life collection

Things are really bad. I currently feel like there is an oil drill poking into the back of my head, but that is the least of it. My Doctor and I decided to take me off one of my antidepressant/sleep medications to see if that helped my energy levels and creativity level, and I went through three days of hell when I was off it. So much anxiety I was like a frightened child waking from a nightmare all sweaty in a dark room. Only thing was the nightmare lasted all day, and the fright didn't relieve for a second.

I broke down Friday night and Ron almost took me to the hospital because I wasn't acting like myself, and well there is more but we won't get into that here.

Saturday I had to go with Ron to teach a class as we couldn't get out of it, so I was there nervous the whole time in a church group (oh do I hate any talk of saviors in times like these), and it took all day, and I couldn't curse (I realized I curse a lot), and they got Subway for lunch so I had nothing to eat but a mucky sticky gluten-free meal bar, and they had no soda. When you are in the pit-- I mean the real pit, none of this "oh life is hard right now, but I know will get better" bullshit, but the real "my whole life has been so hard and I really don't know how much more I can take, like I may give up any day now" kind of pit, well that's when those little things like Subway matter.

Oh and by the way my anxiety is so bad I have to work to breathe. I mean I'm breathing, staying alive breathing that is, but I can go an hour or so between a deep breath that fills my lungs to that satisfied level we take so for granted until it takes an hour to have one. I move and struggle like a sanded fish, wiggle, lift my neck high, put my arms over my head. And still nothing. And it's the fifth day of that. It plagues my sleep and waking moments equally. And so that's it too.

Sunday we had a date. I didn't know if I could do it that morning. But somehow I pulled it together band-aids and all and we went to lunch. I ordered grilled chicken breast because you know, being gluten-free is shitty at restaurants and I felt like I was eating human flesh, but kept eating it because my annoying Kaiser doctor told me I need to eat chicken every day for protein. I looked at Ronald. I got sad. I looked to the side at nothing. I got sad. And then we walked in a store, and then we went home.

Yesterday I had therapy and Ronald came with me as he is working very little this week to help me get back on track as I have gotten back on the medication we had stopped. But it takes time for that to get back into my system. So I go to Ron's work to fill my meds (yes, my ziploc freezer bags of pill bottles have to be kept at Ron's work so I don't take them all in one sitting). And I hide in there and fill them up, 3 pill holders over twenty pills per day, so that's a lot of pill-holder-filling and it takes a lot of time and a lot of memory to know what to put where. Then we got mexican food and I talked to Ronald about how I wish I could be in therapy for ten days or so just to work it out because two one hour sessions per week just isn't cutting it, and he understood, and then I went to sleep. Still not able to breathe normally.

Today I wake to cramps and all that nonsense that comes with being a woman. I get bad cramps, like roll around in the bed in agony kind even with hand-fulls of ibuprofen, and heat pressed against my stomach. So usually I lay down when it's bad and the pain comes in contractions so I can fall asleep out of exhaustion from the ache, but then with the not breathing right thing I couldn't. So I laid there, staring at Ronald working next to me on his laptop. And I thought, wow, this (we) could have come to so much. But instead this wonder of a person next to me is nursing me and trying to convince me not to kill myself. And that made me really sad. I mean, it's really horrible. I mean, really unfair too.

And you can't rely on anyone, ought to just do it yourself. And I can barely shower due to the pain in my arms. They want me to dye my hair, buy new clothes (which I have no money for), why would I do any of that when I hate myself, and feel like the end is near? I mean really near. I mean imminent.

But then I keep going, like the girl who cried wolf. But one day it won't be feathery and light and fixable, and on that day no one will be here to check on me, and that is what fucking terrifies me because the real me doesn't want to disappear. So maybe I should dye my hair, and get a new outfit. And pull my hair back in a bow and put that pink lipstick mask of smile on, and blink those eyes, and and talk those words you know are safe and comforting to everyone. Like a little celluloid covered boxed up doll.