Sleeping Brain vs Thinking Brain, and: The War of the Phone

I have a problem with the phone. Over the years, I've tried to work with it. Build boundaries. Understand the needs of the people around  me. Move on. Accept it. For the most part, I manage.

Sadly, today is not a "managed" day. Today, I have a new appreciation for the depth of my phone problem. That appreciation is making me grumpy.

The problem is simple: if the phone rings when I am sleeping, my brain automatically kicks into hyperhighdrive, flinging myself towards the phone to answer it breathlessly, sounding awake and alert, which, coincidentally, sounds similar to panic.

It doesn't matter if the phone rings during an afternoon nap. Or late morning. Or "normal" phone hours. If I'm asleep, and the phone rings, my brain freaks out.

Inevitably, I crawl back to the bed (or, rarely, couch) to  nurse myself back to some semblance of sanity. The adrenaline rush leaves me nauseous. My heart races. My brain circles itself. It takes time to find a measure of peace physically - and then I can begin to find peace within the panic. This is a panic attack. Panic attacks are exhausting. And if I'm sleeping, it's because I was tired. So. Layers.

Given how often a phone rings around me, it seems strange that such a simple and normal thing is such a cause for distress. But knowing this originating event is easy. It's all tied up to my mother's illness and death.

I was two weeks away from my high school graduation when Mom was diagnosed with cancer. Life sort of fell apart dramatically - her diagnosis came after major abdominal "exploratory" surgery. During which they removed three tumors, most of her colon, and a few other odds and ends we keep in there. Surgery was a few days after she'd been admitted to the hospital. The day before her admission, she had worked her regular shift at Target. I was busy planning my graduation celebration... and then we weren't. We were busy with other things.

The next few months was a whirlwind of radiation, chemotherapy,  doctor visits, nurses visiting the house to help us learn ostomy care. And in the midst of it, my parents insisted I keep my spot at the college for the Fall, taking me 4.5 hours by car away from the unfolding disease. I agreed. After all, I had always thought of college as my "ticket to freedom." And I truly still believe Mom would get better. And, like any reasonable teeanger, facing my mother's mortality was terrifying and I wanted a reason to run away.

So I did. I moved to college, driven up by friends, so my parents wouldn't be burdened another thing to do. And because I was angry and scared.

During my first year on campus, Mom didn't get better. She got worse. The first semester, I wasn't very aware of what was happening at home. I talked to her, and to my dad, but they didn't say much. Until they couldn't hide it anymore. Enter: The Phone.

Dad called to tell me Mom had to go back into the hospital.
Dad called to tell me they'd scheduled a second surgery.
Dad called to tell me the surgery failed.
Dad called to tell me her prognosis was now terminal.
Dad called to tell me that she still wasn't well enough to leave the hospital.

Eventually, the end of the semester/year came. I made it back home.  Mom had made it home, too, after 40 days as an inpatient. She came home to die, with an unknown timetable. Her decline was excruciatingly slow, but also fast. Then,

My sister called me at work to tell me that Mom had died.

Fast forward to years later. The handset for the house phone only occasionally found its way back to its bedroom base. I would deliberately leave it on the first floor, because of the sleep/ring/panic cycle. Which is why, on one November morning, we slept through

My mother in law called, via their cruise line,  to tell us that my father in law was being transported to a hospital in Florida due to serious illness.

Getting back in touch her after we got the message 2 hours later was a nightmare adventure through "please hold" transfers. And it was serious. It was his last vacation. He, too, then came home to die.

Now, nearly everyone I know has a phone. They ring all the time. Now, the rings sound widely different, too. I don't notice the rings anymore. So much exposure. But I can't seem to get past the wall of sleeping brain/ringing phone.

I don't take my phone to my bedroom. Or, on the very rare times I do, I turn the ringer off. I finally accepted that there's no landline in my room. But. I share that room with my husband, and he does bring his phone into the room. This is a sort of tacit compromise - he overlooks the unplugged landline base, knowing that if his mom needs him, she'll call his cell.  He even uses his phone as a wake up alarm in the morning, and I've learned to sleep through it. Our situation has worked, mostly. It also led to today's appreciation.

His phone rang this morning. I woke, but not in a panic. Just a sort of foggy "what's that noise?" And then, he didn't reach over and silence the sound. Instead, he said "Hello?" Cue: Panic.

The nice pleasant sound of his ringer was enough to wake me, but not thoroughly. But years of phone use connected the act of answering the phone with the fact the phone had to ring, and my brain set off. Starting a day with a panic attack is not a method I'd recommend.

I'm working on just accepting it all. I'm not willing to venture into exposure therapy to "lessen" the distress response. I'm not even sure it would be very useful in this case. So it's time to just realize: sometimes I panic when the phone rings. Most of the time I don't. And, it's still all going to be OK. I think this acceptance will be easier tomorrow, after a full night's sleep.