Well, I can't say that writing about my ex wife right now is something I feel like doing, but I did say a few posts back that I would pick up the story.
Plus, this story holds a key to understanding why my panic attacks would come and go. So, here it goes...
After I left Colorado, got divorced and landed back in California, I had myself about one year of freedom. Right around that one year mark, however, I got a phone call. It was her. We'll call her Tammy to protect the guilty.
It turns out that her son had been staying with her mother who lived about two hours from me at the time. As it happens, Tammy was going to be taking the bus out from Colorado to pick him up. She planned to stay for awhile before returning so I don't think she had a plan to get back.
Well, we had had a few phone conversations prior that were amicable so I wasn't too surprised when she suggested that she take the bus to San Clemente and not Victorville and I could pick her up. That way we could spend a day or two “catching up” before I drove her to her Mom's place.
It's funny how when you haven't seen somebody for a year, their craziness doesn't seem so obvious. I actually liked here now. She seemed different, more like when we were first dating. Well, after a week, we had made plans to get out of the room I was renting and get our own place and then go get her son. Within three weeks from her arrival, we were a family again and had our own place.
Now, for the next year, I don't remember any panic attacks at all. Life had it's ups and downs, but I felt pretty good, anxiety-wise. Looking back, this is important. This is why...
For that one year, everything was an adventure; everything was new. My situation held a high degree of novelty. Even the more unpleasant aspects of my life like my stepson being the poster child for ADHD were new and exiting...well, new anyway.
I recall that when I first moved to Colorado, I was doing pretty good with my anxiety. Even during the earlier parts of the marriage that started to get unpleasant, I did begin drinking more, but in my mind, it wasn't to avoid panic attacks (though it might have helped with that anyway), it was just to not get in an argument and/or break something out of frustration.
So, looking back, times in my life filled with novelty are almost always times I was free from panic attacks and anxiety, even if I was under stress (there are a few exceptions). Once the novelty wears off, though, then I'd have an issue. Speaking of the novelty wearing off...
We were living in our first place for about a year when things started to fall back into the old ways. Her mental instability started becoming an issue. We stopped working as a team in dealing with her son's major issues. Just when it looked grim, an opportunity opened up.
My parents owned a nice condominium only a few miles from where we were renting. It had been occupied for years, but the lease was ending and we were getting a shot at it, cheap.
Granted the place we were in was on a cliff overlooking the beach, but we were in the “mother-in-law's” quarters on the back of the house, so we weren't loosing the view. The new place was twice as big and a real place of our own, not half a floor in someone else's house.
Upon making the move, everything seemed to get better again. True, we were more relaxed in a nicer, larger place, but I think the novelty factor had a lot to do with it for both of us.
Another year passed with relative peace, and then...It began to unravel.
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