The Dark Side Of The Moon, The Underbelly Of My Soul

“Made a wrong turn once or twice

Dug my way out, blood and fire

Bad decisions, that's alright

Welcome to my silly life

Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood

Miss ‘No way, it’s all good’

It didn’t slow me down.

Mistaken, always second guessing

Underestimated, look I’m still around […]”

- “Fuckin’ Perfect,” Pink

I haven’t unleashed this much blackness in a while. It doesn’t feel good, but I have to let it out. I am screaming inside.

And it’s weird. Because there are good things happening. But I don’t see them. I only what isn’t there, what’s lacking, what’s missing.

I’ve made it a practice of putting it all out here on my blog. I have been honest, possibly to a fault. So here I go again…

Let me just say that the rain is destroying my life. The other morning, I got up, made coffee, and was checking e-mails, only to keep lifting an empty coffee cup to my lips. I had drank it all, but felt like I had none. I ended up hopping back into bed for about another hour, and felt better. But as the day cycled through rain on and off, so did my brain.

I’ve been feeling a bit down, as I think about this time last year, and how I was meeting my now ex-boyfriend’s parents. It’s amazing how things can change. And it’s sad. Really sad. Because now, I worry about running into my ex-boyfriend. I literally have panic attacks when I walk the same route to get to the hospital that he and I used to walk together. I hate being afraid of people. But I think the fear stems from the fact that the last experiences we had together were with a person I didn’t know, didn’t even recognize. And what if I see him and he ignores me?

It’s the unknowns that I hate. What if, what if, what if. I just wish things could have been different. What if my whole life is one big fucking mistake? How’s that for a what if?

It’s like, I wonder. Do people see me as strong? Because I’ve cried in the middle of the grocery store, I’ve cried at Starbucks, I’ve cried pretty much anywhere you can cry where you won’t get committed.

This might sound horrible, but I am so sick of fighting for myself. There are honestly days where I feel like I could stay in bed and no one would know the difference.

It’s so damn hard to be strong all the time.

Old patterns re-emerge. I am feeling awful, to the point of barely functioning. I scrape myself off the wall. I’m sleeping my life away. Is this just Plaquenil withdrawal while waiting for the Quinacrine to kick in? Is the Quinacrine working at all? How can I trust the process, when right now, I can’t trust myself?

Then there is the pain, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. And it hurts to breathe. It feels like there giant air bubbles between my ribs. Maybe I started feeling a bit better because I acknowledged that I could take prednisone. I didn’t take any. But the thought of any kind of out was appealing.

Depression is a bitch. And chronic illness is a bigger bitch. Wow, great, my life is full of bitches and assholes. How wonderful. Go me!

I’m a walking liability, literally and figuratively.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to forgive ourselves for crimes we’ve committed against ourselves. I need to forgive myself for being blind-sided by illness. I need to forgive myself for being blind-sided by a boyfriend who was as clueless about himself as he was about relationships.

And it seems as if every errand on my to-do list turns into a multi-step process.

Last week I went to get my student ID card renewed. As a volunteer at the hospital, they only make it good for a year. So I went to the ID place and they told me that I had to get a form from volunteer services. So I go to volunteer services and am told that this necessitates me filling out all of the paper work all over again (on a yearly basis). This also necessitates being asked if my emergency contact info, with my ex-boyfriend’s info is still current. Buzz the fuck off. So I am doing all this stuff and the person tells me that in the future I should make an appointment. Okay bitch. Don’t bust my hump for something I didn’t know I had to do. All I wanted to do was get a new ID before mine expired. And don’t worry. Based on how you treat your volunteers, there probably won’t be a next year.

Why is this woman treating me like I’m a fucking child? I haven’t been a child for a long time. I’m not really sure I was a child even when I was a child. And chronic illness took any shred of innocence I had left. Pain is real. Too real. And pain and loneliness are a really bad combination.

I was due for a tetanus shot in September. I’ve been putting it off. After the whole cellulitis thing, I tend to be wary of vaccines, especially ones given by the student health center. So I went. I got the shot. And I needed to get a copy of my vaccine record for volunteering. The nurse hands my chart off to the receptionist, and tells her I need a copy of my vaccine record. The receptionist acts all put out about this. And then she starts complaining that my medical record is too long and that I should get a new one. And she’s bitching and bitching and bitching. And I’m breaking into a cold sweat, and the room is tilting, and I feel like I am going to pass out. I’m not sure if I was actually having a reaction to the shot, or if my previous history of vaccine flub-ups is causing anxiety. I’m ready to run for the door and tell the receptionist she’s off the hook, but I do my best not to pass out, because I resent her feeling inconvenienced because I’m sick.

When did everyone get so fucking annoying? And when did I resort to non-violent protest? To just stand there and nod and smile? I guess because I am better at writing the shit out of it than talking about it.

I have snot all over my face because I’m crying. And my arm hurts from the fucking tetanus shot. And I just want to curl up into the fetal position, and return to a time when there was nothing to understand. But I’m already there. I really don’t understand what’s happening to me, or why things are happening the way they are.

For the first real love to tell you that they don’t love you anymore. That hurts. That hurts a lot. It hurts more than anything any person should ever be allowed to do to another person.

I get the feeling that we are never going to be friends. And it frustrates me because I’m the one trying to offer an olive branch, when I should be the one saying fuck you. Fuck you. You dumped me. And I should hate your fucking guts. But I don’t. I get heart palpitations and it’s hard for me to breathe at the thought of seeing him. At the thought of what a face-to-face encounter would be like.

And then there’s survivor guilt. There are times when I think about my cousin and I wonder why it was him and not me. Why did I get more time and he didn’t? Time for what? To see how much I can take before I break? Because I think I’ve hit my limit. The everyday, minute interactions have become too much. I don’t want to talk about my emergency contact information, or the fact that I don’t have a boyfriend, or the fact that my medical record is three inches thick. I don’t want these to be the things the define me. But they are. They are. And I hate it! I’m so over being nice to people who don’t deserve my pleasantries. Especially since there are obviously so little pleasantries at the moment.

I am not a martyr.

Life is fucking hard. If life is easy, you’ve done something wrong.

I’m overwhelmed. Between the weather and the new med. And everything else. Maybe I should have left well enough alone, but it didn't feel like well enough to me.

We put ourselves out there, hoping that the risk will be worth the reward. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the risk is just plain risky. It puts you in the position of being made to feel lower than you’ve ever felt before. Lower than you thought it was even possible to go.

I’ve hit a rough patch. Things will get better. They have to. They have to.

Through my tears, I am trying to smile…