It is a burden, I’m saying, to live where I live.
Tess Gallagher
This was a word I used in therapy last week to describe how I feel about my condition and my situation. It was towards the end of the session and I told my therapist I’d write on it and see what came up. I have therapy tomorrow and I’m homage to my younger school years, here I am doing some last minute homework.
I’ve said a few times recently how detached I am feeling, numb to my situation for the most part. And I know it’s a coping mechanisms, it’s my minds way of saying there’s so much going on here for you to process and cope with. To many emotions, mostly I think.
I know that I want to see this journey through its natural course. If I were to be able to wind back time and not get the vaccine I wouldn’t. I have learnt too much from this journey, that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to as I wouldn’t have had all this time and space had I not become ill. That being said, if someone offered me a magic fast forward pill to a time where I am healthy and well, truly living, I know damn well I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation.
The truth is I am bored. My situation has led me to have a cynical mind. Everything I do is a balance of consequences. If I do that, that’s going to increase my pain for this long – Is it worth it? For instance I went to a classic car show at the NEC Friday. I rarely do anything like that, because of the consequences. But I just really wanted to go. My dad and I do two or three car shows a year and that’s always been one of them. I wanted ti be normal for a day. But I know it would cost me dearly. I took my walking stick, but it was still the best part of 6 hours on my feet, keeping my mouth shut about how much agony I was in and popping an extra pill halfway. That being said I really enjoyed it. But I am still paying the price today, Tuesday. It was a decision I had to make – was I willing to pay this price?
For most people life it’s a choice or balance of consequences. It’s a I want to do that, I have the time to do that, so I’m going to do that. It’s not always that simple, I’m aware, but that’s the general gist of normal plan making. Mine is that I want to spend a few hours having coffee with a friend, I have the time to do it, but it will cost me the rest of the day and possibly some or all of tomorrow feeling like someone is dragging barbed wire through my eyeball and out my ear, whilst simultaneously hitting the base of my skull with a rock. I know, I came to the same conclusion as you – the coffee is worth it. Genuinely, it is. Because of what I gain mentally from spending those few hours with a friend. Those few hours where I can push through and pretend I’m normal and not in pain.
But I am bored. I’m bored in the usual sense of spending so much time doing absolutely fuck all. But I’m also bored in the sense of I’m bored of having to play the game of balancing consequences. I’m bored of having to be so cynical when someone suggests coffee. I want to be like ‘fuck yeah I can’t wait to see you!’ Not internally having to be like is that going to be worth the consequence, what else do I have on that same day or the day after, which would I rather do because I probably can’t do both. It’s so shit. It’s hard to be positive when you have to think of life in that way.
So yes, what I am going through has become a burden. And I know it probably has for those around me too, because I just not a beautiful ray of sunshine a lot of the time. I’m a little stormy rain cloud. I think this is why I’m feeling so detached, why my mind is trying to protect me from feeling this all the time. Because if I allowed these thoughts and feelings to run freely I don’t know if I’d cope. I don’t know if there would be any coming back from the place they want to take me.