anxiety

I have an anxiety disorder.

There, I said it.  I get very agitated and nervous when anything deviates from my plans.  I also do not react well to changing my routines and habits.  When it gets particularily bad, I almost dissociate from people.  I feel my attachments to them slipping.  I can spend an enitre day disconnected from the people I am around....have conversations that i can't really recall, run errands without really remembering the route I drove, who I spoke to on the phone, or if I told Paul something, or just thought about telling him.  This can go on for weeks...until someone notices and makes me notice them; or confronts me on being cold and disconnected.  Which usually evokes a defensive mechanism to deny it; insist everything is fine, then be on guard until this passes.

I have wondered how many fights this has caused with my husband.  How many times my daughter has  demanded I notice her, only for her scold her for being rude.  I am the matriacrch of my home....and i check out...leaving them to fend for themselves while I wallow in the dark place I have allowed myself to go.  They get angry, and demand my return....and I refuse until I am damn good an ready to return to them.  I suddenly realized that they may not always be there when I return.  This is no way to treat the people I love more than anything in the world.  These are the people I would die for.  How can I just disconnect from them and convince myself I am entitled to do so?????  I can't......and i going going to try and never do this again.  I will fail, but sooner or later, I will get it right.