.
I sent him part of what I needed and apologized and told him I had to go home, eat, and pet my dog and then try again to give him the rest.
I’m very thankful that I can just be completely nuts to my coworkers and they’re so kind and understanding. But Christ.
But as I was thinking about being bummed about how my anxiety has made me into a weirdo, I thought about that word, “assault.” Because what happens when you’re assaulted? You get injured.
It’s like when you sprain your ankle and you get so bored just resting it so you decide you can, I don’t know, dance all evening and at some point your ankle is just like “No, I was not ready for this much activity yet.”
And that’s where my brain is. I am feeling better. So much better.
But I’m not ready for this much activity yet. I still need to take it easy.
One of the most helpful things ever said to me is that a lot of times, your issues can get temporarily worse BECAUSE you are healing. When you’re barely holding together, you ignore smaller/older pain to survive. When you start to heal, the pains you couldn’t deal with before come back, because they haven’t been dealt with yet. But because you were thinking “I’m better” it shocks you like WTF, I thought I was past this!! I was reading an article about grief and it struck me as a very similar thing, where it is not linear or always predictable.
Be kind to yourself.