What It's Really Like....Sometimes

So this stupid-ass illness is beating me up.

I've spent the past ten days fighting it, tooth and nail. Sat with my hands knotted in my hair in a corner of the sofa; rocked in a chair in my room with my eyes closed, panting; I sat on the bed and immersed myself in as much reading as I could, simply to escape my mind. I stood in church, shifting from one foot to the other, desperately willing myself not to scream out loud, begging God to deliver me from the grip of hell this disease has taken on my mind. I looked out windows at the sky and clouds and forced my breathing to slow, concentrating on NOT hyperventilating. I took anti-emetics to get rid of the nausea and still I know that if someone, something touches me, I'll explode and fly off in so many thousands of pieces. I dug my nails into my arms to stop myself from lashing out at the person closest to me because HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT, and I can't allow it to happen.

I stood in the shower and lost track of what was water, and what were tears. I used lorazepam as a last-ditch effort to stop the mania that was rolling over me in fucking WAVE AFTER FUCKING WAVE and still it kept on.....like nothing I've experienced in nearly a year.

And I did not explode. I did not lash out. Oh gawd, it would have been so easy......to simply kick and swear and curse at the man who loves and helps me, but I cannot because he's my link to sanity and the joy in life when the mania's at bay. He's what stands between my life being worth something and my life being worth nothing at all. And he helped me...we have this "thing" we do that helps, that I'm not willing to share just yet, but it helped, and I'm calmer now, for a while. Hopefully it will last longer than a day.

So I kept it in--or rather, under control; under control because that's what I HAVE to do. I'm an ADULT and I fight this stupid illness as rationally as I can. I try desperately not to let it take over my husband and my family and I beg him to understand and not be hurt when he's done his best to help me and at the end of it all....it's still there....the illness is just still there.....an ugly, wicked, persistent scar that simply won't go away.