One Way Elevator

Have you ever gone to an Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist, and gone through the tests they put you through while trying to figure out whether or not you have inner ear issues?

They put you in a chair, tip you backwards and tell you to name names of cities. Or they put cold water in your ears while upside down and tell you to count backwards. Sometimes it's warm water, and they tell you to say the alphabet backwards.

The idea is, if your inner ear is working correctly, you'll be able to do these things, albeit slowly, as if looking through mud. However if there are problems, you'll be ... well, retarded. You desperately seek an answer to a question that you KNOW you should know the answer to. It's simple. You knew the damned answer yesterday ~ why don't you know it today? After all, you're only upside down ... what's the difference? So you struggle and strain to see through the mud inside your brain to come up with one or two reasonable responses, hoping against hope that you won't seem as stupid as you feel.

The difference in me, is that at the end of the appointment with the ENT he turns the chair upright and lets you go home. Everything is back to normal. For me, it seems like nothing ever changes.

Maybe if I knew what it was I was fighting for, things would be better. But these days, I'm not even sure what THAT is. I just know that as I sit by myself, hour after hour, life seems grim; the urge for pain is strong. Pain is a cleansing feeling. Being alone is paramount. Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone.

But through it all, I'm trying to figure out why, and where it's going. It's so entirely ... RANDOM. And how the hell do I escape it? Last night, I sat and contemplated hell. What is hell? Is it really as bad as we're taught to expect? Is it worse than this? Can hell possibly beat sitting alone, night after night, wondering if you're ever going to escape the mental illness that's tortured you and your family for years? I've always thought of hell as being subjected to eternal misery ~ angst, emotional pain, turmoil within our souls. So can someone, ANYONE please tell me how this is different than what is going on now?

Seems to me, I'm already there.