Today, the truth

Today, the truth is that I’m fucking tired. Bear with me, because this is going to be a slew of unedited and unfiltered thoughts and complaints from the side of me who is completely fed up. Some days I wake up like this. Some days I don’t. I could feel it last night - attaching itself to the back of my neck. I put on a meditation audio. Shut my eyes tight. Progressive muscle relaxation - tense, release, tense, release, tense - trying to both allow the sensations while simultaneously chasing them away with positive vibes. Visualisation. My safe place. Even so, in the middle of the night I woke up terrified. Figures in the darkness, standing by the bed. I knew they were just shadows of the room, but its the jarring first reaction of my body to feel the most intense fear before all else. I dreamt about people standing in a row, in battle. Arms linked, holding steady against the enemy. I dreamt that the enemy came up and ripped all of their heads off, one by one. I watched, horrified, as those warriors lost bits of their bodies in the most gruesome way, and I shrank back into myself, trying not to look at the wasted necks, waiting for the morning to come.

The morning came slower than I thought possible.

I go through the motions on days like these. I shower. I get dressed. I put on SPF 50+ and I drink my coffee. My daughter has been begging to take her new bike for a spin, so we zip up our jackets and head out into the cold morning air.

“My fingers are so cold, like ice!” She says. My skin feels like it’s on fire. The burning is everything, and I can’t get up past it. “I am in here!” I want to yell out, but I don’t. Behind the noise, behind the burning skin, underneath the prickling dread, I AM HERE. I am trying so hard to get through.

I just want to be normal. I know, Jesus, I know, I have said this over and over and over until I’m blue in the face. I know there is no normal.

But there is a state of being able to live - I can see it on the people around me in the way they go about their lives. Getting up and out. Going to work. Going on a drive. Going out for a run. Going to dinner. Going, going, going, I watch them going about their going, and I think, the only place I am going is further into crazy. Deeper into thoughts like “I’m tired. I’m ready to give up. I need the bathroom, for the eighteenth time this morning. My body is falling apart.” Mid way through doing the dishes something audibly snaps in the edges of my brain and I think “I would like to get in the bath tub and slip under the water and not come back up.”

A friend says to me, “Breathe, Lauren. It sounds like you are holding onto your breath at the top of your lungs. Breathe. Let it go.”

These words stir up more fear in me, because if I let go, I’m not sure what will happen. If I let go, I’m not sure what happens to me. Where do I go?

Let go?

I’m trying so very hard to hold on.