Hiding Under Blankets

Hiding under blankets used to be my favorite pass time when I was feeling anxious or when my depression was worse than it is now.  When I was hiding, I could block out my anxiety and separate myself from people. The fact that this was not a solution for any of my problems did not concern me.  It was more about trying to get to a place where I could not feel. 

My whole day was planned around hiding under blankets.  Getting back under them as quickly as possible was my goal.  Most of the time, I would attempt to perform my mom duties, take care of house hold chores, and be a good wife.  Rarely did my attempts meet with success. Instead, my failed attempts were adding more anxiety, and I would end up under the blankets earlier than I had planned. 

Hiding was the one thing I was successful at during this time.  My body, toes and all, would be completely covered by blankets.  Not even a tiny bit of me would be exposed.  The only bothersome thing was that the air would get slightly stale.  There was a solution for that..  By slipping on my c-pap mask, and turning the machine on, I could stay under the blankets for hours and hours. 

For the first few months that I was seeing my counselor, she was fully aware that I was still using my hiding technique as a way to cope.  Once my medications began working and I had gained some appropriate coping skills, my counselor let me know that she thought that I could manage my depression and anxiety without hiding.  The idea of this scared me.  My thoughts kept revolving around my belief that I had not made enough progress to manage my anxiety and depression without my hiding technique.

To accomplish her idea of no hiding, she told me that I was to get up at the same time every morning, take my shower, and get dressed.  All of which had been problems for me since my depression began.  The explanation I was given for doing this, is that it would reduce the temptation for me to go back to bed and hide under blankets. To my way of thinking, it was as if she took an already bad idea and made it worse.  The outcome I was predicting would be me ending up as a quivering ball on the floor, crying for my blankets.

In the beginning, not hiding under blankets was extremely difficult.  Whenever I felt anxious or more than the usual amount of depression, the first thing I wanted to do was hide.  It was very difficult to resist the urge, but I did.    Pacing a great deal, reading, or involving myself in some other activity that I could be totally absorbed in were effective at keeping  myself from thinking about hiding.

After several weeks of resisting the urge to hide, I realized that hiding under blankets was no longer always my first thought when I was anxious or experiencing more than the usual amount of depression symptoms.  Instead of ending up as a quivering ball on the floor as I had predicted, I had replaced the habit of hiding with activities that kept me occupied until I could work through whatever was causing me to experience anxiety and depression symptoms.

Going along with the counselor’s idea has been one of the most important things I have done since I began my recovery process.  It is  more than just learning that I could cope with anxiety and depression symptoms without hiding.  Discovering that I possessed coping skills that I was not aware of has been very encouraging.  It is also a very freeing experience, as if I have been released from some sort of prison. The blankets may be gone, but so is my desire to hide myself away from the world.